The findings of the study, published today in the premier international scientific journal Nature Neuroscience, reveal a novel molecular mechanism underlying the beneficial effects of mitophagy, the cellular process of mitochondria recycling, against the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. IMBB Researchers, Dr. Konstantinos Palikaras and Dr. Nektarios Tavernarakis (Professor at the Medical School, University of Crete, and Chairman of the Board at FORTH) in collaboration with the team of Prof. Vilhem Bohr at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health, (NIH) in Baltimore, USA, together with Dr. Evandro Fang at the University of Oslo and the Akershus University Hospital, Lørenskog, Norway, demonstrated that mitophagy is impaired inAlzheimer’s disease and that its pharmacological stimulation reverses the disease’s pathological features, including cognitive deficits.

The laboratories of Dr. Attila Losonczy (http://www.losonczylab.org/) at Columbia University in New York and Dr.Yiota Poirazi (www.dendrites.gr) at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) of FORTH, joined forces in order to explain how neurons flexibly lay down or recall memories. The study, which was recently published in the scientific journal Neuron, is the first to provide visual evidence that a particular type of neurons –the so called VIP interneurons- makes this flexibility possible.

Piscataway, New Jersey, USA, January 2019: Dimitrios I. Fotiadis, Professor, from Ioannina, Greece has been named an IEEE Fellow. He is being recognized for contributions to modelling and machine learning in biomedical data processing.

Vassilis Charmandaris, a Professor of the Department of Physics of the University of Crete and Associated Researcher of the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL) of FORTH, has been appointed a member of the Scientific Council of the National Institute of Earth Sciences and Astronomy, INSU, http://www.insu.cnrs.fr/en/node/4722) of France for the five-year period 2019-2024.

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.

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).