The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the ERC Synergy Grants. Three researchers involved in the successful applications are employed at TU Delft. The ERC Synergy Grant is the most prestigious European grant that supports up to four principal researchers in conducting groundbreaking research together.
The aim is to tackle complex scientific questions that can only be answered through collaboration between complementary experts. The grant promotes interdisciplinary research and innovative ideas with high risk and high impact. Teams can receive up to ¤10 million for a maximum duration of six years.
The ERC Synergy Grant winners from TU Delft are:
Cees Dekker, Bionanoscience, Applied Sciences (BN/AS)
GeneMotors - Genome control by DNA-looping motors: from folding to function
Corresponding PI: Cees Dekker, Delft University of Technology, NL
PI 2: Prof. Wendy Bickmore, University of Edinburgh, UK
PI 3: Prof. Leonid Mirny, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA & Institut Curie, France
PI4: Prof. Benjamin Rowland, Netherlands Cancer Institute and Affiliate Professor TU Delft.
Our genome is not merely an information code but also a physical object: a long polymer of DNA with a dynamic three-dimensional organisation that is crucial for its function. Recently, members of the GeneMotors team and others discovered that SMC protein complexes are a novel class of remarkable molecular motors that extrude loops of DNA. While insights into how this motor activity shapes chromosomes are revolutionising our understanding of chromosome structure, it is becoming clear that SMC motors are also key to controlling the expression of genetic information - a core function of cells.
GeneMotors seeks to tackle the grand challenge of understanding how the tiny SMC motors orchestrate functions of a huge genome. Understanding how SMC motors work and regulate biological functions addresses long-standing puzzles in genetics such as how invading viral genes are silenced or how regulatory information in the non-coding, so-called ’dark matter’, 98% of the genome reaches out to genes to control their expression.
To settle this, the researchers aim to 1) unravel the basic molecular motor mechanism of the DNA-looping SMCs and their collective behaviour, 2) disentangle the -control knobsthat regulate their use in cellular processes, and 3) resolve how DNA looping by SMCs promotes gene regulation through long-distance communication along the genome.
This ambitious program transcends the boundaries of any single discipline. The team unites cutting-edge cell biology with single-molecule biophysics and modelling from the atomic to chromosome level. This unique combination of expertise across scales enables to resolve questions about how detailed molecular mechanisms have functional consequences for the complexity of the mammalian genome - achieving together what they cannot do alone. Showing how these SMC motors regulate the huge genome will impact fields from molecular motors to genetics and developmental biology, sparking advances that are likely to reshape our understanding of human development and disease.
Cees Dekker Lab
Benjamin Rowland (NKI, TU Delft)
Leonid A. Mirny (MIT)
Wendy Bickmore (University of Edinburgh)
Pier Siebesma, Civil Engineering & Geosiences (CEG)
TurPhyCloud - The role of Turbulence in the Physics of Clouds
Corresponding PI: Eberhard Bodenschatz, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation (MPIDS), Gottingen (D)
PI 2: A. P. Siebesma, Delft University of Technology (NL)
PI 3: Bernhard Mehlig, University of Goteborg (S)
PI 4: Dr. Fabian Hoffmann, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen (D)
Earth-s dominant cloud type per area covered is Stratocumulus. These low-level, shallow, and horizontally spread-out clouds cover one-fifth of the Earth-s surface. Changes in cloud cover may amplify rather than mitigate global warming but the magnitude of this is highly uncertain. One of the greatest challenges in climate science is to predict how clouds in general, and stratocumuli in particular, will change in a warming world. TurPhyCloud brings together 4 teams from Experimental and Theoretical Physics and Meteorology to address the full range of processes governing the formation of these clouds across scales, with particular attention to the role of turbulence.
The team will (i) deliver high resolution in-situ measurements with unprecedented spatial resolution, from two field campaigns at Utö Atmospheric and Marine Research Station in the Baltic Sea capturing the full complexity of processes in midlatitude stratocumulus from submicrons to kilometres, (ii) derive statistical models for the turbulent processes of the cloud microphysics, not resolved by large-eddy simulations in a way that exceeds current parameterizations, in accuracy and resolution, (iii) will use their superdroplet method to incorporate the statistical models and use this to (iv) develop a new Microphysics Informed Large-Eddy-Simulation (MiLES) model, guided and verified by the results from the campaigns.
The tested and verified MiLES will be embedded in weather and climate models. As a result, TurPhyCloud by a combination of unique measurements with realistic simulations of the MiLES model, will develop major advances in our understanding of how cloud-microphysical processes in stratocumulus interact with radiation and turbulence. TurPhyCloud will reduce uncertainties in climate projections and weather predictions through breakthroughs in measuring, modelling, and understanding stratocumulus dynamics.
Research page
Staff page TU Delft
Leo de Vreede, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS)
DISRUPT - Digital RF Power - Time-Domain-RF-Power Signal Generation
Corresponding PI: Prof. Leo C.N. de Vreede, Delft University of Technology (TUD)
PI 2: Prof. Rüdiger Quay, Fraunhofer Institute of Applied Solid-State Physics (IAF) & Institute for Reliability and MicroIntegration (IZM)
PI 3: Prof. Robert Bogdan Staszewski, University College Dublin (UCD)
PI 4: Prof. Anding Zhu, University College Dublin (UCD)
Wireless communication has made fantastic progress. However, the biggest concern is the exponential increase in energy consumption of next-generation 5G/6G networks that use "massive Multi-Input/Multi-Output (mMIMO)" techniques. Without a breakthrough, these networks are expected to consume a significant portion of global electricity production by 2030. The main culprits are the analog-oriented radio frequency (RF) transmitters (TX), which consume a significant amount of energy (even with minimal data traffic) to meet the high-quality requirements of the transmission signal.
DISRUPT aims to realize a revolutionary all-digital signal generation in the time domain using new materials, transistors, and design techniques. This approach will, for the first time, deliver the required RF transmission powers using only digital techniques and will be the first to benefit from the theoretical 3000x better RF switching performance of III-Nitride semiconductors compared to silicon.
DISRUPT’s breakthroughs will be: 1) New material and transistor concepts for digital RF power generation. 2) A smart CMOS controller in combination with a revolutionary (gate-)segmented III-N technology, with which thousands of small III-N transistors can be individually controlled with picosecond accuracy. 3) This configuration enables broadband coherent signal generation with perfect waveforms. 4) This concept supports new distributed techniques that greatly improve the efficiency of the transmitter. 5) The fully digital nature of the introduced solution enables seamless integration of the: 6) transmitter signal processing, clock generation, error detection, and artificial intelligence-based error correction. This allows unprecedented system efficiency for transmitters in wireless networks to be achieved.
If DISRUPT is successful, the energy consumption of wireless networks will be reduced by 50% compared to following current technological development paths.
Staff page TU Delft
Department of Microelectronics
Leo de Vreede
About the ERC
The European Research Council (ERC) awards prestigious research grants to outstanding scientists in all disciplines. ERC Grants stimulate groundbreaking, fundamental research driven by curiosity. There are five main types: Starting, Consolidator and Advanced Grants for individual researchers at different stages of their careers, Synergy Grants for collaborative teams, and Proof of Concept Grants to valorise research results. Selection is based solely on scientific excellence. ERC Grants offer researchers the freedom to develop innovative ideas and have a major impact on European science, innovation and knowledge development.
Read the and more information about ERC Synergy Grant.