Scientific award.

A team of Greek scientists from the Agricultural University of Athens won second place in a prestigious international pitch-style competition, the IDea Incubator, which rewards original inventions in medicine. The university’s Laboratory of Cell Technology presented their innovation, titled Cell-Based Bio-Electric Biosensor for the Detection of the SARS-CoV-2 S1 Spike Protein Antigen. It is a lowcost, user-friendly test that uses bioelectric recognition assay technology and can be integrated into an easy-to-use platform such as a mobile phone or tablet to offer a fast and accurate diagnosis of the coronavirus. The test can also detect other respiratory pathogens, with results provided within three minutes. “This is a success that reflects the important work being done at our university. We are showing that the Agricultural University but, more broadly, Greek universities can be competitive internationally in fields of innovation where there is a lot of competition,” said Dr Spyridon Kintzios, who was part of the winning team, along with Dr Kyriaki Hatziagapiou and Dr Sofia Mavrikou. The competition is hosted annually by the Infectious Diseases Society of America Foundation and Johnson & Johnson Innovation JLABS, with the aim of encouraging innovators and early stage ventures with original inventions, products and ideas with the potential to improve infectious diseases (ID) care to share their ideas with the ID community and judges in the business, medicine and technology industries.