ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

ACHIEVE focuses on the application of Excluded Volume Effect in cell culture systems in order to enhance Extracellular Matrix (ECM) deposition. It represents a new horizon in in vitro cell culture which will address major challenges in medical advancement and food security. ACHIEVE will elucidate extracellular processes which occur during tissue generation, identifying favourable conditions for optimum tissue cultivation in vitro. These results will be applied in the diverse fields of regenerative medicine, drug discovery and cellular agriculture which all require advancements in in vitro tissue engineering to overcome current bottlenecks. Effective in vitro tissue culture is currently limited by lengthy culture periods. An inability to maintain physiologic (in vivo) conditions during this lengthy in vitro culture leads to cellular phenotype drift, ultimately resulting in generation of an undesired tissue. Enhanced tissue generation in vitro will greatly reduce culture times and costs, effecting improved in vitro tissue substitutes which remain true to their original phenotype. The research will be addressed under four work-packages. WP1 will investigate biochemical, biophysical and biological responses to varying culture conditions; WP 2, 3 and 4 will apply results in the fields of Tissue Engineering, Drug Discovery and Cellular Agriculture respectively. Research will involve extensive characterisation of derived- and stem-cell cultures in varying conditions of expansion and relevant health and safety and preclinical testing. The five year programme will be undertaken at the National University of Ireland, Galway, a centre of excellence in tissue engineering research, at a cost of € 2,439,270.

2 076 770 €

Start date: 2020-09-01, End date: 2025-08-31

Previous efforts to raise living standards have been based on relentlessly increasing combustion, causing environmental destruction at all scales. In addition to climate-warming CO2, fossil fuel combustion also produces a large number of organic compounds and particulate matter, which deteriorate air quality. The atmosphere is cleansed from such pollutants by gas-phase oxidation reactions, which are invariably mediated by peroxy radicals (RO2). Oxidation transforms initially volatile and water-insoluble hydrocarbons into water-soluble forms (ultimately CO2), enabling scavenging by liquid droplets. A minor but crucially important alternative oxidation pathway leads to oxidative molecular growth, and formation of atmospheric aerosols. Aerosols impart a huge influence on the atmosphere, from local air quality issues to global climate forcing, yet their formation mechanisms and structures of organic aerosol precursors remains elusive. In a paradigm change, RO2 was recently found to undergo autoxidation, enabling rapid aerosol precursor formation even at sub-second time-scales – in stark contrast to the long processing times (days - weeks) previously assumed to be necessary. We have shown how abundant biogenic hydrocarbons (BVOC) autoxidize, but due to key structural differences, the same pathways are not available for anthropogenic hydrocarbons (AVOC), and thus they were not expected to autoxidize. My preliminary experiments reveal that AVOCs do autoxidize, but the mechanism enabling this remain unknown. Crucially, the co-reactants shown to inhibit BVOC seem to enforce AVOC autoxidation – potentially explaining the recent mysterious discovery of new-particle formation in polluted megacities. In ADAPT, I will use a combination of novel mass spectrometric detection methods fortified by theoretical calculations, to solve the mechanism of AVOC autoxidation. This will directly assist both air quality management, and the design of cleaner fuels and engines.

2 689 147 €

Start date: 2021-02-01, End date: 2026-01-31

ASTROFLOW aims to make ground-breaking progress in our physical understanding of exoplanetary mass loss, by quantifying the influence of stellar outflows on atmospheric escape of close-in exoplanets. Escape plays a key role in planetary evolution, population, and potential to develop life. Stellar irradiation and outflows affect planetary mass loss: irradiation heats planetary atmospheres, which inflate and more likely escape; outflows cause pressure confinement around otherwise freely escaping atmospheres. This external pressure can increase, reduce or even suppress escape rates; its effects on exoplanetary mass loss remain largely unexplored due to the complexity of such interactions. I will fill this knowledge gap by developing a novel modelling framework of atmospheric escape that will, for the first time, consider the effects of realistic stellar outflows on exoplanetary mass loss. My expertise in stellar wind theory and 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulations is crucial for producing the next-generation models of planetary escape. My framework will consist of state-of-the-art, time-dependent, 3D simulations of stellar outflows (Method 1), which will be coupled to novel 3D simulations of atmospheric escape (Method 2). My models will account for the major underlying physical processes of mass loss. With this, I will determine the response of planetary mass loss to realistic stellar particle, magnetic and radiation environments and will characterise the physical conditions of the escaping material. I will compute how its extinction varies during transit and compare synthetic line profiles to atmospheric escape observations from, eg, Hubble and our NASA cubesat CUTE. Strong synergy with upcoming observations (JWST, TESS, SPIRou, CARMENES) also exists. Determining the lifetime of planetary atmospheres is essential to understanding populations of exoplanets. ASTROFLOW’s work will be the foundation for future research of how exoplanets evolve under mass-loss processes.

1 999 956 €

Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31

"Large bodies usually follow the classical equations of motion. Deviations from this can be called macroscopic quantum behavior. These phenomena have been experimentally verified with cavity Quantum Electro Dynamics (QED), trapped ions, and superconducting Josephson junction systems. Recently, evidence was obtained that also moving objects can display such behavior. These objects are micromechanical resonators (MR), which can measure tens of microns in size and are hence quite macroscopic. The degree of freedom is their vibrations: phonons. I propose experimental research in order to push quantum mechanics closer to the classical world than ever before. I will try find quantum behavior in the most classical objects, that is, slowly moving bodies. I will use MR's, accessed via electrical resonators. Part of it will be in analogy to the previously studied macroscopic systems, but with photons replaced by phonons. The experiments are done in a cryogenic temperature mostly in dilution refrigerator. The work will open up new perspectives on how nature works, and can have technological implications. The first basic setup is the coupling of MR to microwave cavity resonators. This is a direct analogy to optomechanics, and can be called circuit optomechanics. The goals will be phonon state transfer via a cavity bus, construction of squeezed states and of phonon-cavity entanglement. The second setup is to boost the optomechanical coupling with a Josephson junction system, and reach the single-phonon strong-coupling for the first time. The third setup is the coupling of MR to a Josephson junction artificial atom. Here we will access the MR same way as the motion of a trapped ions is coupled to their internal transitions. In this setup, I am proposing to construct exotic quantum states of motion, and finally entangle and transfer phonons over mm-distance via cavity-coupled qubits. I believe within the project it is possible to perform rudimentary Bell measurement with phonons."

2 004 283 €

Start date: 2015-01-01, End date: 2019-12-31