Malaria has halved since 2000 (approximately 500,000 lives saved every year), with 80% of the reduction attributable to the use of insecticides. However, insecticide resistance is at a critical tipping point in public health, with some mosquito populations showing resistance to all insecticides and the strength and impact of this resistance is escalating every year. As a result, for the first time after many years, malaria cases were increased in several places after 2015, despite the far more intense use of insecticides.

Giorgos Chamilos, Researcher at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH) and Associate Professor at School of Medicine, University of Crete, is awarded a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC).

Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis, Director of Research at the Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) earned a highly competitive ERC Synergy Grant 2019.

ERC Starting Grants are awarded to early-career researchers of any nationality with two to sevenyears of experience since completion of the PhD (or equivalent degree) and a scientific track recordshowing great promise. This grant is a funding scheme that supports young talented research leaders to gain independence and build their own research team in Europe.

Dr. Panayiota Poirazi, a Research Director at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of FORTH, is the recipient of a prestigious Einstein Visiting Fellowship of the Einstein Foundation Berlin.

Computational modeling in the Poirazi lab (www.dendrites.gr) at IMBB-FORTH (www.imbb.forth.gr) shed new light on how Fast Spiking Basket Cells – a central subtype of GABAergic inhibitory neurons- integrate their incoming signals, taking advantage of their recently discovered dendritic non-linearities. The article, entitled: “Challenging the point neuron dogma: FS basket cells as 2-stage nonlinear integrators” authored by IMBB researchers Alexandra Tzilivaki, George Kastellakis and Panayiota Poirazi was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.