[2][3] Photaki was finally awarded her degree summa cum laude in 1946 and subsequently continued her postgraduate studies under Zervas, earning her PhD in 1950 with a dissertation regarding glucosamine.
[2][4] Upon returning to Greece, she initially worked at the biochemical lab of the Evangelismos Hospital before being invited by Zervas to the nascent National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) which he had helped found.
[3][4] Photaki was selected in 1962 by the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare among an international pool of candidates to conduct research by the side of Nobel laureate Vincent du Vigneaud at Cornell University.
[1][3][4][6] Despite her internationally distinguished research and sizeable recent grants from the NHRF and the United States NIH, she was not allowed to teach by the Greek military junta until 1969 and was intensively interrogated by the Cities Police Security Directorate on account of her anti-dictatorial political beliefs.
[1][4][5] Continuing and expanding the tradition of the University of Athens within the subject, starting from Zervas of Bergmann-Zervas carbobenzoxy method fame, Photaki initially worked on further refinement of suitable protecting groups for oligopeptide synthesis.
[4][5] Another research topic she developed in the early part of her career was the chemical transformation of carbohydrates and glycosylated species, such as the stereoselective conversion of D-glucosamine to L-serinaldehyde which formed the basis of her doctoral thesis.
[4][5] In 1970 Iphigenia Vourvidou-Photaki was awarded the one-off Georgios Panopoulos Prize of the Academy of Athens, presented to her for "...her research on the chemical synthesis of polypeptide hormones and investigation of enzyme active sites, which constitute an internationally notable contribution of Greek science to the modern discipline of Chemistry".