As announced today in Brussels, Nektarios Tavernarakis, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), and Professor at the Medical School of the University of Crete, was unanimously elected Vice President of the European Research Council (ERC).

The European Geoscience Union (EGU) will award Prof. Spyros Pandis the medal Vilhelm Bjerknes for 2021. Prof. Pandis is a collaborating faculty member of FORTH/ICE-HT (Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences) and professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Patras. This medal is awarded for significant disciplinary contributions in the Earth, planetary and space sciences and the ceremony will be held during the EGU Annual Assembly, 25-30 April 2021.

A new spin-off company under the name “Biomimetic” was created leveraging patented technology developed at the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL, www.iesl.forth.gr) of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (www.forth.gr). The company was founded by the Research Director Dr. Emmanuel Stratakis, together with FORTH research personnel Dr. Evangelos Skoulas, Mr. Andreas Lemonis, Mr. Antonis Papadopoulos and Mr. Alexandros Mimidis, as co-founders. The company raised 900.000€ seed funding by Big Pi Ventures (https://bigpi.vc/), one of the funds of EquiFund supported by the European Investment Fund (EIF). It is the second spin-off company of IESL that is financed by Big Pi within the last six months.

Biosensors lab of FORTH(http://biosensorslab.biology.uoc.gr/) has developed a novel molecular diagnostic method for the detection of nucleic acids at the point-of-care. The method exploits a newly designed portable 3D-printed device and a smartphone to perform isothermal amplification and real-time quantitative colorimetric detection of the target analyte. The simplicity of the methodology, rapid analysis time (<30 min) and affordable cost make it ideal for non-trained users at the point-of-need and in both the developed and resource limited countries. Clinical validation of the device with patients’ samples, for infectious diseases (COVID-19) and cancer-mutations (BRAF V600E) detection, demonstrated excellent performance compared to standard methods.

Dr Georgios Z. Papadakis, collaborating researcher of the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), had a major contribution on a study published on September 10th 2020, in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), in collaboration with scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Dr. Angelina Kouroubali, collaborating researcher of the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), has been elected as a Fellow in the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics. The International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI, https://imia-medinfo.org/wp/iahsi).)

Smoke from forest fires and biomass burning can remain in the atmosphere for weeks, traveling thousands of kilometers and affecting climate, public health and ecosystems far away from its source. The climate crisis is increasing the frequency, intensity and impacts from fires globally, which further accelerates climate change and creates crises in public health and ecosystems. The Weather Channel scientific editor Ally Hirschlag wrote an article in BBC and discussed with the affiliated researcher of ICE-HT/FORTH prof. Athanasios Nenes on the effects of wilfires, including results from his ERC project PyroTRACH hosted by the Institute and C-STACC.

The findings of the study, published yesterday in the premier international scientific journal Nature Communications, reveal a novel molecular mechanism underlying the detrimental effects of uncontrolled mitophagy on neuronal survival that contributes to the development and progression of Autosomal Dominant Optic Atrophy (ADOA).

The European project NANOPOLY (FETOPEN 2019 – 2022) that runs in the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL) of the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH) has been awarded a “Key innovator” distinction by the European “Innovation Radar” https://www.innoradar.eu/resultbykeyword/nanopoly)

Supercomputers and large Datacenters constitute basic infrastructure of strategic importance in modern society. Among the many sectors that they support, it suffices to mention the search for drugs against covid-19, and the fact that applications like gov.gr and global-scale teleconferencing, teleworking, and on-line education all run on large Datacenters. Recognizing the strategic importance of these High Performance Computing (HPC) technologies, the European Union has been funding related research, and has recently created the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU) with a 1 billion Euro budget.