Project acronym CAPABLE
Project Enhancing Capabilities? Rethinking Work-life Policies and their Impact from a New Perspective
Researcher (PI) Mara YERKES
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2017-COG
Summary We have witnessed significant work-life policy advancements designed to help men and women more equally combine employment with other spheres of life in recent decades, yet gender inequality persists. Improving gender equality in work-life balance is therefore high on policy agendas throughout Europe. Decades of research in this area have produced key insights but work-family theories fail to sufficiently explain the tenacity of this inequality. Earlier applications of a capabilities approach to work-life balance offer promising inroads, yet the importance of community remains absent. The CAPABLE project will generate fundamentally new knowledge on how work-life balance policies impact an individual’s capability to achieve this balance in Europe by incorporating the understudied dimension of community.
Capabilities reflect what individuals are effectively able to achieve. CAPABLE asks: To what extent do work-life balance policies enhance men and women’s capabilities to achieve work-life balance? To answer this question, we will develop and apply complex models derived from Sen’s capability approach to analyse: 1. the availability, accessibility and design of work-family policies; 2. what these policies mean for men and women’s capabilities to achieve work-life balance based on their embeddedness in individual, community and social contexts; 3. whether work-life policies enhance individual wellbeing; and 4. what policy tools are needed for developing sustainable work-life balance policies that enhance gender equal work-life capabilities. CAPABLE will progress scientific and policy frontiers using innovative, mixed-methods approaches at multiple policy levels. The conceptual clarity and empirical advancements provided will significantly expand our understanding of work-life policies in relation to individual capabilities. Furthermore, it will produce key insights into how sustainable work-life policies addressing gender inequality in work-life can be developed.
Summary
We have witnessed significant work-life policy advancements designed to help men and women more equally combine employment with other spheres of life in recent decades, yet gender inequality persists. Improving gender equality in work-life balance is therefore high on policy agendas throughout Europe. Decades of research in this area have produced key insights but work-family theories fail to sufficiently explain the tenacity of this inequality. Earlier applications of a capabilities approach to work-life balance offer promising inroads, yet the importance of community remains absent. The CAPABLE project will generate fundamentally new knowledge on how work-life balance policies impact an individual’s capability to achieve this balance in Europe by incorporating the understudied dimension of community.
Capabilities reflect what individuals are effectively able to achieve. CAPABLE asks: To what extent do work-life balance policies enhance men and women’s capabilities to achieve work-life balance? To answer this question, we will develop and apply complex models derived from Sen’s capability approach to analyse: 1. the availability, accessibility and design of work-family policies; 2. what these policies mean for men and women’s capabilities to achieve work-life balance based on their embeddedness in individual, community and social contexts; 3. whether work-life policies enhance individual wellbeing; and 4. what policy tools are needed for developing sustainable work-life balance policies that enhance gender equal work-life capabilities. CAPABLE will progress scientific and policy frontiers using innovative, mixed-methods approaches at multiple policy levels. The conceptual clarity and empirical advancements provided will significantly expand our understanding of work-life policies in relation to individual capabilities. Furthermore, it will produce key insights into how sustainable work-life policies addressing gender inequality in work-life can be developed.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 748 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-12-01, End date: 2023-11-30
Project acronym CAPTURE
Project CApturing Paradata for documenTing data creation and Use for the REsearch of the future
Researcher (PI) Isto HUVILA
Host Institution (HI) UPPSALA UNIVERSITET
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2018-COG
Summary "Considerable investments have been made in Europe and worldwide in research data infrastructures. Instead of a general lack of data about data, it has become apparent that the pivotal factor that drastically constrains the use of data is the absence of contextual knowledge about how data was created and how it has been used. This applies especially to many branches of SSH research where data is highly heterogeneous, both by its kind (e.g. being qualitative, quantitative, naturalistic, purposefully created) and origins (e.g. being historical/contemporary, from different contexts and geographical places). The problem is that there may be enough metadata (data about data) but there is too little paradata (data on the processes of its creation and use).
In contrast to the rather straightforward problem of describing the data, the high-risk/high-gain problem no-one has managed to solve, is the lack of comprehensive understanding of what information about the creation and use of research data is needed and how to capture enough of that information to make the data reusable and to avoid the risk that currently collected vast amounts of research data become useless in the future. The wickedness of the problem lies in the practical impossibility to document and keep everything and the difficulty to determine optimal procedures for capturing just enough.
With an empirical focus on archaeological and cultural heritage data, which stands out by its extreme heterogeneity and rapid accumulation due to the scale of ongoing development-led archaeological fieldwork, CAPTURE develops an in-depth understanding of how paradata is #1 created and #2 used at the moment, #3 elicits methods for capturing paradata on the basis of the findings of #1-2, #4 tests the new methods in field trials, and #5 synthesises the findings in a reference model to inform the capturing of paradata and enabling data-intensive research using heterogeneous research data stemming from diverse origins.
"
Summary
"Considerable investments have been made in Europe and worldwide in research data infrastructures. Instead of a general lack of data about data, it has become apparent that the pivotal factor that drastically constrains the use of data is the absence of contextual knowledge about how data was created and how it has been used. This applies especially to many branches of SSH research where data is highly heterogeneous, both by its kind (e.g. being qualitative, quantitative, naturalistic, purposefully created) and origins (e.g. being historical/contemporary, from different contexts and geographical places). The problem is that there may be enough metadata (data about data) but there is too little paradata (data on the processes of its creation and use).
In contrast to the rather straightforward problem of describing the data, the high-risk/high-gain problem no-one has managed to solve, is the lack of comprehensive understanding of what information about the creation and use of research data is needed and how to capture enough of that information to make the data reusable and to avoid the risk that currently collected vast amounts of research data become useless in the future. The wickedness of the problem lies in the practical impossibility to document and keep everything and the difficulty to determine optimal procedures for capturing just enough.
With an empirical focus on archaeological and cultural heritage data, which stands out by its extreme heterogeneity and rapid accumulation due to the scale of ongoing development-led archaeological fieldwork, CAPTURE develops an in-depth understanding of how paradata is #1 created and #2 used at the moment, #3 elicits methods for capturing paradata on the basis of the findings of #1-2, #4 tests the new methods in field trials, and #5 synthesises the findings in a reference model to inform the capturing of paradata and enabling data-intensive research using heterogeneous research data stemming from diverse origins.
"
Max ERC Funding
1 944 162 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-05-01, End date: 2024-04-30
Project acronym CheSSTaG
Project Chemotactic Super-Selective Targeting of Gliomas
Researcher (PI) Giuseppe BATTAGLIA
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE5, ERC-2017-COG
Summary I propose here a research program aimed to the design a completely new platform for drug delivery. I will combine our existing repertoire of molecular engineering tools based around our established approach to design responsive nanoparticles known as Polymersomes to integrate new features using clinically safe and biodegradable components that will make them super-selective and chemotactic toward glucose gradients so to deliver large therapeutic payload into the central nervous systems and the brain in particular targeting cancer cells harbouring within the healthy. We will do so by engineering components using supramolecular interaction inspired by biological complexity equipping carriers with the ability to self-propelled as a function of glucose gradient. I will complement our proposed design with advanced biological characterisation associating functional information arising form the physiological barrier to structural parameters integrated into the final carrier design.
Summary
I propose here a research program aimed to the design a completely new platform for drug delivery. I will combine our existing repertoire of molecular engineering tools based around our established approach to design responsive nanoparticles known as Polymersomes to integrate new features using clinically safe and biodegradable components that will make them super-selective and chemotactic toward glucose gradients so to deliver large therapeutic payload into the central nervous systems and the brain in particular targeting cancer cells harbouring within the healthy. We will do so by engineering components using supramolecular interaction inspired by biological complexity equipping carriers with the ability to self-propelled as a function of glucose gradient. I will complement our proposed design with advanced biological characterisation associating functional information arising form the physiological barrier to structural parameters integrated into the final carrier design.
Max ERC Funding
2 081 747 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-05-01, End date: 2023-04-30
Project acronym CHINAWHITE
Project The Reconfiguration of Whiteness in China: Privileges, Precariousness, and Racialized Performances
Researcher (PI) Shanshan LAN
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2018-COG
Summary This research examines the multiple and contradictory constructions of whiteness in China as a result of the rapid diversification of white migrants in the country and the shifting power balances between China and the West. Existing literature on white westerners in Asia mainly focuses on transnational elites. The rising number of middle- and lower-stratum of white migrants in China deserves special attention due to substantial tensions and discrepancies in their experiences of racial privilege, economic insecurity, and legal vulnerability. Multi-sited and multi-scalar ethnographic research will be conducted on daily life encounters between various groups of white migrants and Chinese in five domains: (1) state policy regarding international migrants in China; (2) the ESL industry (teaching English as a second language); (3) the media, fashion, and entertainment industries; (4) transnational business and entrepreneurship; and (5) interracial romance. Three major research questions frame this project. 1. What are the symbolic and material advantages and disadvantages of being white in China’s thriving market economy and consumer culture? 2. How is whiteness racialized in relation to blackness and other immigrant minority identities in multiple social domains and at different geographical scales? 3. How are multiple versions of whiteness produced, interpreted, negotiated, and performed through daily life interactions between white migrants and Chinese in various social and personal settings? This project contributes to a new line of research on white racial formation in East Asia by creatively integrating theories in whiteness studies and migration studies. It also expands the geographical scope of research on white expatriates from global cities in coastal areas to second-tier cities in inland China.
Summary
This research examines the multiple and contradictory constructions of whiteness in China as a result of the rapid diversification of white migrants in the country and the shifting power balances between China and the West. Existing literature on white westerners in Asia mainly focuses on transnational elites. The rising number of middle- and lower-stratum of white migrants in China deserves special attention due to substantial tensions and discrepancies in their experiences of racial privilege, economic insecurity, and legal vulnerability. Multi-sited and multi-scalar ethnographic research will be conducted on daily life encounters between various groups of white migrants and Chinese in five domains: (1) state policy regarding international migrants in China; (2) the ESL industry (teaching English as a second language); (3) the media, fashion, and entertainment industries; (4) transnational business and entrepreneurship; and (5) interracial romance. Three major research questions frame this project. 1. What are the symbolic and material advantages and disadvantages of being white in China’s thriving market economy and consumer culture? 2. How is whiteness racialized in relation to blackness and other immigrant minority identities in multiple social domains and at different geographical scales? 3. How are multiple versions of whiteness produced, interpreted, negotiated, and performed through daily life interactions between white migrants and Chinese in various social and personal settings? This project contributes to a new line of research on white racial formation in East Asia by creatively integrating theories in whiteness studies and migration studies. It also expands the geographical scope of research on white expatriates from global cities in coastal areas to second-tier cities in inland China.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym CONT-END
Project Attempts to Control the End of Life in People with Dementia: Two-level Approach to Examine Controversies
Researcher (PI) Jenny VAN DER STEEN
Host Institution (HI) ACADEMISCH ZIEKENHUIS LEIDEN
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2017-COG
Summary In dementia at the end of life, cognitive and physical decline imply that control is typically lost. CONT-END will examine control in the context of three emerging interventions which contain a controversial element of striving for control in the process of dying with dementia: advance care planning of the end of life, use of new technology to monitor symptoms when unable to self-report, and euthanasia. To perform outstanding research, the proposed research examines control at the level of clinical practice, but also at the level of end-of-life research practice. The latter provides ample opportunities for researchers to control the research process. That is, research designs are often flexible and we will study if and how this impacts research in an emotionally charged area. I will take an empirical mixed-methods approach to study the two practices in parallel. The work is organised in three related Work Packages around three research questions. (1) In a 6-country study, I will examine if and when people with dementia, family caregivers and physicians (900 respondents) find the interventions, shown on video, acceptable. (2) A cluster-randomised 3-armed controlled trial in 279 patients and their family caregivers assesses effects of two types of advance care planning differing in level of control (detailed advance treatment orders versus goal setting and coping based) on outcomes ranging from favourable to less favourable, and whether effects differ in subgroups. Cases in which the technology is preferred or applied are observed. (3) Ethnographic fieldwork in two different end-of-life research practices and a Delphi study to synthesize CONT-END’s findings assess how researchers shape findings. This greatly improves the quality of CONT-END and provides the input to develop new methodology for improving research quality and integrity.
Summary
In dementia at the end of life, cognitive and physical decline imply that control is typically lost. CONT-END will examine control in the context of three emerging interventions which contain a controversial element of striving for control in the process of dying with dementia: advance care planning of the end of life, use of new technology to monitor symptoms when unable to self-report, and euthanasia. To perform outstanding research, the proposed research examines control at the level of clinical practice, but also at the level of end-of-life research practice. The latter provides ample opportunities for researchers to control the research process. That is, research designs are often flexible and we will study if and how this impacts research in an emotionally charged area. I will take an empirical mixed-methods approach to study the two practices in parallel. The work is organised in three related Work Packages around three research questions. (1) In a 6-country study, I will examine if and when people with dementia, family caregivers and physicians (900 respondents) find the interventions, shown on video, acceptable. (2) A cluster-randomised 3-armed controlled trial in 279 patients and their family caregivers assesses effects of two types of advance care planning differing in level of control (detailed advance treatment orders versus goal setting and coping based) on outcomes ranging from favourable to less favourable, and whether effects differ in subgroups. Cases in which the technology is preferred or applied are observed. (3) Ethnographic fieldwork in two different end-of-life research practices and a Delphi study to synthesize CONT-END’s findings assess how researchers shape findings. This greatly improves the quality of CONT-END and provides the input to develop new methodology for improving research quality and integrity.
Max ERC Funding
1 988 972 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-12-01, End date: 2023-11-30
Project acronym CRIMETIME
Project Crime and Time: How short-term mindsets encourage crime and how the future self can prevent it
Researcher (PI) Jean-Louis VAN GELDER
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT TWENTE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2017-COG
Summary Why are some people more likely to commit crime than others? Answers to this question, which is at the heart of criminology, can be grouped into two broad views. On the one hand, dispositional perspectives argue that stable factors within the individual, such as lack of self-control, lie at the roots of criminal conduct. Sociogenic perspectives, on the other hand, put the locus of study outside the individual and point towards factors such as rough neighborhoods, parental unemployment, and deviant peers, as the main causes of crime. In spite of ample empirical support for both views, there has been relatively little constructive engagement with each other.
Capitalizing on my multidisciplinary background and drawing on social psychology and evolutionary theory, I outline a new perspective on criminal behavior –Time Frame Theory (TFT)– that integrates both views. TFT is premised on the idea that short-term mindsets encourage crime and specifies how both individual dispositions and sociogenic variables can encourage such mindsets. I test this theory using a combination of longitudinal research and behavioral field experiments.
Besides aiming to mend the current theoretical disconnect in criminology and providing the foundation for a common paradigm, the proposed research program goes a step further by using TFT as the basis for a behavioral intervention to reduce crime. Building on recent pilot research, I use virtual reality technology in combination with a smartphone application to instill a future-oriented mindset in offenders. I am convinced that this combination of novel theory and innovative methodology may lead not only to a breakthrough in our understanding of delinquency but can also provide a blueprint for a scalable and evidence-based intervention to reduce it.
Summary
Why are some people more likely to commit crime than others? Answers to this question, which is at the heart of criminology, can be grouped into two broad views. On the one hand, dispositional perspectives argue that stable factors within the individual, such as lack of self-control, lie at the roots of criminal conduct. Sociogenic perspectives, on the other hand, put the locus of study outside the individual and point towards factors such as rough neighborhoods, parental unemployment, and deviant peers, as the main causes of crime. In spite of ample empirical support for both views, there has been relatively little constructive engagement with each other.
Capitalizing on my multidisciplinary background and drawing on social psychology and evolutionary theory, I outline a new perspective on criminal behavior –Time Frame Theory (TFT)– that integrates both views. TFT is premised on the idea that short-term mindsets encourage crime and specifies how both individual dispositions and sociogenic variables can encourage such mindsets. I test this theory using a combination of longitudinal research and behavioral field experiments.
Besides aiming to mend the current theoretical disconnect in criminology and providing the foundation for a common paradigm, the proposed research program goes a step further by using TFT as the basis for a behavioral intervention to reduce crime. Building on recent pilot research, I use virtual reality technology in combination with a smartphone application to instill a future-oriented mindset in offenders. I am convinced that this combination of novel theory and innovative methodology may lead not only to a breakthrough in our understanding of delinquency but can also provide a blueprint for a scalable and evidence-based intervention to reduce it.
Max ERC Funding
1 763 690 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-04-01, End date: 2023-03-31
Project acronym DigitalValues
Project The Construction of Values in Digital Spheres
Researcher (PI) Limor Shifman
Host Institution (HI) THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2018-COG
Summary In recent decades, social media has emerged as a central arena for the construction of values. Artifacts such as YouTube videos, Facebook posts, and tweets reflect and shape what people across the globe consider important, desirable, or reprehensible. Understanding this pervasive value ecology is key to deciphering the political, cultural, and social processes governing the twenty-first century. In this project, I will conduct the first comprehensive study of values in social media. I will explore the following over-arching questions: How are values constructed through social media? Which values are emphasized in these spheres? To what extent are social media platforms associated with the globalization of values? In addressing these fundamental issues, I will apply an entirely new approach for the conceptualization and study of values.
Carried out comparatively in five languages, DigitalValues will explore the interaction between three facets of value construction: (a) explicit uses of the terms “value” and “values”; (b) the implicit construction of values in genres of user-generated content; and (c) users’ interpretation and evaluation of values through both private meaning-making and public social practices of commenting, sharing, and liking. The project is theoretically, empirically, and methodologically groundbreaking in a number of ways: (1) it will be a pioneering large-scale study employing inductive methods to explore the construction of values through everyday cultural artifacts; (2) as a foundational study of values in social media, it will yield a novel theory of value construction as an intersection between individuals, technologies, and sociocultural contexts; (3) it will generate new methods for infering values from verbal texts, combining qualitative, quantitative, and automated analyses; (4) finally, it will yield a comprehensive map of values as expressed across languages and platforms, leading to a new understanding of the globalization of values.
Summary
In recent decades, social media has emerged as a central arena for the construction of values. Artifacts such as YouTube videos, Facebook posts, and tweets reflect and shape what people across the globe consider important, desirable, or reprehensible. Understanding this pervasive value ecology is key to deciphering the political, cultural, and social processes governing the twenty-first century. In this project, I will conduct the first comprehensive study of values in social media. I will explore the following over-arching questions: How are values constructed through social media? Which values are emphasized in these spheres? To what extent are social media platforms associated with the globalization of values? In addressing these fundamental issues, I will apply an entirely new approach for the conceptualization and study of values.
Carried out comparatively in five languages, DigitalValues will explore the interaction between three facets of value construction: (a) explicit uses of the terms “value” and “values”; (b) the implicit construction of values in genres of user-generated content; and (c) users’ interpretation and evaluation of values through both private meaning-making and public social practices of commenting, sharing, and liking. The project is theoretically, empirically, and methodologically groundbreaking in a number of ways: (1) it will be a pioneering large-scale study employing inductive methods to explore the construction of values through everyday cultural artifacts; (2) as a foundational study of values in social media, it will yield a novel theory of value construction as an intersection between individuals, technologies, and sociocultural contexts; (3) it will generate new methods for infering values from verbal texts, combining qualitative, quantitative, and automated analyses; (4) finally, it will yield a comprehensive map of values as expressed across languages and platforms, leading to a new understanding of the globalization of values.
Max ERC Funding
1 985 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-08-01, End date: 2024-07-31
Project acronym DNA Funs
Project DNA-based functional lattices
Researcher (PI) Tim LIEDL
Host Institution (HI) LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE5, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Nature has evolved astonishingly diverse structures where the nanoscale assembly of components is key to their functionality. Such nanostructures self-assemble at massive scales and at spatial resolutions surpassing top-down production techniques. The leaves of a single tree, e.g., can cover the area of 10.000 m^2 while every mm^2 contains more than 10^8 highly efficient light-harvesting complexes. For future photovoltaic devices, light-managing surfaces and photonic devices it will thus be beneficial to adopt principles of self-assembly. Advances in design and low-cost production of DNA nanostructures allow us to challenge nature. By combining the assembly power of bottom-up DNA origami with top-down lithography it will be possible to fabricate functional nanostructured materials designed on the molecular level while reaching macroscopic dimensions.
With the goal to boost energy conversion rates, I will design DNA structures that grow from pre-patterned surfaces and assemble into interpenetrating 3D networks that exhibit the highest possible contact area for electron donor and acceptor molecules in organic photovoltaic devices. Spectral tuning through carefully designed dye arrangements will complement these efforts.
Custom-tailored photonic crystals built from lattices of DNA origami structures will control the flow of light. By incorporating dynamic DNA reconfigurability and colloidal nanoparticles at freely chosen positions, intelligent materials that respond to external cues such as light or heat are projected.
Positioning accuracy of 1 nm renders possible the emergence of so-called “Dirac plasmons” in DNA-assembled particle lattices. Such topologically protected states are sought after for the coherent and loss-less propagation of energy and information in next-generation all-optical circuits.
These approaches have the potential to reduce production costs and increase efficiencies of light-harvesting devices, intelligent surfaces and future computing devices.
Summary
Nature has evolved astonishingly diverse structures where the nanoscale assembly of components is key to their functionality. Such nanostructures self-assemble at massive scales and at spatial resolutions surpassing top-down production techniques. The leaves of a single tree, e.g., can cover the area of 10.000 m^2 while every mm^2 contains more than 10^8 highly efficient light-harvesting complexes. For future photovoltaic devices, light-managing surfaces and photonic devices it will thus be beneficial to adopt principles of self-assembly. Advances in design and low-cost production of DNA nanostructures allow us to challenge nature. By combining the assembly power of bottom-up DNA origami with top-down lithography it will be possible to fabricate functional nanostructured materials designed on the molecular level while reaching macroscopic dimensions.
With the goal to boost energy conversion rates, I will design DNA structures that grow from pre-patterned surfaces and assemble into interpenetrating 3D networks that exhibit the highest possible contact area for electron donor and acceptor molecules in organic photovoltaic devices. Spectral tuning through carefully designed dye arrangements will complement these efforts.
Custom-tailored photonic crystals built from lattices of DNA origami structures will control the flow of light. By incorporating dynamic DNA reconfigurability and colloidal nanoparticles at freely chosen positions, intelligent materials that respond to external cues such as light or heat are projected.
Positioning accuracy of 1 nm renders possible the emergence of so-called “Dirac plasmons” in DNA-assembled particle lattices. Such topologically protected states are sought after for the coherent and loss-less propagation of energy and information in next-generation all-optical circuits.
These approaches have the potential to reduce production costs and increase efficiencies of light-harvesting devices, intelligent surfaces and future computing devices.
Max ERC Funding
1 997 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-04-01, End date: 2024-03-31
Project acronym DYNAFLUORS
Project Dynamic Activatable Fluorophores
Researcher (PI) Marc VENDRELL ESCOBAR
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE5, ERC-2017-COG
Summary In DYNAFLUORS I will develop the first chemical toolbox for imaging in real time the activity of immune cells in tumours.
Although the management of cancer has improved over the years, the cure rates for patients with metastasis and advanced tumours remain low due to lack of appropriate therapies. Recent studies suggest that drugs empowering host immune cells (i.e. immunotherapies) are promising approaches for intractable tumours. However, there are no tools to visualise and understand how host immune cells stop cancer progression in vivo. This important unmet challenge drives the ambitious targets of this proposal.
Over the past 10 years, I have pioneered the development of chemical fluorophores that allow unparalleled analysis of biological systems. In this project, I will implement an innovative approach to unify cutting-edge methodologies in chemistry and biology and develop Dynamic Activatable Fluorophores (DYNAFLUORS) as a chemical toolbox with enhanced imaging capabilities over current technologies.
The cross-disciplinary and ambitious nature of this project will open multiple avenues for broad impact in many areas of chemistry as well as in basic biology, imaging and medicine. DYNAFLUORS will allow us to image, from the molecular level to human tissue, the activity of immune cells in tumours and the response to therapy in real time. This ground-breaking chemical platform will represent a step forward in the forefront of chemical imaging and will create new opportunities in the personalised management of cancer.
In the long term, DYNAFLUORS will become a transformative toolbox for monitoring disease in humans. The integration of functional fluorophores into imaging technologies to perform ‘optical biopsies’ in vivo and to create patient-specific drug-response assays has the potential to revolutionise the diagnosis, stratification and personalised treatment of disease.
Summary
In DYNAFLUORS I will develop the first chemical toolbox for imaging in real time the activity of immune cells in tumours.
Although the management of cancer has improved over the years, the cure rates for patients with metastasis and advanced tumours remain low due to lack of appropriate therapies. Recent studies suggest that drugs empowering host immune cells (i.e. immunotherapies) are promising approaches for intractable tumours. However, there are no tools to visualise and understand how host immune cells stop cancer progression in vivo. This important unmet challenge drives the ambitious targets of this proposal.
Over the past 10 years, I have pioneered the development of chemical fluorophores that allow unparalleled analysis of biological systems. In this project, I will implement an innovative approach to unify cutting-edge methodologies in chemistry and biology and develop Dynamic Activatable Fluorophores (DYNAFLUORS) as a chemical toolbox with enhanced imaging capabilities over current technologies.
The cross-disciplinary and ambitious nature of this project will open multiple avenues for broad impact in many areas of chemistry as well as in basic biology, imaging and medicine. DYNAFLUORS will allow us to image, from the molecular level to human tissue, the activity of immune cells in tumours and the response to therapy in real time. This ground-breaking chemical platform will represent a step forward in the forefront of chemical imaging and will create new opportunities in the personalised management of cancer.
In the long term, DYNAFLUORS will become a transformative toolbox for monitoring disease in humans. The integration of functional fluorophores into imaging technologies to perform ‘optical biopsies’ in vivo and to create patient-specific drug-response assays has the potential to revolutionise the diagnosis, stratification and personalised treatment of disease.
Max ERC Funding
1 986 650 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31
Project acronym ECO-ZEN
Project Enabling Catalytic Cross Couplings with only Zinc Electrophiles, Nucleophiles and Boranes
Researcher (PI) Michael James INGLESON
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE5, ERC-2017-COG
Summary This high-impact, challenging CoG Proposal integrates multiple novel ideas in boron and zinc chemistry into an overarching project to open up new horizons across synthesis and catalysis. The Applicant’s successful ERC StG has opened up new avenues of pioneering research in main group element mediated transformations that were not conceivable before the work was done. Components of this proposal extend out from the StG into new, exciting research areas that are completely different. Developing low toxicity earth abundant catalysts for important transformations is vital to the EU with the focus herein being on; (i) the Suzuki-Miyaura (S-M) cross coupling reaction which is ubiquitous in industry and academia, and (ii) the formation of organoboranes that are essential synthetic intermediates. Both of these are currently dominated by toxic, expensive and low abundance precious metal catalysts (e.g. Pd, Ir). This project will deliver innovation through utilising combinations of main group Lewis acids and nucleophilic anions that do not react with each other, i.e. are frustrated pairs. This “frustration” enables the two species to concertedly transform substrates to achieve:
(i) Precious metal-free S-M cross coupling reactions of sp3C electrophiles catalysed by zinc and boron compounds, including stereospecific couplings and one pot two step cross electrophile couplings.
(ii) Trans-elementoboration of alkynes, including the unprecedented fluoroboration of alkynes.
Other new approaches will be developed to access novel (hetero)arylboronic acid derivatives using only simple boranes and without requiring noble metal catalysts, specifically: (i) boron directed C-H borylation and (ii) directed ortho borylation to enable subsequent meta selective SEAr C-H functionalisation.
This CoG will afford the freedom and impetus via consolidated funding to undertake fundamental research to deliver high impact results, including developing a new area of cross coupling catalysis research.
Summary
This high-impact, challenging CoG Proposal integrates multiple novel ideas in boron and zinc chemistry into an overarching project to open up new horizons across synthesis and catalysis. The Applicant’s successful ERC StG has opened up new avenues of pioneering research in main group element mediated transformations that were not conceivable before the work was done. Components of this proposal extend out from the StG into new, exciting research areas that are completely different. Developing low toxicity earth abundant catalysts for important transformations is vital to the EU with the focus herein being on; (i) the Suzuki-Miyaura (S-M) cross coupling reaction which is ubiquitous in industry and academia, and (ii) the formation of organoboranes that are essential synthetic intermediates. Both of these are currently dominated by toxic, expensive and low abundance precious metal catalysts (e.g. Pd, Ir). This project will deliver innovation through utilising combinations of main group Lewis acids and nucleophilic anions that do not react with each other, i.e. are frustrated pairs. This “frustration” enables the two species to concertedly transform substrates to achieve:
(i) Precious metal-free S-M cross coupling reactions of sp3C electrophiles catalysed by zinc and boron compounds, including stereospecific couplings and one pot two step cross electrophile couplings.
(ii) Trans-elementoboration of alkynes, including the unprecedented fluoroboration of alkynes.
Other new approaches will be developed to access novel (hetero)arylboronic acid derivatives using only simple boranes and without requiring noble metal catalysts, specifically: (i) boron directed C-H borylation and (ii) directed ortho borylation to enable subsequent meta selective SEAr C-H functionalisation.
This CoG will afford the freedom and impetus via consolidated funding to undertake fundamental research to deliver high impact results, including developing a new area of cross coupling catalysis research.
Max ERC Funding
2 070 093 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-05-01, End date: 2023-04-30
