Three KI researchers are awarded the 2022 ERC StG

The European Research Council Starting Grant (ERC StG) aims at supporting up-and-coming research leaders, who are building their research teams and are on their way to establish their own line of research. In all, the European Research Council will support 408 early-career researchers with this prestigious grant. The researchers included in the programme are awarded up to EUR 1.5 million over a five-year period. In total, the ERC in this year’s call will invest EUR 636 million in young research leaders around the world.

Here are the awarded projects at KI:

Multiscale imaging of cardiovascular pressure gradients

Principal investigator: David Marlevi at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery.

Project title: Multiscale imaging of cardiovascular pressure gradients – a paradigm shift in hemodynamic risk prediction (MultiPRESS)

Summary: Estimating regional changes in blood pressure is critical for diagnosis, treatment planning, and risk prediction for many cardiovascular diseases. Still, for many disease types, non-invasive assessment is obstructed by inherent method limitations, leaving many instances where regional blood pressure changes remains unexplored. 

The MultiPRESS main objective is to develop a novel imaging paradigm for non-invasive assessment of cardiovascular pressure changes, overcoming critical limitations of existing techniques through a unique multiscale approach. Through deep integration of advanced magnetic resonance imaging (4D Flow MRI), super-resolution networks, and physics-informed image processing, MultiPRESS will enable accurate extraction of blood pressure changes through previously inaccessible domains, tackling urgent clinical challenges across the heart, aorta, and brain. 

Self-repairing injured tissues in mammals

Principal investigator: Enric Llorens at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology.

Project title: Rewiring gene regulatory circuits to enhance central nervous system repair (EnhanceRegen)

Summary: Regenerative species can self-repair their injured tissues by reactivating developmental gene expression programs with high spatiotemporal precision. Unfortunately, the central nervous system (CNS) of mammals has lost this ability. This ERC project aims to rewire gene expression in CNS-resident mammalian cells using synthetic regulatory DNA to endow them with regenerative capacity.

New molecular technology for cellular circuits

Principal investigator: Onur Dagliyan at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics.

Project title: Engineered Control of Cellular Circuits

Summary: Protein signaling in cells is precisely coordinated in space and time. Like many other cell types, individual neurons within neuronal circuits use genetically encoded molecular networks to make complex decisions. This ERC research project aims to build new molecular technologies that enable investigation of spatiotemporal dynamics of proteins in neuronal circuits.