EU Funds Awarded to Five University of Helsinki Researchers

Five researchers working at the University of Helsinki have been awarded esteemed Advanced Grants by the European Research Council. This €2.5-million grant scheme is targeted at leading principal investigators who wish to pursue groundbreaking projects with the potential for extremely high-level impact.

Language change illustrates the movement of ancient communities

Professor 's (Faculty of Humanities) project develops new methods for tracing prehistoric migration and cultural contacts by analysing language change. Comparing changes at different levels of language, such as lexicon, phonology, morphology and syntax, makes it possible to reconstruct a more accurate map of the movement and interaction of ancient communities.

Khanina's group investigates Uralic languages, which comprise seven to nine branches and roughly 50 modern languages, all of which originate in the same ancestor language. The researchers will examine how languages develop and how societal conditions affect this development.

The approach to be developed in the project can be applied to any sufficiently documented language family. The goal is to expand the opportunities of linguistics in the study of pre- and early history.

What makes trees woody

In his project, Academy Research Fellow (Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences) investigates the molecular mechanisms that enable trees to produce excess amounts of wood.

Plants produce wood cells in order to transport water and nutrients from their roots to their shoots. Woody plants generate far more wood than herbaceous plants because additional wood is needed to support the plant and keep it upright. The goal of the ERC project is to understand how trees are able to produce this extra wood.

A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying wood formation will help develop and breed plants with stronger trunks and branches that can better withstand the weight of heavy crop yields. In the long term, the findings may be applied to the breeding of fruit trees and berry-producing shrubs, among other crops.

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Lymphatic vessels as inflammation regulators

Inflammation protects the body, but if prolonged, it can damage tissues and, for example, lead to autoimmune diseases. Professor (Faculty of Medicine) project investigates lymphatic vessels, which regulate inflammation more actively than previously thought.

The research group studies whether a memory trace remains in lymphatic vessels from prior inflammations, guiding subsequent immune responses. Unlocking this system could make it possible to exploit it in the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases.

How do tiny particles form in the atmosphere?

Understanding the small aerosol particles suspended in the atmosphere is essential for addressing and mitigating two of the defining environmental challenges of our time: climate change and air pollution. The EXACT project, led by Professor (Faculty of Science), investigates how the smallest nanoscale particles form in the atmosphere.

The project examines whether all particles behave in the same way - which would make predicting future atmospheric conditions relatively straightforward - or whether their history and prior conditions play a more significant role, which would make forecasting the environments we will live in considerably harder.

Hunting for quark matter in neutron star cores

Neutron stars are the densest objects in the present-day universe. In the extreme conditions of their cores, even the particles found in atomic nuclei, protons and neutrons, are believed to dissolve into quarks. As far as is known, such quark matter is not found anywhere else.

Professor Faculty of Science) project combines complex quantum-field-theoretical calculations with neutron star observations to either confirm or disprove the occurrence of this new state of matter in neutron star cores.

The project aims to advance understanding of the fundamental structure of matter and the laws of nature under extreme conditions.

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