A 36-year old Greek was among 105 scientists and professionals honoured by the President of the United States, Barack Obama in the annual ‘Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers’. In a 2-day ceremony held on Wednesday and Thursday, Panagiotis Roussos, who is an assistant professor in Genetics and Genomic sciences at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, received an award for his research in the fields of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. More specifically, he and his team are trying to understand the neurobiological factors that contribute to the appearance of the diseases. Roussos is originally from the island of Santorini and studied medicine at the University of Crete, where he also completed his doctorate. He then moved to New York where he pursued his specialty in psychiatry at Mount Sinai Hospital. ‘We are trying to discover new therapies to modernise the old methods used in the 1950s and 60s’, he told newspaper ‘Ethnos’, regarding his research. Roussos, who has been an expat for 8 years, said the award was unexpected, adding that it gave him great pleasure. He admits that he misses Greece, but adds that he is not ready to return as he is at the beginning of his career. ‘There are objective problems in Greece regarding research. There is no funding for research in Greece’, he says. Roussos urges young Greek scientists to take the plunge and try their luck overseas. ‘It is a lifetime experience’, he says.