Researchers at the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH) received the First Award in the "Gesture Recognition Challenge" contest with their work titled "Giving a hand to Kinect"

George A. Garinis, Associate Professor of Genetics at the department of Biology, University of Crete and an affiliated Researcher at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) of FORTH- Hellas has been awarded today the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator award for his research achievements on delineating the functional role of Nucleotide Excision Repair factors in development and disease

John Pendry, David Smith and Costas Soukoulis (IESL-FORTH) won the 2013 McGroddy Prize for New Materials, awarded by the American Physical Society

The Acropolis Museum and the Institute of Electronic Structure and Lasers (IESL) of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) have been awarded the biennial Keck Award by the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) for their common project regarding “Laser rejuvenation of Caryatids opens to the public at the Acropolis Museum: A link between ancient and modern Greece”. The award was given jointly to the team of the Acropolis Museum / the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas and for their contribution “towards the promotion of public understanding and appreciation of the accomplishments of the conservation profession”. The ceremony took place on Friday 14th of September 2012, at the closing session of the biennial IIC congress in Vienna, which attracted 350 delegates.

Panayiota Poirazi, a researcher in the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) at the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), was recently awarded the prestigious Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC) for her proposal entitled "Dissecting the role of dendrites in memory".

The paper entitled "An image analysis framework for the early assessment of hypertensive retinopathy signs", presented by Dr. Vangelis Sakkalis, researcher at the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) of the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on e-Health and Bioengineering 2011 (EHB 2011, Iasi, Romania, 24-26 November 2011).

In the December issue of Optics and Photonics News, the Optical Society of America highlighted exciting and significant research findings that characterized the year 2011 in Optics and Photonics. Among these annual highlights (see video), the work of the FORTH-IESL, research group of Dr Stavros Pissadakis, focused on the development of Magnetofluidically Tunable Microstructured Optical Fiber Grating Devices was included.

Nursing and Medical Applications (under the product name ICS-M), which are part of the software suite "Integrated Care Solutions" developed by the Institute of Computer Science of the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), have been certified with the Seal of Quality Electronic Health Record (EHR) Level 2 (EuroRec EHR Quality Seal Level 2) by the European Institute for Health Records EuroRec (http://www.eurorec.org/).

Prof. Nikos Pelekanos, Collaborating Faculty Member in IESL-FORTH, is one of the recipients of "Solar-Innovation 2010" for his proposal "III-V nanowires for next generation photovoltaics". The prize is awarded by the French Atomic Energy Commission (Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique), after an Open Call and selection among dozens of proposals, and includes funding and technical support to carry out the proposed research for three years.

This year's national L'Oreal - UNESCO Fellowship for Women in Science was awarded to Katerina Andreopoulou.