ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

"This proposal develops a unified, underpinning technology to create novel, complex and biomimetic 3D environments for the control of tissue growth. As director of Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, I have recently been approached by medical colleagues to help to solve important problems in the separate therapeutic areas of breast cancer, cardiac disease and blood disorders. In each case, the solution lies in complex 3D engineered environments for cell culture. These colleagues make it clear that existing 3D scaffolds fail to provide the required complex orientational and spatial anisotropy, and are limited in their ability to impart appropriate biochemical and mechanical cues. I have a strong track record in this area. A particular success has been the use of a freeze drying technology to make collagen based porous implants for the cartilage-bone interface in the knee, which has now been commercialised. The novelty of this proposal lies in the broadening of the established scientific base of this technology to enable biomacromolecular structures with: (A) controlled and complex pore orientation to mimic many normal multi-oriented tissue structures (B) compositional and positional control to match varying local biochemical environments, (C) the attachment of novel peptides designed to control cell behaviour, and (D) mechanical control at both a local and macroscopic level to provide mechanical cues for cells. These will be complemented by the development of (E) robust characterisation methodologies for the structures created. These advances will then be employed in each of the medical areas above. This approach is highly interdisciplinary. Existing working relationships with experts in each medical field will guarantee expertise and licensed facilities in the required biological disciplines. Funds for this proposal would therefore establish a rich hub of mutually beneficial research and opportunities for cross-disciplinary sharing of expertise."

2 486 267 €

Start date: 2013-04-01, End date: 2018-03-31

"Combustion is essential to the world’s energy generation and transport needs, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Mitigating its impact on the climate and human health, by reducing its associated emissions, is thus a priority. One significant challenge for gas-turbine combustion is combustion instability, which is currently inhibiting reductions in NOx emissions (these damage human health via a deterioration in air quality). Combustion instability is caused by a two-way coupling between unsteady combustion and acoustic waves - the large pressure oscillations that result can cause substantial mechanical damage. Currently, the lack of fast, accurate modelling tools for combustion instability, and the lack of reliable ways of suppressing it are severely hindering reductions in NOx emissions. This proposal aims to make step improvements in both fast, accurate modelling of combustion instability, and in developing reliable active control strategies for its suppression. It will achieve this by coupling low order combustor models (these are fast, simplified models for simulating combustion instability) with advances in analytical modelling, CFD simulation, reduced order modelling and control theory tools. In particular: * important advances in accurately incorporating the effect of entropy waves (temperature variations resulting from unsteady combustion) and non-linear flame models will be made; * new active control strategies for achieving reliable suppression of combustion instability, including from within limit cycle oscillations, will be developed; * an open-source low order combustor modelling tool will be developed and widely disseminated, opening access to researchers worldwide and improving communications between the fields of thermoacoustics and control theory. Thus the proposal aims to use analytical and computational methods to contribute to achieving low NOx gas-turbine combustion, without the penalty of damaging combustion instability."

1 489 309 €

Start date: 2013-01-01, End date: 2017-12-31

I propose to establish a research group to develop completely new tools in order to solve three important problems on the relationships between automorphic forms and Galois representations, which lie at the heart of the Langlands program. The first is to prove Serre’s conjecture for real quadratic fields. I will use automorphic induction to transfer the problem to U(4) over the rational numbers, where I will use automorphy lifting theorems and results on the weight part of Serre's conjecture that I established in my earlier work to reduce the problem to proving results in small weight and level. I will prove these base cases via integral p-adic Hodge theory and discriminant bounds. The second is to develop a geometric theory of moduli spaces of mod p and p-adic Galois representations, and to use it to establish the Breuil–Mézard conjecture in arbitrary dimension, by reinterpreting the conjecture in geometric terms. This will transform the subject by building the first connections between the p-adic Langlands program and the geometric Langlands program, providing an entirely new world of techniques for number theorists. As a consequence of the Breuil-Mézard conjecture, I will be able to deduce far stronger automorphy lifting theorems (in arbitrary dimension) than those currently available. The third is to completely determine the reduction mod p of certain two-dimensional crystalline representations, and as an application prove a strengthened version of the Gouvêa–Mazur conjecture. I will do this by means of explicit computations with the p-adic local Langlands correspondence for GL_2(Q_p), as well as by improving existing arguments which prove multiplicity one theorems via automorphy lifting theorems. This work will show that the existence of counterexamples to the Gouvêa-Mazur conjecture is due to a purely local phenomenon, and that when this local obstruction vanishes, far stronger conjectures of Buzzard on the slopes of the U_p operator hold.

1 131 339 €

Start date: 2012-10-01, End date: 2017-09-30

The establishment of farming is a pivotal moment in human history, setting the stage for the emergence of class-based society and urbanization. Monolithic views of the nature and development of early agriculture, however, have prevented clear understanding of how exactly farming fuelled, shaped and sustained the emergence of complex societies. A breakthrough in archaeological approach is needed to determine the actual roles of farming in the emergence of social complexity. The methodology required must push beyond conventional interpretation of the most direct farming evidence – archaeobotanical remains of crops and associated arable weeds – to reconstruct not only what crops were grown, but also how, where and why farming was practised. Addressing these related aspects, in contexts ranging from early agricultural villages to some of the world’s earliest cities, would provide the key to unraveling the contribution of farming to the development of lasting social inequalities. The research proposed here takes a new interdisciplinary approach combining archaeobotany, plant stable isotope chemistry and functional plant ecology, building on groundwork laid in previous research by the applicant. These approaches will be applied to two relatively well researched areas, western Asia and Europe, where a series of sites that chart multiple pathways to early complex societies offer rich plant and other bioarchaeological assemblages. The proposed project will set a wholly new standard of insight into early farming and its relationship with early civilization, facilitating similar approaches in other parts of the world and the construction of comparative perspectives on the global significance of early agriculture in social development.

1 199 647 €

Start date: 2013-02-01, End date: 2017-01-31