The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded its Advanced Grants for ground-breaking research. Six KU Leuven researchers are among this year's recipients: Peter Carmeliet, Giselinde Kuipers, Diether Lambrechts, Erik Smolders, Patrik Verstreken and Johan Wagemans.
ERC Advanced Grants are awarded to established researchers with an outstanding track record in the past ten years. The grants are awarded for a period of five years and are usually worth up to €2.5 million.
All applications are assessed on the basis of one single criterion: the excellence of both the project and the researcher. The applications that pass the quality threshold are ranked on the basis of their score, and only the highest-ranked proposals receive funding.
Peter Carmeliet: decoding the mystery genome for new cancer drugs
Full professor at the Faculty of Medicine - host institution: VIB
What is the project about?
A subtype of endothelial cell - a cell type that lines the blood vessels - shows signs of suppressing the immune system. Blocking this suppression might lead to more efficient immunotherapy. In the project MystIMEC, the Carmeliet lab will use an AI tool to identify previously uncharacterized genes ('mystery genes') in endothelial cells responsible for the effects on the immune system. Then they will use a revolutionary technology to quickly generate knock-out mice for promising gene targets to validate their findings and pave the way to new therapeutics.
Why is that important?
With this third renewal of the Advanced ERC Grant, our lab will be able to explore dark genome grounds, and hopefully yield novel biological insight as well as offer new translational opportunities.
