Four leading scientists in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge, working with colleagues in other European institutions, have been awarded Synergy Grants from the European Research Council (ERC). This major funding will support interdisciplinary projects in innovative areas of the biological sciences.
ERC Synergy Grants foster collaboration between outstanding researchers, enabling their expertise, knowledge and resources to push the boundaries of scientific discovery. This funding is part of the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
“Many congratulations to our School researchers on securing these prestigious ERC awards. These awards are in line with the School’s commitment to foster collaborative research across disciplinary boundaries, which is central to our research strategy. They further highlight the value of continued participation in major European research programmes, enabling our researchers to work at the highest international level. I look forward to seeing the outcomes of these innovative projects.”, said Professor Jon Simons, Head of the School of Biological Sciences
The School’s awardees are:
Ewa Paluch, Professor of Anatomy in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, and Daniel St Johnston, Professor of Developmental Genetics in the Gurdon Institute and Department of Genetics for the project EpiRaP – Robustness and plasticity of epithelial architectures.
Professor Paluch and Professor St Johnston will work in partnership with Professor Sara Wickström (Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Münster) to investigate cell shape robustness and plasticity focusing on epithelial cells. Epithelial cells form the protective layers covering our organs and cavities and can display a vast variety of cellular shapes. This cross-disciplinary consortium will combine cell biology, biophysics, advanced imaging, modelling, and mechanobiology to uncover how molecular and mechanical forces specify and alter epithelial form, and how epithelial shapes and fates are connected.
The EpiRaP project will reveal how epithelial tissues are built, maintained and remodelled, and will unveil fundamental principles of the cross-talk between cell shape and fate, leading to a better understanding of what defines a cell’s identity.
Lead Principal Investigator, Professor Ewa Paluch, said:
"Writing this grant with Daniel and Sara has been extremely exciting. We come from different backgrounds but share a common interest in cell and tissue morphogenesis. Because cell shape is controlled by mechanical forces, understanding cell shape requires cross-disciplinary approaches at the interface of physics and biology. I think that as a team, we can develop a truly unique research programme bringing together epithelial cell biology (Sara), developmental biology and genetics (Daniel) and mechanobiology (Ewa), to understand epithelial cell shapes, and maybe unveil some of the very basic principles of morphogenesis in biology in general. I very much look forward to start working on this project!”
Richard Durbin, Al Kindi Professor of Genetics in the Department of Genetics and Felipe Karam Teixeira, Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics and Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, for the project GENELT - GENomes Evolve in a Landscape of TEs.
Professor Durbin and Dr Karam Texeira will work in partnership with Dr Magnus Nordborg (Gregor Mendel Institute, Vienna) to study the role of transposable elements (TEs) - pieces of DNA that can copy themselves around the genome - in the evolution of eukaryotic genomes. The project will take a multi-pronged and interdisciplinary approach and work across evolutionary scales - from experimental evolution work in the lab, to studies within populations and comparative analyses across species - to advance our understanding of how the genomes of multicellular eukaryotes and their transposable elements co-evolve.
Dr Felipe Karam Teixeira, project co-lead, said:
"This funding is unique in providing support for interdisciplinary, cross-border collaborations, which are much needed to tackle outstanding fundamental scientific questions. In our case, the grant will provide us with the opportunity to create a tight integration of computational advances in genome analysis (Richard), population genetics (Magnus), and molecular genetics mechanisms (Felipe), with the goal of delivering a paradigm shift in the evolutionary analysis of genomes. In addition to delivering scientific advancements, we believe that close collaboration between labs with diverse backgrounds will be crucial for generating tools and resources that are of broader use and that we hope will enable the work of others."
A total of 684 million euros has been awarded in this round to 66 research teams, tackling some of the most challenging scientific questions across a broad range of fields.