Dr Myrtani Pieri

Dr Myrtani Pieri holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Oxford, UK. She also holds a Science Entrepreneurship diploma from Said Business School, University of Oxford.

She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Nicosia in Human Physiology. Dr Pieri’s research work focuses on Gastrointestinal track physiology and, in particular, the role of specific ingested micromolecules in tumorigenesis. In 2016 Dr Pieri won the competitive UNIVERSITAS Foundation Fund as Principle Investigator in order to study the effect of microRNAs in Colorectal Cancer. In 2017, Dr Pieri was awarded as part of a European network of 12 partners, a grant totalling EUR 449,900 by Erasmus+, the EU programme for education, training, youth and sport with the acronym “SUSTAIN”. SUSTAIN aims to engage pupils and their families in research projects – what is known as citizen science – on bird migration and water management. The 12 partners will develop e-learning modules on ‘sustainable landscapes’.

In 2011 Dr Pieri won first prize in the international Science Communication competition “Famelab 2011”. Since then she is an active science communicator, has published popularized articles in the press and has given talks in Cyprus and abroad (TEDxNICOSIA 2012, Cyprus Open University, Athens Science Festival, HealthForward etc). She is the co-founder of the Limassol Café Scientifique as well as the Mediterranean Science Festival with over 10K people including 2.5K students in 2015. She has organized Science Communication Masterclasses for students (EuroMath Conference, Sofia, 2013, International Training Network Tel Aviv, March 2017).  In 2017, Dr Pieri was an invited Plenary speaker in the World Science Forum 2018 to talk about Science Diplomacy in the Cyprus environment. Since 2016, Dr Pieri was appointed as a member of “The Review Bioethics Committee for Biomedical Research”. Dr Pieri is also the co-founder of SciCo-Cyprus, an NGO, based in Cyprus, with the expertise in communicating scientific issues to the public via innovative and entertaining means.  SciCo is a pioneer in the relatively new and growing field of Science Communication in Cyprus. In 2016 SciCo-Cyprus launched the School-lab competition, an innovative online platform for the creation and exchange of scientific ideas by students, their professors, and researchers under the auspices of the Ministry of Education