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About Polyxeni
Polyxeni comes from Athens, a place rich in history. Seeking to satisfy her curiosity about the rest of the world, she flew abroad after finishing her studies. With an engineering background and a lot of excitement, she settled at the heart of Europe, surrounded by majestic mountains and scenic lakes. At this pivotal stage of her life, she came to the profound realization that life should be spent in the pursuit of your true interests. Then, she embarked on the mission of making people see the world through the lens of science, aiming to bring about impactful changes in their understanding.
Polyxeni is the editor of 7 Breaks:
A blood cell atlas to guide us toward transplant success
Almost everything in our bodies is made from or by proteins. Just like reading a book opens a window to the world, studying these molecules helps us understand human physiology better. With this in mind, we created the first repository housing the exact composition of 57000 proteins in blood cells and managed to advance the prediction of whether liver transplant recipients may reject their graft.
Mar 8, 2023 | 3.5 min readWhy Women Are Predisposed to Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease leads to progressive dementia, profound disability and impaired quality of life. Globally, there are more than 50 million cases, over two thirds of which are women. The cause behind this gender difference had remained unclear for decades, until we discovered that a specific hormone, which dramatically increases in women after menopause, triggers this phenomenon.
Jun 17, 2022 | 4 min readGenetics agrees: Africa is thriving in diversity
Populations in African countries have much more genetic variation than previously thought. We sequenced the DNA of 400 individuals and showed how people moved and interacted both with each other and with their environment in the past. Our findings, including both old and newly discovered gene variants, have deep implications for the future of genetics in medicine.
Apr 27, 2022 | 3 min readHow glaciers can help algae bloom under sea ice
While invisible to the bare eye, microscopic algae are the base of marine food webs, eventually feeding large animals, such as fish and whales. These algae need sunlight and nutrients to grow. But only little light penetrates sea ice during the Arctic winter. In a high-Arctic fjord, we found a unique system where algae thrive under sea ice, fueled by meltwater from below a glacier.
Mar 9, 2022 | 3 min readMath reveals the evolution of composition in paintings
Can we distinguish between Baroque period paintings and Impressionist paintings by only looking at the horizon’s position? We mathematically analyzed the composition of nearly 15,000 landscape paintings from a dataset of Western art history covering over 500 years. We then revealed that the particular composition most frequently appearing in paintings has changed systematically over time.
Dec 29, 2021 | 3.5 min readHow roots help us fight against hard soils
Compacted, hard soil is a major threat to modern farming as it blocks plant roots growth and restricts water and nutrient acquisition. Engineered crop roots with a reduced ability to sense hard soils could provide a new way to create compaction resistant cereal varieties.
Oct 8, 2021 | 3 min read