ATHENS – The head researcher of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the United States, Konstantinos Stratakis, will be declared an honorary doctor at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The award ceremony will be held at the premises of the University of Athens and is scheduled to take place on Thursday 26 April.

Speaking at the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, Stratakis expressed his hope that he would be able to contribute from the position of an honorary doctor to the effort to further upgrade academic medicine in Greece.

“I find myself extremely fortunate that the University of Athens has the honor of presenting me with an honorary doctorate. I represent a generation of scientists whose education began in Greece but also began their research career in that country. The University of Athens was an academic place that made me what I am, supported my first research efforts, and provided me with excellent teachers,” he stressed.

Stratakis is head of the research team at the National Institute of Health of the United States that discovered the gene associated with gigantism, a rare disorder that causes excessive growth in children. This discovery has opened up new horizons to the scientific community worldwide, and it is thought to be useful for treating a range of other diseases.