Dr. Panayiota Poirazi, a Research Director at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of FORTH, is the recipient of the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel International Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The official award ceremony will take place in Bamberg, Germany 28-31 March 2019.

Researchers from FORTH/ICE-HT (Dr. John Parthenios, Principal Application Scientist and Prof. Konstantinos Papagelis, Collaborating Faculty member) in collaboration with BIC Violex S. A. (subsidiary of BIC, www.bicworld.com) developed a novel functional PTFE-based nanocomposite coating, incorporating graphene nanoplatelets.

Dr. Yuliana Boycheva has earned a European Research Council Consolidator Grant (H2020-ERC-COG-2018) with the project RICONTRANS: Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean (16th-early 20th).

Papoutsi Athanasia, a Postdoctoral researcher in the Computational Biology Lab (Poirazi Lab), Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) at the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), was recently awarded the prestigious NARSAD Young Investigator Award.

George A. Garinis, Professor of Genetics at the department of Biology, the University of Crete will coordinate two large international research networks on ageing and DNA damage at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) at the Foundation of Research and Technology (FORTH).

Spiros H. Anastasiadis, Professor of the Department of Chemistry of the University of Crete and Director of the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL) of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), has been elected the Mary Shepard B. Upson Visiting Professor in Engineering at Cornell University for the 2018-2019 Academic Year. Prof. Anastasiadis was elected by the School of Engineering after being nominated by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and approved by the Board of Trustees of the University.

A pioneering cross-disciplinary scientific synergy has been founded in Crete. Twelve Greek academic and research institutions under the coordination of the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH) have joined forces challenging the exploration of new horizons in the Economy of Knowledge; light is the key instrument in this initiative.

An important leap in our understanding of the star formation process was achieved by scientists at the University of Crete and the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser at the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas. Using archival data from ESA’s Herschel mission, Aris Tritsis and Kostas Tassis have discovered, for the first time, an interstellar cloud – a nursery of stars – the magnetic field of which vibrates! Decrypting the «song» in this vibration, they managed to reveal the true 3D structure of the cloud, paving the way to solving one of the biggest mysteries in Astrophysics: what determines the number and kind of stars and planets that are formed in our Galaxy?

A new Institute, the only in Greece dedicated exclusively to Astrophysics, will soon join the big family of the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), becoming its 7th Institute, after a legislation voted in the Greek Parliament on February 26th 2018.

Assistant Professor Xenofontas Dimitropoulos, Affiliated Researcher at ICS-FORTH, ERC Starting Grant holder, was awarded an ERC Proof of Concept grant during the last round of the application process for the PHILOS project.