The co-organiser of the Aristotle Medical Forum 2024, in Thessaloniki, Prof Panagiotis Bamidis, President of the Hellenic Society of Biomedical Technology and head of the Medical Physics and Digital Innovation Lab of the School of Medicine of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, played an important role in disseminating and boosting interest on modern approaches for cancer tumour diagnostics and treatments, inviting the Hadron Therapy Symposium in the same premises. This presented an opportunity for networking, blending an international community of experts with clinical practitioners of the region, active in the fight against cancer. It also created a forum to discuss technical advances and for ideas to mature; among them, a proposal for a compact linear accelerator for radioisotope production, presented by Maurizio Vretenar, the project leader of the CERN NIMMS Next Ion Medical Machine Study group. Such ideas had been the inspiration of the IFIGENEIA proposal “Innovative Facility for Isotope GENeration with Efficient Ion Accelerator” submitted under the coordination of AUTH Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in cooperation with CERN experts and collaborators from four countries.
As a follow-up, and in his capacity as the President of the Hellenic Society of Biomedical Technology, Prof Bamidis invited Foka for updates, as a keynote speaker of the combined conferences:
- 11th Panhellenic Conference of the Hellenic Society of Biomedical Technology (ELEVIT)
- 2nd Panhellenic Conference of Natural Sciences in Health: Innovations and Perspectives
This event took place in Athens in May 2025, gathering a large community with the support of major sponsors, contributing to advanced technologies. Under the umbrella of well-established scientists and welcomed by political personalities, enthusiastic young researchers presented interesting, innovative works.
YF was in the fortunate position to announce that the IFIGENEIA project was funded and started in March 2025. She briefly presented the main scientific ideas of the project but also the potential for industry. She put into perspective the importance of radio-isotopes both for imaging but also for targeted therapies. She also highlighted the benefits of modern technologies and their impact for better patient outcomes. She then presented details of the consortium itself and its plans, highlighting its mentoring scheme and its importance for capacity building.
The presentation was followed by vivid discussions with interesting questions, followed by further exchanges during the coffee breaks and social events. Indeed, the event presented an opportunity for establishing important contacts and exchanging ideas and information that have the potential to boost advances in emerging fields.
