Project acronym DARKJETS
Project Discovery strategies for Dark Matter and new phenomena in hadronic signatures with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider
Researcher (PI) Caterina Doglioni
Host Institution (HI) LUNDS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE2, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The Standard Model of Particle Physics describes the fundamental components of ordinary matter and their interactions. Despite its success in predicting many experimental results, the Standard Model fails to account for a number of interesting phenomena. One phenomenon of particular interest is the large excess of unobservable (Dark) matter in the Universe. This excess cannot be explained by Standard Model particles. A compelling hypothesis is that Dark Matter is comprised of particles that can be produced in the proton-proton collisions from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.
Within this project, I will build a team of researchers at Lund University dedicated to searches for signals of the presence of Dark Matter particles. The discovery strategies employed seek the decays of particles that either mediate the interactions between Dark and Standard Model particles or are produced in association with Dark Matter. These new particles manifest in detectors as two, three, or four collimated jets of particles (hadronic jets).
The LHC will resume delivery of proton-proton collisions to the ATLAS detector in 2015. Searches for new, rare, low mass particles such as Dark Matter mediators have so far been hindered by constraints on the rates of data that can be stored. These constraints will be overcome through the implementation of a novel real-time data analysis technique and a new search signature, both introduced to ATLAS by this project. The coincidence of this project with the upcoming LHC runs and the software and hardware improvements within the ATLAS detector is a unique opportunity to increase the sensitivity to hadronically decaying new particles by a large margin with respect to any previous searches. The results of these searches will be interpreted within a comprehensive and coherent set of theoretical benchmarks, highlighting the strengths of collider experiments in the global quest for Dark Matter.
Summary
The Standard Model of Particle Physics describes the fundamental components of ordinary matter and their interactions. Despite its success in predicting many experimental results, the Standard Model fails to account for a number of interesting phenomena. One phenomenon of particular interest is the large excess of unobservable (Dark) matter in the Universe. This excess cannot be explained by Standard Model particles. A compelling hypothesis is that Dark Matter is comprised of particles that can be produced in the proton-proton collisions from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.
Within this project, I will build a team of researchers at Lund University dedicated to searches for signals of the presence of Dark Matter particles. The discovery strategies employed seek the decays of particles that either mediate the interactions between Dark and Standard Model particles or are produced in association with Dark Matter. These new particles manifest in detectors as two, three, or four collimated jets of particles (hadronic jets).
The LHC will resume delivery of proton-proton collisions to the ATLAS detector in 2015. Searches for new, rare, low mass particles such as Dark Matter mediators have so far been hindered by constraints on the rates of data that can be stored. These constraints will be overcome through the implementation of a novel real-time data analysis technique and a new search signature, both introduced to ATLAS by this project. The coincidence of this project with the upcoming LHC runs and the software and hardware improvements within the ATLAS detector is a unique opportunity to increase the sensitivity to hadronically decaying new particles by a large margin with respect to any previous searches. The results of these searches will be interpreted within a comprehensive and coherent set of theoretical benchmarks, highlighting the strengths of collider experiments in the global quest for Dark Matter.
Max ERC Funding
1 268 076 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-02-01, End date: 2021-01-31
Project acronym DIALOY
Project Mosaic loss of chromosome Y (LOY) in blood cells - a new biomarker for risk of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease in men
Researcher (PI) Lars Anders Forsberg
Host Institution (HI) UPPSALA UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS7, ERC-2015-STG
Summary My recent discoveries show that mosaic loss of chromosome Y (LOY) in peripheral blood is associated with increased risks of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). These conditions are responsible for >50% of morbidity/mortality in aging men. More than 15% of men older than 70 show some degree of LOY and these men survive on average only half as long as men without LOY. Smoking is strongly associated with LOY and remarkably, the fraction of cells with LOY decreases after cessation of smoking. Cells with LOY can be detected, and disease risks predicted, many years before clinical manifestation of disease. These results of associations between LOY, cancer and smoking have been published in Nature Genetics and Science during 2014.
The overall objective of the proposal is to develop LOY as a new, strong and predictive biomarker. To this end, the research program focuses on three objectives: 1) expanding the study of LOY and associations with disease risks in still larger cohorts; 2) investigating functional aspects of LOY; and 3) develop improved technology for LOY-detection. The successful execution of the project is essential before LOY-testing in clinics can be realized.
Diagnosis of cancer and AD in modern medicine is based on clinical symptoms of disease. Through earlier identification of individuals at increased risk for disease, preventive strategies could be applied, before the severe stages appear. Preliminary results affirm the feasibility of the project and provide proof-of-concept that LOY-tests can be used for early identification of men with increased risks for these diseases. In addition to improving diagnostics and therapeutics; implementation of LOY-testing could prevent smoking-related disease and reduce the health care costs. In the end, LOY-testing could decrease male mortality rates and possibly eliminate the sex-difference in life expectancy. The project will therefore benefit individual patients as well as healthcare systems and society at large.
Summary
My recent discoveries show that mosaic loss of chromosome Y (LOY) in peripheral blood is associated with increased risks of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). These conditions are responsible for >50% of morbidity/mortality in aging men. More than 15% of men older than 70 show some degree of LOY and these men survive on average only half as long as men without LOY. Smoking is strongly associated with LOY and remarkably, the fraction of cells with LOY decreases after cessation of smoking. Cells with LOY can be detected, and disease risks predicted, many years before clinical manifestation of disease. These results of associations between LOY, cancer and smoking have been published in Nature Genetics and Science during 2014.
The overall objective of the proposal is to develop LOY as a new, strong and predictive biomarker. To this end, the research program focuses on three objectives: 1) expanding the study of LOY and associations with disease risks in still larger cohorts; 2) investigating functional aspects of LOY; and 3) develop improved technology for LOY-detection. The successful execution of the project is essential before LOY-testing in clinics can be realized.
Diagnosis of cancer and AD in modern medicine is based on clinical symptoms of disease. Through earlier identification of individuals at increased risk for disease, preventive strategies could be applied, before the severe stages appear. Preliminary results affirm the feasibility of the project and provide proof-of-concept that LOY-tests can be used for early identification of men with increased risks for these diseases. In addition to improving diagnostics and therapeutics; implementation of LOY-testing could prevent smoking-related disease and reduce the health care costs. In the end, LOY-testing could decrease male mortality rates and possibly eliminate the sex-difference in life expectancy. The project will therefore benefit individual patients as well as healthcare systems and society at large.
Max ERC Funding
1 525 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-03-01, End date: 2021-02-28
Project acronym Hidden Galleries
Project Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: ‘hidden galleries’ in the secret police archives in 20th Century Central and Eastern Europe
Researcher (PI) James Alexander Kapalo
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK - NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, CORK
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2015-STG
Summary This project concerns the creative agency of religious minorities in the transformation of Central and Eastern Europe societies in the 20th century. It constitutes the first comparative research on the secret police archives in the region from the perspective of the history and anthropology of religion and offers a radical perspectival shift on the value and uses of the secret police archives away from questions of justice and truth to questions of creative agency and cultural patrimony. Interdisciplinary in nature it combines archival, anthropological and cultural studies approaches to provide a re-examination and re-contextualization of the holdings of secret police archives in three states; Romania, Moldova and Hungary. The secret police archives, in addition to containing millions of files on individuals monitored by the state, also constitute a hidden repository of confiscated religious art and publications of religious minorities that were persecuted in the 20th century under fascism and communism. The investigation of these materials will be complemented by ethnographic research and the impact of the research will be extended through a public exhibition of previously hidden materials. The project has three principal stages: 1) copy/retrieve and catalogue examples of this creative material from the archives; 2) engage in ethnographic research with the communities that produced this material in order to explore the meaning and power of these artistic creations at the time of their production and in the context of post-socialism; 3) curate and stage a touring exhibition that re-presents the narratives and experiences of religious groups through their own artistic creations in order to conduct research in real time on questions of religious pluralism and intolerance in contemporary society. Through these three steps, this project will shed fresh light on the role that minority religious groups played in challenging the hegemonic order and in extending pluralism.
Summary
This project concerns the creative agency of religious minorities in the transformation of Central and Eastern Europe societies in the 20th century. It constitutes the first comparative research on the secret police archives in the region from the perspective of the history and anthropology of religion and offers a radical perspectival shift on the value and uses of the secret police archives away from questions of justice and truth to questions of creative agency and cultural patrimony. Interdisciplinary in nature it combines archival, anthropological and cultural studies approaches to provide a re-examination and re-contextualization of the holdings of secret police archives in three states; Romania, Moldova and Hungary. The secret police archives, in addition to containing millions of files on individuals monitored by the state, also constitute a hidden repository of confiscated religious art and publications of religious minorities that were persecuted in the 20th century under fascism and communism. The investigation of these materials will be complemented by ethnographic research and the impact of the research will be extended through a public exhibition of previously hidden materials. The project has three principal stages: 1) copy/retrieve and catalogue examples of this creative material from the archives; 2) engage in ethnographic research with the communities that produced this material in order to explore the meaning and power of these artistic creations at the time of their production and in the context of post-socialism; 3) curate and stage a touring exhibition that re-presents the narratives and experiences of religious groups through their own artistic creations in order to conduct research in real time on questions of religious pluralism and intolerance in contemporary society. Through these three steps, this project will shed fresh light on the role that minority religious groups played in challenging the hegemonic order and in extending pluralism.
Max ERC Funding
990 087 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym inHForm
Project Integrative omics of heart failure to inform discovery of novel drug targets and clinical biomarkers
Researcher (PI) J. Gustav Smith
Host Institution (HI) LUNDS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS7, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the aging European populations. It is the end-stage of myocardial and valvular disease, arising from loss of viable or functional muscle cells in the heart. Therapy is complicated by the multitude of causes and comorbidities of heart failure. New therapeutic targets and clinical biomarkers to individually tailor therapy (‘precision medicine’) are greatly needed. This research program aims to realize the promise of precision medicine by applying an integrated proteomic, genomic and epidemiological approach to the underlying causes, mechanisms and consequences for heart failure. The program builds on unique Swedish nation-wide disease registers and large biobanks, the translational research profile of the investigator and experience in genomics, epidemiology and proteomics. The program includes five work packages: (1) comprehensive plasma protein profiling through a discovery pipeline including novel microarray-based methods and mass spectrometry in a population-based cohort of 6000 subjects and clinical cases to identify subjects at risk for heart disease (2) assessment of heritable components to outcomes in heart disease using nation-wide Swedish registers (3) genome-wide discovery of variants associated with risk of and outcomes in heart disease as well as endophenotypes for cardiac structure and function, using resequencing and DNA microarrays in large population-based cohorts including >70,000 subjects from three generations (4) expression profiling in human heart samples and a novel human cardiomyocyte strain assay to translate genomic and proteomic findings to understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms (5) evaluate the clinical importance of plasma proteins and genetic variants in >3000 clinical cases. This research program is anticipated to result in new insights into the pathophysiology of heart failure and discovery of drug targets and clinical biomarkers.
Summary
Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the aging European populations. It is the end-stage of myocardial and valvular disease, arising from loss of viable or functional muscle cells in the heart. Therapy is complicated by the multitude of causes and comorbidities of heart failure. New therapeutic targets and clinical biomarkers to individually tailor therapy (‘precision medicine’) are greatly needed. This research program aims to realize the promise of precision medicine by applying an integrated proteomic, genomic and epidemiological approach to the underlying causes, mechanisms and consequences for heart failure. The program builds on unique Swedish nation-wide disease registers and large biobanks, the translational research profile of the investigator and experience in genomics, epidemiology and proteomics. The program includes five work packages: (1) comprehensive plasma protein profiling through a discovery pipeline including novel microarray-based methods and mass spectrometry in a population-based cohort of 6000 subjects and clinical cases to identify subjects at risk for heart disease (2) assessment of heritable components to outcomes in heart disease using nation-wide Swedish registers (3) genome-wide discovery of variants associated with risk of and outcomes in heart disease as well as endophenotypes for cardiac structure and function, using resequencing and DNA microarrays in large population-based cohorts including >70,000 subjects from three generations (4) expression profiling in human heart samples and a novel human cardiomyocyte strain assay to translate genomic and proteomic findings to understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms (5) evaluate the clinical importance of plasma proteins and genetic variants in >3000 clinical cases. This research program is anticipated to result in new insights into the pathophysiology of heart failure and discovery of drug targets and clinical biomarkers.
Max ERC Funding
1 496 625 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-04-01, End date: 2021-03-31
Project acronym NORVAS
Project Therapeutic and Biomarker Potential of long non-coding RNAs in Vascular Disease
Researcher (PI) Lars Maegdefessel
Host Institution (HI) KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS7, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The contribution of cardiovascular disease to human morbidity and mortality continues to steadily increase in our aging European society. In response, extraordinary efforts have been launched to determine the molecular and pathophysiological characteristics of its etiology. The collective work of multiple research groups has uncovered a complex transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulatory milieu, which is believed to be essential for maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis. Recently, non-coding RNAs, especially the ones with antisense capabilities such as microRNAs or ‘natural antisense transcripts’ (NATs) have received much attention. They have been identified as important transcriptional and post-transcriptional inhibitors of gene expression.
This current proposal describes the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to limit the burden of cardiovascular disease in general, and abdominal aortic aneurysms as well as carotid stenosis and subsequent stroke in particular. Using transcriptomic profiling techniques on human diseased tissue samples, we have identified two NATs (SLFNL-AS1 and NUDT6) as novel crucial regulators of smooth muscle cell survival via targeting CTPS1 and the fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) in the vascular system. We are using disease-relevant experimental in vivo models (rodents and LDLR-/- mini-pigs) to functionally assess how inhibition of these two NATs influences aneurysm progression and atherosclerotic plaque vulnerability. One focus of our studies is to utilize local delivery mechanisms for non-coding RNA modulators, such as drug eluting balloons and stents, to enhance the translational feasibility of our findings. Furthermore, we have access to unique human plasma material from patients with early and advanced forms of aneurysm disease, enabling us to investigate the biomarker value of non-coding RNAs in recognizing patients with acutely ruptured aneurysms, as well as predicting the future risk of rupture.
Summary
The contribution of cardiovascular disease to human morbidity and mortality continues to steadily increase in our aging European society. In response, extraordinary efforts have been launched to determine the molecular and pathophysiological characteristics of its etiology. The collective work of multiple research groups has uncovered a complex transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulatory milieu, which is believed to be essential for maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis. Recently, non-coding RNAs, especially the ones with antisense capabilities such as microRNAs or ‘natural antisense transcripts’ (NATs) have received much attention. They have been identified as important transcriptional and post-transcriptional inhibitors of gene expression.
This current proposal describes the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to limit the burden of cardiovascular disease in general, and abdominal aortic aneurysms as well as carotid stenosis and subsequent stroke in particular. Using transcriptomic profiling techniques on human diseased tissue samples, we have identified two NATs (SLFNL-AS1 and NUDT6) as novel crucial regulators of smooth muscle cell survival via targeting CTPS1 and the fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) in the vascular system. We are using disease-relevant experimental in vivo models (rodents and LDLR-/- mini-pigs) to functionally assess how inhibition of these two NATs influences aneurysm progression and atherosclerotic plaque vulnerability. One focus of our studies is to utilize local delivery mechanisms for non-coding RNA modulators, such as drug eluting balloons and stents, to enhance the translational feasibility of our findings. Furthermore, we have access to unique human plasma material from patients with early and advanced forms of aneurysm disease, enabling us to investigate the biomarker value of non-coding RNAs in recognizing patients with acutely ruptured aneurysms, as well as predicting the future risk of rupture.
Max ERC Funding
1 493 125 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-05-01, End date: 2021-04-30
Project acronym PRILA
Project Prisons: the Rule of Law, Accountability and Rights
Researcher (PI) Mary Rogan
Host Institution (HI) THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2015-STG
Summary PRILA will create the first account of how mechanisms for securing rights, ensuring accountability and achieving adherence to the rule of law are experienced in European prisons. Prisons are places where considerable power differentials exist, and are unique sites for the expression of the values which underpin public and prison law. Systems to ensure that prisoners are treated fairly and that rights are upheld are essential to ensure that imprisonment is conducted in ways that are just and promote good order. These are fundamental principles of the ‘European’ way in penal policy and penal law. Existing accounts of the deployment of penal power overlook key elements of how accountability, the rule of law, and rights are experienced. PRILA will document how prisoners, prison staff, staff of accountability bodies experience structures for ensuring decisions and actions taken in prison are fair, transparent, consistent, subject to appeal and review, and in compliance with principles of human rights. In doing so, PRILA will transform and extend accounts of legitimacy in prisons, judicial review of administrative action, the pains of imprisonment, and understandings of how penal power is experienced. Drawing on the disciplines of public and prison law, human rights, comparative law, and the sociology of punishment, the project will utilise legal, qualitative and quantitative research methods to create an account of how ‘accountability work’ is experienced. It will also examine how accountability structures are manifestations of penal ideologies or types of prison regimes. The project will advance current judicial and legal conceptions of accountability, the rule of law, and fairness, by reference to how these concepts are experienced in practice, and examine whether and how they are distinctively ‘European’. The project will thereby support the creation of better penal policies and practices aimed at the protection of the rule of law and rights in the prison context.
Summary
PRILA will create the first account of how mechanisms for securing rights, ensuring accountability and achieving adherence to the rule of law are experienced in European prisons. Prisons are places where considerable power differentials exist, and are unique sites for the expression of the values which underpin public and prison law. Systems to ensure that prisoners are treated fairly and that rights are upheld are essential to ensure that imprisonment is conducted in ways that are just and promote good order. These are fundamental principles of the ‘European’ way in penal policy and penal law. Existing accounts of the deployment of penal power overlook key elements of how accountability, the rule of law, and rights are experienced. PRILA will document how prisoners, prison staff, staff of accountability bodies experience structures for ensuring decisions and actions taken in prison are fair, transparent, consistent, subject to appeal and review, and in compliance with principles of human rights. In doing so, PRILA will transform and extend accounts of legitimacy in prisons, judicial review of administrative action, the pains of imprisonment, and understandings of how penal power is experienced. Drawing on the disciplines of public and prison law, human rights, comparative law, and the sociology of punishment, the project will utilise legal, qualitative and quantitative research methods to create an account of how ‘accountability work’ is experienced. It will also examine how accountability structures are manifestations of penal ideologies or types of prison regimes. The project will advance current judicial and legal conceptions of accountability, the rule of law, and fairness, by reference to how these concepts are experienced in practice, and examine whether and how they are distinctively ‘European’. The project will thereby support the creation of better penal policies and practices aimed at the protection of the rule of law and rights in the prison context.
Max ERC Funding
1 428 343 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-04-01, End date: 2021-03-31
Project acronym SouthHem
Project Realigning British Romanticism: White Settler and Indigenous Writing in the British-Controlled Southern Hemisphere, 1783-1870
Researcher (PI) Porscha Fermanis
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2015-STG
Summary SouthHem is a five-year research project designed to rethink and realign the nature and scope of British Romanticism by giving settler and indigenous literatures produced in the British-controlled Southern Hemisphere a more central role in defining the literary culture of the period 1783-1870. The project will carry out, for the first time, a detailed comparative analysis of these literatures and their interactions with British Romantic writing by focusing on case studies of encounter and transculturation in three transnational zones: “Zone 1” (Oceania): Australia and New Zealand; “Zone 2” (Southern Africa): the Cape Colony and Natal; and “Zone 3” (South-East Asia): Singapore, Java, and Malacca. The project has three inter-related aims: first, to consider the reciprocal transformations of literary themes, genres, standards, and forms in the British-controlled Southern Hemisphere and Britain; second, to rethink the ways in which nationhood, nationalism, and, in particular, national literature emerged in Britain and elsewhere by considering the global origins of nationalism; and third to problematise traditional periodisations of British Romanticism as beginning in the 1790s and ending in the 1830s. By radically expanding the type, provenance, and sample size of texts typically considered in studies of British Romanticism, this project will not only result in an important geographic, temporal, and conceptual rethinking of the field, but it will also provide a better understanding of how literary modernity emerged and developed outside of Europe and the Northern Hemisphere. As such, the project will facilitate larger cross-imperial and synthetic studies of the indigenous and settler literatures of the period.
Summary
SouthHem is a five-year research project designed to rethink and realign the nature and scope of British Romanticism by giving settler and indigenous literatures produced in the British-controlled Southern Hemisphere a more central role in defining the literary culture of the period 1783-1870. The project will carry out, for the first time, a detailed comparative analysis of these literatures and their interactions with British Romantic writing by focusing on case studies of encounter and transculturation in three transnational zones: “Zone 1” (Oceania): Australia and New Zealand; “Zone 2” (Southern Africa): the Cape Colony and Natal; and “Zone 3” (South-East Asia): Singapore, Java, and Malacca. The project has three inter-related aims: first, to consider the reciprocal transformations of literary themes, genres, standards, and forms in the British-controlled Southern Hemisphere and Britain; second, to rethink the ways in which nationhood, nationalism, and, in particular, national literature emerged in Britain and elsewhere by considering the global origins of nationalism; and third to problematise traditional periodisations of British Romanticism as beginning in the 1790s and ending in the 1830s. By radically expanding the type, provenance, and sample size of texts typically considered in studies of British Romanticism, this project will not only result in an important geographic, temporal, and conceptual rethinking of the field, but it will also provide a better understanding of how literary modernity emerged and developed outside of Europe and the Northern Hemisphere. As such, the project will facilitate larger cross-imperial and synthetic studies of the indigenous and settler literatures of the period.
Max ERC Funding
1 487 938 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
