Greek academic teams make their mark
Greek academic institutes are basking in glory after receiving a series of international distinctions this month.
The most impressive was that of the iGEM Thessaloniki student group from Aristotle University which bagged gold at the 2019 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition – a worldwide synthetic biology competition in Boston.
The competition was attended by 5,000 contestants from research teams at leading universities (MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and others) from 40 countries.
The Greek group designed and developed POSEIDON (Programmable Orthogonal Systems Engineered Into DNA Oligo Networks), the first DNA computer capable of qualitatively and quantitatively identifying interactions between DNA and proteins.
The team focused on proteins associated with metastatic melanoma cancer.
Meanwhile, a team from the Athens Law School won fourth place earlier in the month at Foreign Direct Investment International Arbitration Moot 2019 (FDI Moot 2019).
The contest, which was held at the University of Miami from November 7 to 10, saw the participation of 120 universities from around the world, including Harvard, New York University, University College London, King’s College London and others.
The competition concern the arbitration process of international investment disputes.