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.

This year, the FORTH Award for Excellence in Academic Teaching "Vassilis XANTHOPOULOS - Stephanos PNEVMATIKOS" will be presented by H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic, Ms. Katerina Sakellaropoulou to Mr. Eleftherios Zouros, Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Biology, University of Crete.

Α big European research project on developing new software tools for the accurate prognosis and precise treatment of prostate cancer, will be coordinated by Prof. Manolis Tsiknakis, Affiliated Professor at the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) of FORTH.

As announced today in Brussels, 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 unanimously elected Vice President of the European Research Council (ERC).

The European Geoscience Union (EGU) will award Prof. Spyros Pandis the medal Vilhelm Bjerknes for 2021. Prof. Pandis is a collaborating faculty member of FORTH/ICE-HT (Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences) and professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Patras. This medal is awarded for significant disciplinary contributions in the Earth, planetary and space sciences and the ceremony will be held during the EGU Annual Assembly, 25-30 April 2021.

The unprecedented heavy rainfall on 18-19 September 2020 over the Greek territory as caused by the Mediterranean Cyclone "Ianos", resulted in the occurrence of extensive flooding in rural and urban areas in the wider region of Thessaly.

On Friday, 18th September, the newly elected Rector and Vice Rectors of the University of Crete (UoC) paid a formal visit to FORTH. The Rector Giorgos Kontakis, professor at the Medical School, escorted by the Vice-Rectors, Giorgos Kosioris, Dimitris Mylonakis, Michalis Pavlidis and Konstantinos Spanoudakis, met with the President of FORTH Prof. Nektarios Tavernarakis, and members of the Board of Directors.

A new spin-off company under the name “Biomimetic” was created leveraging patented technology developed at the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL, www.iesl.forth.gr) of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (www.forth.gr). The company was founded by the Research Director Dr. Emmanuel Stratakis, together with FORTH research personnel Dr. Evangelos Skoulas, Mr. Andreas Lemonis, Mr. Antonis Papadopoulos and Mr. Alexandros Mimidis, as co-founders. The company raised 900.000€ seed funding by Big Pi Ventures (https://bigpi.vc/), one of the funds of EquiFund supported by the European Investment Fund (EIF). It is the second spin-off company of IESL that is financed by Big Pi within the last six months.

Biosensors lab of FORTH(http://biosensorslab.biology.uoc.gr/) has developed a novel molecular diagnostic method for the detection of nucleic acids at the point-of-care. The method exploits a newly designed portable 3D-printed device and a smartphone to perform isothermal amplification and real-time quantitative colorimetric detection of the target analyte. The simplicity of the methodology, rapid analysis time (<30 min) and affordable cost make it ideal for non-trained users at the point-of-need and in both the developed and resource limited countries. Clinical validation of the device with patients’ samples, for infectious diseases (COVID-19) and cancer-mutations (BRAF V600E) detection, demonstrated excellent performance compared to standard methods.