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.

The Department of Biomedical Research of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology – Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH-IMBB-BR) participates in the SMARTool project funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program with approximately € 5 M. The project started on January 2016 and is currently on month 37, from a total duration of 42 months.

Nektarios Tavernarakis, Research Director at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) of the Foundation of Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH), and Professor at the Medical School of the University of Crete was elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

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.

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).

The Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), with its Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), participates in an international scientific experiment with the aim of studying how space flight influences organismal physiology as well as muscle mass and function.

A recent elegant study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS) by Dr Jonathan Jones (Prof. at the University of East Anglia, UK), Dr. Panagiotis Sarris (IMBB-FORTH and elected Prof. at the University of Crete) and Dr. Panagiotis Moschou (IMBB-FORTH and Prof. at the University of Crete) sheds light on the defensive mechanisms of plants.