Nektarios Tavernarakis, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH) and Professor at the Medical School of the University of Crete, was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This significant distinction comes as recognition of the scientific quality and the highly competitive research conducted at FORTH and the University of Crete. According to the Constitution of the prestigious AAAS, Fellowship is bestowed to scientists who have scientifically or socially distinguished themselves by efforts on behalf of the advancement of science, or its applications. Nominations for AAAS Fellows are evaluated for election by the Council of the Association. Nektarios Tavernarakis was honored for his distinguished contributions to the fields of ageing, neuroscience, mitochondrial biology, cell death and neurodegeneration.

Prof. Athanasios Nenes, Affiliated Scientist of FORTH/ICE-HT, Coordinating Member of the Center for the Study of Air Quality and Climate Change (C-STACC) and Professor at the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland was elected by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fellows Committee as a member of the 2020 class of AGU Fellows.

Nektarios Tavernarakis, a Research Director at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) of FORTH-Hellas, and a Professor-elect at the Medical School of the University of Crete was awarded today the Grant Academic Excellence Prize of the Empeirikeion Foundation

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

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.