ERC Starting Grants
Marta Artal Sanz, Thomas Brox and Winfried Römer have been selected for one of the most prestigious European grants for young researchers: The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded them a total of 5.8 million euros in ERC Starting Grants for new projects.
Dr. Marta Artal Sanz from the Institute of Biology III, Department of Bioinformatics and Molecular Genetics of Prof. Dr. Ralf Baumeister, member of the Cluster of Excellence BIOSS, will receive a 1.42 million euro ERC Starting Grant to conduct research on mitochondrial dysfunctions. The biologist is studying the molecular and environmental causes of aging in the roundworm C. elegans. The main focus of her research is the mitochondria, whose dysfunction can lead to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and cancer. The goal of her research is to understand the signaling processes between mitochondria and other cell components that govern aging processes.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Brox, Department of Computer Science, Chair in Pattern Recognition and Image Processing, member of the Cluster of Excellence BIOSS, will receive an ERC Starting Grant worth a total of 1.46 million euros to develop a learning process enabling computers to understand images automatically. Teaching a computer to describe what can be seen in a picture is a difficult task. The reason for this lies in the great variation of image data collected by cameras. When viewed from different perspectives and in different lighting, the same dog can lead to different raw data. Humans learn that all of this data has the same meaning. The goal is thus to develop a similar learning process for the computer based on video analysis. This step toward an automatic understanding of images is crucial for computers designed to make decisions on the basis of images, such as computers in cars that automatically pull on the brakes as soon as a child runs out into the street.
Junior Professor Dr. Winfried Römer from the Cluster of Excellence BIOSS will receive an ERC Starting Grant worth 1.44 million euros for his research project on the cellular intake of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that is dangerous for humans. The human pathogen is a common hospital germ in Germany with multiple resistance to antibiotics and can cause cystic fibrosis, infections of the urinary tract, intestinal diseases, or infections in burns, among other things. The goal of the researchers is to decipher the signaling processes and transportation paths of this bacterium and develop new therapies to counter the infections caused by it.
Dr. Artal-Sanz Prof. Brox Jun. Prof. Römer