Project acronym AfricanNeo
Project The African Neolithic: A genetic perspective
Researcher (PI) Carina SCHLEBUSCH
Host Institution (HI) UPPSALA UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2017-STG
Summary The spread of farming practices in various parts of the world had a marked influence on how humans live today and how we are distributed around the globe. Around 10,000 years ago, warmer conditions lead to population increases, coinciding with the invention of farming in several places around the world. Archaeological evidence attest to the spread of these practices to neighboring regions. In many cases this lead to whole continents being converted from hunter-gatherer to farming societies. It is however difficult to see from archaeological records if only the farming culture spread to other places or whether the farming people themselves migrated. Investigating patterns of genetic variation for farming populations and for remaining hunter-gatherer groups can help to resolve questions on population movements co-occurring with the spread of farming practices. It can further shed light on the routes of migration and dates when migrants arrived.
The spread of farming to Europe has been thoroughly investigated in the fields of archaeology, linguistics and genetics, while on other continents these events have been less investigated. In Africa, mainly linguistic and archaeological studies have attempted to elucidate the spread of farming and herding practices. I propose to investigate the movement of farmer and pastoral groups in Africa, by typing densely spaced genome-wide variant positions in a large number of African populations. The data will be used to infer how farming and pastoralism was introduced to various regions, where the incoming people originated from and when these (potential) population movements occurred. Through this study, the Holocene history of Africa will be revealed and placed into a global context of migration, mobility and cultural transitions. Additionally the study will give due credence to one of the largest Neolithic expansion events, the Bantu-expansion, which caused a pronounced change in the demographic landscape of the African continent
Summary
The spread of farming practices in various parts of the world had a marked influence on how humans live today and how we are distributed around the globe. Around 10,000 years ago, warmer conditions lead to population increases, coinciding with the invention of farming in several places around the world. Archaeological evidence attest to the spread of these practices to neighboring regions. In many cases this lead to whole continents being converted from hunter-gatherer to farming societies. It is however difficult to see from archaeological records if only the farming culture spread to other places or whether the farming people themselves migrated. Investigating patterns of genetic variation for farming populations and for remaining hunter-gatherer groups can help to resolve questions on population movements co-occurring with the spread of farming practices. It can further shed light on the routes of migration and dates when migrants arrived.
The spread of farming to Europe has been thoroughly investigated in the fields of archaeology, linguistics and genetics, while on other continents these events have been less investigated. In Africa, mainly linguistic and archaeological studies have attempted to elucidate the spread of farming and herding practices. I propose to investigate the movement of farmer and pastoral groups in Africa, by typing densely spaced genome-wide variant positions in a large number of African populations. The data will be used to infer how farming and pastoralism was introduced to various regions, where the incoming people originated from and when these (potential) population movements occurred. Through this study, the Holocene history of Africa will be revealed and placed into a global context of migration, mobility and cultural transitions. Additionally the study will give due credence to one of the largest Neolithic expansion events, the Bantu-expansion, which caused a pronounced change in the demographic landscape of the African continent
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-11-01, End date: 2022-10-31
Project acronym FatemapB
Project High Resolution Mapping of Fetal and Adult B Cell Fates During Ontogeny
Researcher (PI) Joan YUAN
Host Institution (HI) LUNDS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS6, ERC-2016-STG
Summary FateMapB aims to understand how the unique differentiation potential of fetal hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells
(HSPCs) contribute to functionally distinct cell types of the adult immune system. While most immune cells are replenished
by HSPCs through life, others emerge during a limited window in fetal life and sustain through self-renewal in situ. The
lineage identity of fetal HSPCs, and the extent of their contribution to the adult immune repertoire remain surprisingly
unclear. I previously identified the fetal specific RNA binding protein Lin28b as a post-transcriptional molecular switch
capable of inducing fetal-like hematopoiesis in adult bone marrow HSPCs (Yuan et al. Science, 2012). This discovery has
afforded me with unique perspectives on the formation of the mammalian immune system. The concept that the mature
immune system is a mosaic of fetal and adult derived cell types is addressed herein with an emphasis on the B cell lineage.
We will use two complementary lineage-tracing technologies to stratify the immune system as a function of developmental
time, generating fundamental insight into the division of labor between fetal and adult HSPCs that ultimately provides
effective host protection.
Aim 1. Determine the qualitative and quantitative contribution of fetal HSPCs to the mature immune repertoire in situ
through Cre recombination mediated lineage-tracing.
Aim 2. Resolve the disputed lineage relationship between fetal derived B1a cells and adult derived B2 cells by single cell
lineage-tracing using cellular barcoding in vivo.
Aim 3. Characterize the mechanism and effector functions of Lin28b induced B1a cell development for assessing the
clinical utility of inducible fetal-like lymphopoiesis.
The implications of FateMapB extend beyond normal development to immune regeneration and age-related features of
leukemogenesis. Finally, our combinatorial lineage-tracing approach enables dissection of cell fates with previously
unattainable resolution.
Summary
FateMapB aims to understand how the unique differentiation potential of fetal hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells
(HSPCs) contribute to functionally distinct cell types of the adult immune system. While most immune cells are replenished
by HSPCs through life, others emerge during a limited window in fetal life and sustain through self-renewal in situ. The
lineage identity of fetal HSPCs, and the extent of their contribution to the adult immune repertoire remain surprisingly
unclear. I previously identified the fetal specific RNA binding protein Lin28b as a post-transcriptional molecular switch
capable of inducing fetal-like hematopoiesis in adult bone marrow HSPCs (Yuan et al. Science, 2012). This discovery has
afforded me with unique perspectives on the formation of the mammalian immune system. The concept that the mature
immune system is a mosaic of fetal and adult derived cell types is addressed herein with an emphasis on the B cell lineage.
We will use two complementary lineage-tracing technologies to stratify the immune system as a function of developmental
time, generating fundamental insight into the division of labor between fetal and adult HSPCs that ultimately provides
effective host protection.
Aim 1. Determine the qualitative and quantitative contribution of fetal HSPCs to the mature immune repertoire in situ
through Cre recombination mediated lineage-tracing.
Aim 2. Resolve the disputed lineage relationship between fetal derived B1a cells and adult derived B2 cells by single cell
lineage-tracing using cellular barcoding in vivo.
Aim 3. Characterize the mechanism and effector functions of Lin28b induced B1a cell development for assessing the
clinical utility of inducible fetal-like lymphopoiesis.
The implications of FateMapB extend beyond normal development to immune regeneration and age-related features of
leukemogenesis. Finally, our combinatorial lineage-tracing approach enables dissection of cell fates with previously
unattainable resolution.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 905 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym GLOBEGOV
Project The Rise of Global Environmental Governance:A History of the Contemporary Human-Earth Relationship
Researcher (PI) Sverker SÖRLIN
Host Institution (HI) KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2017-ADG
Summary GLOBEGOVE is a historical study of humanity’s relation to planetary conditions and constraints and how it has become understood as a governance issue. The key argument is that Global Environmental Governance (GEG), which has arisen in response to this issue, is inseparable from the rise of a planetary Earth systems science and a knowledge-informed understanding of global change that has affected broad communities of practice. The overarching objective is to provide a fundamentally new perspective on GEG that challenges both previous linear, progressivist narratives through incremental institutional work and the way contemporary history is written and understood.
GLOBEGOVE will be implemented as an expressly global history along four Trajectories, which will ensure both transnational as well as transdisciplinary analysis of GEG as a major contemporary phenomenon.
Trajectory I: Formation articulates a proto-history of GEG after 1945 when the concept of ‘the environment’ in its new integrative meaning was established and a slow formation of policy ideas and institutions could start.
Trajectory II: The complicated turning of environmental research into governance investigates the relation between environmental science and environmental governance which GLOBEGOV examines as an open ended historical process. Why was it that high politics and diplomacy came in closer relations with environmental sciences?
Trajectory III: Alternative agencies – governance through business and civic society explores corporate responses, including self-regulation through the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility, to growing concerns about environmental degradation and pollution, and business-science relations.
Trajectory IV: Integrating Earth into History – scaling, mediating, remembering will turn to historiography itself and examine how concepts and ideas from the rising Earth system sciences have been influencing both GEG and the way we think historically about Earth and humanity.
Summary
GLOBEGOVE is a historical study of humanity’s relation to planetary conditions and constraints and how it has become understood as a governance issue. The key argument is that Global Environmental Governance (GEG), which has arisen in response to this issue, is inseparable from the rise of a planetary Earth systems science and a knowledge-informed understanding of global change that has affected broad communities of practice. The overarching objective is to provide a fundamentally new perspective on GEG that challenges both previous linear, progressivist narratives through incremental institutional work and the way contemporary history is written and understood.
GLOBEGOVE will be implemented as an expressly global history along four Trajectories, which will ensure both transnational as well as transdisciplinary analysis of GEG as a major contemporary phenomenon.
Trajectory I: Formation articulates a proto-history of GEG after 1945 when the concept of ‘the environment’ in its new integrative meaning was established and a slow formation of policy ideas and institutions could start.
Trajectory II: The complicated turning of environmental research into governance investigates the relation between environmental science and environmental governance which GLOBEGOV examines as an open ended historical process. Why was it that high politics and diplomacy came in closer relations with environmental sciences?
Trajectory III: Alternative agencies – governance through business and civic society explores corporate responses, including self-regulation through the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility, to growing concerns about environmental degradation and pollution, and business-science relations.
Trajectory IV: Integrating Earth into History – scaling, mediating, remembering will turn to historiography itself and examine how concepts and ideas from the rising Earth system sciences have been influencing both GEG and the way we think historically about Earth and humanity.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-10-01, End date: 2023-09-30
Project acronym GRETPOL
Project Greening the Poles: Science, the Environment, and the Creation of the Modern Arctic and Antarctic
Researcher (PI) Peder ROBERTS
Host Institution (HI) KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2016-STG
Summary This project investigates how and why environmental concerns have become so important to our conceptions of the polar regions today. Through a historical study of both the Arctic and Antarctic from 1945 to the turn of the past century, the project explores the connections between how environments are described - particularly through the natural sciences and economics - and the judgments made about how those environments should be administered. The key hypothesis of this project is that the process of describing an environment cannot be separated from the process of controlling and managing it. Changing perceptions of concepts such as development, ecological fragility, and wilderness have provided frames for describing and understanding the polar regions. Why has natural resource extraction been deemed appropriate (or even necessary) in some contexts, and wholly forbidden in others? Why did the concept of sustainable development become important during the 1980s? Can we think of scientific research programs as instruments of colonialism? And why did national parks and conservation agreements become politically useful? GRETPOL will produce a new understanding of how far from being the passive frames for human action, environments (in the polar regions but indeed also beyond) are constructed by human agency. As anthropogenic climate change reduces polar ice extent and threatens the entire globe, the question has never been timelier.
Summary
This project investigates how and why environmental concerns have become so important to our conceptions of the polar regions today. Through a historical study of both the Arctic and Antarctic from 1945 to the turn of the past century, the project explores the connections between how environments are described - particularly through the natural sciences and economics - and the judgments made about how those environments should be administered. The key hypothesis of this project is that the process of describing an environment cannot be separated from the process of controlling and managing it. Changing perceptions of concepts such as development, ecological fragility, and wilderness have provided frames for describing and understanding the polar regions. Why has natural resource extraction been deemed appropriate (or even necessary) in some contexts, and wholly forbidden in others? Why did the concept of sustainable development become important during the 1980s? Can we think of scientific research programs as instruments of colonialism? And why did national parks and conservation agreements become politically useful? GRETPOL will produce a new understanding of how far from being the passive frames for human action, environments (in the polar regions but indeed also beyond) are constructed by human agency. As anthropogenic climate change reduces polar ice extent and threatens the entire globe, the question has never been timelier.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 952 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-02-01, End date: 2022-01-31
Project acronym IMMUNEDIVERSITY
Project Defining of human adaptive immune gene diversity and its impact on disease
Researcher (PI) Gunilla KARLSSON HEDESTAM
Host Institution (HI) KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS6, ERC-2017-ADG
Summary Why do vaccines protect some people but not all? Why can some people develop potent neutralizing antibodies to infections, while others cannot? Why do some people develop immune-associated diseases such as allergy, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and diabetes over their lifetimes, when the body has evolved to tolerate self? The answer lies in the adaptive immune system. B and T lymphocytes of the adaptive system express highly polymorphic receptors that allow for the recognition of large numbers of antigens. Our research is now uncovering an enormous heterogeneity in the germline genes that encode our B and T cell receptors. This fact has not been well appreciated because of the high complexity of the genomic regions that encode these receptors, with the presence of large insertions and deletions, a high degree of repetitiveness and gene copy number variations, which cannot be adequately met with conventional whole genome sequencing approaches.
We have developed a state-of-the-art approach we call IgDiscover, which comprises novel molecular library preparation approaches, next generation immune repertoire sequencing, computational analysis and a software that allows rapid construction of personalized antibody gene databases encompassing the hundreds of germline gene segments that rearrange to make up each individual’s naïve B cell repertoire. Thus, IgDiscover offers new possibilities to define human genetic diversity in these loci. This proposal also describes our development of ImmuneDiscover, a high throughput approach enabling personalized immune-profiling of very large numbers of individuals (>1000), encompassing not only Ig genes but also T cell receptor genes and the genes encoding the human major histocompatibility complexes. Here, we will use IgDiscover and ImmuneDiscover to elucidate global diversity in adaptive immune genes and we will investigate potential associations between antibody germline genes and the development of rheumatoid arthritis.
Summary
Why do vaccines protect some people but not all? Why can some people develop potent neutralizing antibodies to infections, while others cannot? Why do some people develop immune-associated diseases such as allergy, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and diabetes over their lifetimes, when the body has evolved to tolerate self? The answer lies in the adaptive immune system. B and T lymphocytes of the adaptive system express highly polymorphic receptors that allow for the recognition of large numbers of antigens. Our research is now uncovering an enormous heterogeneity in the germline genes that encode our B and T cell receptors. This fact has not been well appreciated because of the high complexity of the genomic regions that encode these receptors, with the presence of large insertions and deletions, a high degree of repetitiveness and gene copy number variations, which cannot be adequately met with conventional whole genome sequencing approaches.
We have developed a state-of-the-art approach we call IgDiscover, which comprises novel molecular library preparation approaches, next generation immune repertoire sequencing, computational analysis and a software that allows rapid construction of personalized antibody gene databases encompassing the hundreds of germline gene segments that rearrange to make up each individual’s naïve B cell repertoire. Thus, IgDiscover offers new possibilities to define human genetic diversity in these loci. This proposal also describes our development of ImmuneDiscover, a high throughput approach enabling personalized immune-profiling of very large numbers of individuals (>1000), encompassing not only Ig genes but also T cell receptor genes and the genes encoding the human major histocompatibility complexes. Here, we will use IgDiscover and ImmuneDiscover to elucidate global diversity in adaptive immune genes and we will investigate potential associations between antibody germline genes and the development of rheumatoid arthritis.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-12-01, End date: 2023-11-30
Project acronym NUCLEARWATERS
Project Putting Water at the Centre of Nuclear Energy History
Researcher (PI) Per HÖGSELIUS
Host Institution (HI) KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2017-COG
Summary NUCLEARWATERS develops a groundbreaking new approach to studying the history of nuclear energy. Rather than interpreting nuclear energy history as a history of nuclear physics and radiochemistry, it analyses it as a history of water. The project develops the argument that nuclear energy is in essence a hydraulic form of technology, and that it as such builds on centuries and even millennia of earlier hydraulic engineering efforts worldwide – and, culturally speaking, on earlier “hydraulic civilizations”, from ancient Egypt to the modern Netherlands. I investigate how historical water-manipulating technologies and wet and dry risk conceptions from a deeper past were carried on into the nuclear age. These risk conceptions brought with them a complex set of social and professional practices that displayed considerable inertia and were difficult to change – sometimes paving the way for disaster. Against this background I hypothesize that a water-centred nuclear energy history enables us to resolve a number of the key riddles in nuclear energy history and to grasp the deeper historical logic behind various nuclear disasters and accidents worldwide. The project is structured along six work packages that problematize the centrality – and dilemma – of water in nuclear energy history from different thematic and geographical angles. These include in-depth studies of the transnational nuclear-hydraulic engineering community, of the Soviet Union’s nuclear waters, of the Rhine Valley as a transnational and heavily nuclearized river basin, of Japan’s atomic coastscapes and of the ecologically and politically fragile Baltic Sea region. The ultimate ambition is to significantly revise nuclear energy history as we know it – with implications not only for the history of technology as an academic field (and its relationship with environmental history), but also for the public debate about nuclear energy’s future in Europe and beyond.
Summary
NUCLEARWATERS develops a groundbreaking new approach to studying the history of nuclear energy. Rather than interpreting nuclear energy history as a history of nuclear physics and radiochemistry, it analyses it as a history of water. The project develops the argument that nuclear energy is in essence a hydraulic form of technology, and that it as such builds on centuries and even millennia of earlier hydraulic engineering efforts worldwide – and, culturally speaking, on earlier “hydraulic civilizations”, from ancient Egypt to the modern Netherlands. I investigate how historical water-manipulating technologies and wet and dry risk conceptions from a deeper past were carried on into the nuclear age. These risk conceptions brought with them a complex set of social and professional practices that displayed considerable inertia and were difficult to change – sometimes paving the way for disaster. Against this background I hypothesize that a water-centred nuclear energy history enables us to resolve a number of the key riddles in nuclear energy history and to grasp the deeper historical logic behind various nuclear disasters and accidents worldwide. The project is structured along six work packages that problematize the centrality – and dilemma – of water in nuclear energy history from different thematic and geographical angles. These include in-depth studies of the transnational nuclear-hydraulic engineering community, of the Soviet Union’s nuclear waters, of the Rhine Valley as a transnational and heavily nuclearized river basin, of Japan’s atomic coastscapes and of the ecologically and politically fragile Baltic Sea region. The ultimate ambition is to significantly revise nuclear energy history as we know it – with implications not only for the history of technology as an academic field (and its relationship with environmental history), but also for the public debate about nuclear energy’s future in Europe and beyond.
Max ERC Funding
1 991 008 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-05-01, End date: 2023-04-30
Project acronym PASSIM
Project Patents as Scientific Information, 1895-2020
Researcher (PI) Eva Susan Margareta HEMMUNGS WIRTÉN
Host Institution (HI) LINKOPINGS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary “History will remember Barack Obama as the great Slayer of Patent Trolls.” The headline from the 2014 March 20 issue of Wired credits POTUS with, perhaps, an unexpected feat. Referring to companies in the sole business of enforcing patents beyond their actual value, trolls are a recent installment in the history of an intellectual property whose ubiquitousness the Latin word PASSIM (“here and there, everywhere”) neatly captures. In the eye of the storm stands the patent bargain: disclosure of information in return for a limited monopoly. This contractual moment makes patents a source of information, the basis of new innovation. Or does it? By posing this simple question, PASSIM’s bold take on the legitimacy of intellectual property in the governance of informational resources follow patents as legal and informational documents during three historical “patent phases,” producing a visionary and theoretically savvy interpretation of intellectual property that stems from its humanities-based and interdisciplinary project design. PASSIM shows a way out of current analytical gridlocks that earmark the understanding of the role of intellectual property in knowledge infrastructures—most notably the enclosure/openness dichotomy—and provides a fresh take on the complexity of informational processes. A key steppingstone in the PI’s career, her own contribution to PASSIM will be a work of synthesis, highlighting major tendencies in the history of patents as scientific information from 1895 to the present. Four complementary empirical studies target specific themes that strengthen PASSIM’s validity and impact: questions of copyrights in patents, scientists’ patenting strategies both historically and today, the relationship between bibliometrics and patentometrics, and the status of the patent as a legal and informational document. Outputs include workshops, articles, monographs, policy papers and documentation of the project’s experiences with interdisciplinary self-reflexivity.
Summary
“History will remember Barack Obama as the great Slayer of Patent Trolls.” The headline from the 2014 March 20 issue of Wired credits POTUS with, perhaps, an unexpected feat. Referring to companies in the sole business of enforcing patents beyond their actual value, trolls are a recent installment in the history of an intellectual property whose ubiquitousness the Latin word PASSIM (“here and there, everywhere”) neatly captures. In the eye of the storm stands the patent bargain: disclosure of information in return for a limited monopoly. This contractual moment makes patents a source of information, the basis of new innovation. Or does it? By posing this simple question, PASSIM’s bold take on the legitimacy of intellectual property in the governance of informational resources follow patents as legal and informational documents during three historical “patent phases,” producing a visionary and theoretically savvy interpretation of intellectual property that stems from its humanities-based and interdisciplinary project design. PASSIM shows a way out of current analytical gridlocks that earmark the understanding of the role of intellectual property in knowledge infrastructures—most notably the enclosure/openness dichotomy—and provides a fresh take on the complexity of informational processes. A key steppingstone in the PI’s career, her own contribution to PASSIM will be a work of synthesis, highlighting major tendencies in the history of patents as scientific information from 1895 to the present. Four complementary empirical studies target specific themes that strengthen PASSIM’s validity and impact: questions of copyrights in patents, scientists’ patenting strategies both historically and today, the relationship between bibliometrics and patentometrics, and the status of the patent as a legal and informational document. Outputs include workshops, articles, monographs, policy papers and documentation of the project’s experiences with interdisciplinary self-reflexivity.
Max ERC Funding
2 261 523 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym SEXinMALARIA
Project Sex in malaria parasites – from basic biology to targets for transmission blocking interventions.
Researcher (PI) Oliver BILLKER
Host Institution (HI) UMEA UNIVERSITET
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS6, ERC-2017-ADG
Summary Sexual development in malaria parasites is critical for disease transmission between infected individuals, and is therefore a major target for the malaria elimination agenda. However, there are currently no effective drugs or vaccines that block parasite transmission to mosquitoes, and we currently do not understand the molecular mechanisms involved. This is primarily because Plasmodium genetics has been slow, with the majority of the genome unexplored. I here propose to conduct the first genome-scale screen for male and/or female fertility genes by leveraging a game-changing genetic system we have developed and recently validated through the first genome-scale in vivo gene KO screen in any parasite. Using simultaneous phenotyping of barcoded mutants, we will conduct the first genome-scale screen for male and/or female fertility genes. My team will systematically map specific biological roles for hundreds of parasite genes, ranging from sex determination to zygote differentiation. We will also overcome the next hurdle in Plasmodium genetics by developing a method for massive parallel phenotyping, using the power of single cell transcriptomics to validate the screen and reveal molecular mechanisms at previously intractable points in the Plasmodium life cycle. This approach has clear translational implications, as it will identify both drug and vaccine candidates. This proposal builds firmly on my outstanding track records in delivering large reverse genetics projects and making ground-breaking discoveries in Plasmodium transmission biology. Its unprecedented breadth and depth will mark a turning point in how gene functions are studied in this important model parasite. I am relocating from the UK to Umeå University, a centre of excellence for pathogen research and innovative genetics, so retaining this important research in the EU of 27 will depend critically on ERC funding.
Summary
Sexual development in malaria parasites is critical for disease transmission between infected individuals, and is therefore a major target for the malaria elimination agenda. However, there are currently no effective drugs or vaccines that block parasite transmission to mosquitoes, and we currently do not understand the molecular mechanisms involved. This is primarily because Plasmodium genetics has been slow, with the majority of the genome unexplored. I here propose to conduct the first genome-scale screen for male and/or female fertility genes by leveraging a game-changing genetic system we have developed and recently validated through the first genome-scale in vivo gene KO screen in any parasite. Using simultaneous phenotyping of barcoded mutants, we will conduct the first genome-scale screen for male and/or female fertility genes. My team will systematically map specific biological roles for hundreds of parasite genes, ranging from sex determination to zygote differentiation. We will also overcome the next hurdle in Plasmodium genetics by developing a method for massive parallel phenotyping, using the power of single cell transcriptomics to validate the screen and reveal molecular mechanisms at previously intractable points in the Plasmodium life cycle. This approach has clear translational implications, as it will identify both drug and vaccine candidates. This proposal builds firmly on my outstanding track records in delivering large reverse genetics projects and making ground-breaking discoveries in Plasmodium transmission biology. Its unprecedented breadth and depth will mark a turning point in how gene functions are studied in this important model parasite. I am relocating from the UK to Umeå University, a centre of excellence for pathogen research and innovative genetics, so retaining this important research in the EU of 27 will depend critically on ERC funding.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-09-01, End date: 2023-08-31
