Four scientists in Portugal receive funding from the European Research Council

Four scientists working in Portugal are among the 312 top scientists selected in the first Call Consolidator Grants from the European Research Council (ERC). Rui Costa (Champalimaud Foundation – FC), Lars Jansen (Gulbenkian Institute of Science – IGC), Edgar Gomes (Institute of Molecular Medicine – IMM), and Sofia Aboim (Institute of Social Sciences – ICS) will receive a total of €7 million to consolidate their research teams and develop their ideas over a five-year period.

Lars Jansen, a Dutch scientist who has been with the IGC for five years, will reinforce the work already done by his team to better understand how non-coded information in DNA is faithfully transmitted from the mother cell to the daughter cells during the process of cell division. In cells with a nucleus, DNA is wrapped around proteins called histones. It is known that small chemical changes in histones regulate gene activation. For this project, Lars will investigate whether these changes are hereditary and how this process relates to gene activation in cancer and stem cells, for example.

Edgar Gomes' project aims to understand how the position of the nucleus in muscle fiber cells affects cell function and is implicated in muscle diseases. In fully developed muscle cells, the nucleus is located at the periphery of the cell, whereas during development and regeneration, as well as in various pathologies, the nucleus occupies a central position in the cell. Edgar's team at IMM has already shown that the position of the nucleus affects muscle cell function; it remains to be shown why, through work that allows the migration and formation of these cells to be tracked.

Rui Costa, a neuroscientist at the Champalimaud Foundation, is interested in the phenomenon of chunking, through which the brain connects small modules of cells or sequences of brain activity to organize memories and coordinate complex actions. It is known that basal ganglia cells are involved in chunking, but little is yet known at the cellular level about how neural circuits are connected in space and time, allowing actions to begin and unfold. Rui Costa's project aims to unravel this process using some of the most advanced neuroscience techniques.

One of the grants in the field of social sciences went to Sofia Aboim, who will study the lives of transgender people, as well as the institutional and legal framework that surrounds them, in five European countries: Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Interviews will be conducted in each country, gathering information that answers questions such as what transgender people are like, how they define themselves, what their place is in the world of work, and whether and how they are marginalized.

Consolidator Grants are awarded to scientists with seven to 12 years of experience after their PhD. In this first Call , 3,600 applications Call received; only 8.5% were funded, making this Call of the most competitive of the ERC. Since its formation in 2007, and in all Calls launched to date, 34 scientists working in Portugal have received this prestigious funding.