In the latest allocation of European funding for cutting-edge research, ETH Zurich scientists have performed exceptionally well. Here, we present the projects that will receive several million euros in funding.
The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the recipients of its prestigious Consolidator Grants. The ERC Consolidator Grants support early-career researchers who have already established their reputation, have experience in leading a research team and are now looking to build on their achievements. The grants fund ambitious, groundbreaking projects with the potential to make a real impact.
Four of the ERC Consolidator Grants are now going to researchers at ETH Zurich, working in the fields of cancer research, biosystems, chemistry and plant sciences. Each project will receive 2 to 2.5 million euros in funding.
After a multi-year interruption, researchers at Swiss universities can once again regularly apply for and lead ERC research projects. "The ERC awards its grants based on scientific excellence, and it is gratifying to see ETH Zurich researchers excel under these criteria," says Annette Oxenius, Vice President for Research at ETH Zurich.
For this year's round of Consolidator Grants, 17 ETH researchers submitted projects to the ERC. With four successful applications, ETH Zurich achieved a success rate of 24 percent, significantly higher than that of other universities.
The four award-winning projects:
Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Most of these deaths are due to the spread of cancer (metastasis). Andreas Moor is a professor in the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel. He investigates how cancer cells communicate and interact with healthy cells in their environment. In his ERC project, he will study the life cycle of metastatic colorectal cancer cells and their interaction with healthy body tissue, including at the genetic level. The project aims to decipher the cellular networks that cause metastases to form and settle in the body. The findings will ultimately be used to develop new therapies that interrupt communication between cancer and host cells. These therapies aim to prevent or at least limit the formation of metastases in colorectal cancer.
The CRISPR-Cas method can be used to systematically switch off or modify the genes of a cell. The technology is so powerful and important that it has become indispensable in basic molecular biology research. Randall Platt is a professor in the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel. In his ERC project, he aims to develop a completely new technology inspired by CRISPR that switches off or influences proteins rather than genes. By using high-throughput screening to selectively switch proteins on or off, or by bringing two proteins together to interact, he will obtain information about protein functions. The new method is set to become an important pillar of biological and biomedical research and contribute to the development of new therapies against cancer, for example.
Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM) is a new, super-high-resolution light microscopy technique. It can visualise structures smaller than half the wavelength of the light used. Cell biologists use SIM to identify the finest structures of the cell nucleus and other cell components in living cells. The method uses lasers to generate light patterns that interfere with each other and are projected onto the specimen. The image information is reconstructed using software calculations. However, today's SIM microscopes are large and expensive. Chih-Jen Shih is a professor of chemical engineering and an expert in electroluminescent materials and their applications, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In his ERC project, he aims to develop SIM microscopes that generate the complex light patterns on a chip using OLEDs instead of lasers. This will make the microscopes not only significantly smaller but also more affordable, making them suitable for long-term measurements of cells.
Constantin Zohner is a scientist in the Department of Environmental Systems Science. He investigates how plants interact with their environment - particularly how they respond to climate change. In his ERC project, he analyses the influence of winter temperatures on the timing of leaf emergence in over 200 tree species worldwide. For trees to produce leaves in spring, they need sufficient winter chilling. The results will improve predictions of leaf emergence under future climate scenarios and be incorporated into global vegetation and climate models. This will allow statements to be made about the impact of climate change on forest productivity and global carbon flux. All of this will help develop strategies to counteract biodiversity loss under rapidly changing climatic conditions.
