Six leading researchers in the School of Biological Sciences, working with teams of colleagues from other institutions, have been awarded Synergy grants from the European Research Council (ERC). These major awards will enable ambitious, interdisciplinary projects across plant biology, cancer and neurobiology.
ERC Synergy grants are designed to support teams of researchers addressing ambitious research problems, combining diverse skills, knowledge and resources. The scheme is part of the European Union’s research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe.
“Congratulations to all teams on this fantastic achievement! Securing these prestigious and competitive grants highlights the outstanding research of the scientists involved and we are looking forward to seeing these innovative ideas come to life!" - Rebecca Lawson, Acting Deputy Head of the School of Biological Sciences for Research Strategy
A total of €571 million in funding has been awarded in this round to teams of researchers across Europe and beyond, including four projects in the School of Biological Sciences.
The School’s awardees are:
- Professor Ben Simons, Director of the Gurdon Institute and Herchel Smith Professor of Physics and Dr Maria Alcolea, Group Leader at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute for the project ClonEScape.
Ben and Maria will be working in partnership with Dr Bon-Kyoung Koo (Director of the IBS Centre for Genome Engineering, Korea) and Dr Daniel Stanger (TU Dresden, Germany) to study how developmental and regenerative mechanisms are repurposed during the earliest stages of epithelial cancers.
- Professor Henrik Jönsson, Professor of Computational Morphodynamics and Director of the Sainsbury Laboratory for the project RESYDE.
Henrik will be working in partnership with Professor Kerstin Kaufmann (Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Germany), Associate Professor Marcus Heisler (University of Sidney, Australia), Professor Stephan Wenkel (Umeå University, Sweden). Read more about the RESYDE project
- Dr Gregory Jefferis, Department of Zoology and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Professor Albert Cardona, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, for the project CircuitEvolution.
Greg and Albert will be working in partnership with Dr Vanessa Ruta (Rockefeller University, USA) and Dr Marta Sales-Pardo (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain).
- Dr Alexander Jones, Group Leader in the Sainsbury Laboratory for the project STARMORPH.
Alexander will be working with Professor Stéphanie Robert (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden), Dr Ondřej Novák (Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic) and Professor Jürgen Kleine-Vehn (University of Freiburg, Germany). Read more about the STARMORPH project