Project acronym BINDING FIBRES
Project Soluble dietary fibre: unraveling how weak bonds have a strong impact on function
Researcher (PI) Laura Nyström
Host Institution (HI) EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS9, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Dietary fibres are recognized for their health promoting properties; nevertheless, many of the physicochemical mechanisms behind these effects remain poorly understood. While it is understood that dietary fibres can associate with small molecules influencing, both positively or negatively their absorption, the molecular mechanism, by which these associations take place, have yet to be elucidated We propose a study of the binding in soluble dietary fibres at a molecular level to establish binding constants for various fibres and nutritionally relevant ligands. The interactions between fibres and target compounds may be quite weak, but still have a major impact on the bioavailability. To gain insight to the binding mechanisms at a level of detail that has not earlier been achieved, we will apply novel combinations of analytical techniques (MS, NMR, EPR) and both natural as well as synthetic probes to elucidate the associations in these complexes from macromolecular to atomic level. Glucans, xyloglucans and galactomannans will serve as model soluble fibres, representative of real food systems, allowing us to determine their binding constants with nutritionally relevant micronutrients, such as monosaccharides, bile acids, and metals. Furthermore, we will examine supramolecular interactions between fibre strands to evaluate possible contribution of several fibre strands to the micronutrient associations. At the atomic level, we will use complementary spectroscopies to identify the functional groups and atoms involved in the bonds between fibres and the ligands. The proposal describes a unique approach to quantify binding of small molecules by dietary fibres, which can be translated to polysaccharide interactions with ligands in a broad range of biological systems and disciplines. The findings from this study may further allow us to predictably utilize fibres in functional foods, which can have far-reaching consequences in human nutrition, and thereby also public health.
Summary
Dietary fibres are recognized for their health promoting properties; nevertheless, many of the physicochemical mechanisms behind these effects remain poorly understood. While it is understood that dietary fibres can associate with small molecules influencing, both positively or negatively their absorption, the molecular mechanism, by which these associations take place, have yet to be elucidated We propose a study of the binding in soluble dietary fibres at a molecular level to establish binding constants for various fibres and nutritionally relevant ligands. The interactions between fibres and target compounds may be quite weak, but still have a major impact on the bioavailability. To gain insight to the binding mechanisms at a level of detail that has not earlier been achieved, we will apply novel combinations of analytical techniques (MS, NMR, EPR) and both natural as well as synthetic probes to elucidate the associations in these complexes from macromolecular to atomic level. Glucans, xyloglucans and galactomannans will serve as model soluble fibres, representative of real food systems, allowing us to determine their binding constants with nutritionally relevant micronutrients, such as monosaccharides, bile acids, and metals. Furthermore, we will examine supramolecular interactions between fibre strands to evaluate possible contribution of several fibre strands to the micronutrient associations. At the atomic level, we will use complementary spectroscopies to identify the functional groups and atoms involved in the bonds between fibres and the ligands. The proposal describes a unique approach to quantify binding of small molecules by dietary fibres, which can be translated to polysaccharide interactions with ligands in a broad range of biological systems and disciplines. The findings from this study may further allow us to predictably utilize fibres in functional foods, which can have far-reaching consequences in human nutrition, and thereby also public health.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-04-01, End date: 2021-03-31
Project acronym FLIRT
Project Fluid Flows and Irregular Transport
Researcher (PI) Gianluca Crippa
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT BASEL
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE1, ERC-2015-STG
Summary "Several important partial differential equations (PDEs) arising in the mathematical description of physical phenomena exhibit transport features: physical quantities are advected by velocity fields that drive the dynamics of the system. This is the case for instance for the Euler equation of fluid dynamics, for conservation laws, and for kinetic equations.
An ubiquitous feature of these phenomena is their intrinsic lack of regularity. From the mathematical point of view this stems from the nonlinearity and/or nonlocality of the PDEs. Moreover, the lack of regularity also encodes actual properties of the underlying physical systems: conservation laws develop shocks (discontinuities that propagate in time), solutions to the Euler equation exhibit rough and ""disordered"" behaviors. This irregularity is the major difficulty in the mathematical analysis of such problems, since it prevents the use of many standard methods, foremost the classical (and powerful) theory of characteristics.
For these reasons, the study in a non smooth setting of transport and continuity equations, and of flows of ordinary differential equations, is a fundamental tool to approach challenging important questions concerning these PDEs.
This project aims at establishing:
(1) deep insight into the structure of solutions of nonlinear PDEs, in particular the Euler equation and multidimensional systems of conservation laws,
(2) rigorous bounds for mixing phenomena in fluid flows, phenomena for which giving a precise mathematical formulation is extremely challenging.
The unifying factor of this proposal is that the analysis will rely on major advances in the theory of flows of ordinary differential equations in a non smooth setting, thus providing a robust formulation via characteristics for the PDEs under consideration. The guiding thread is the crucial role of geometric measure theory techniques, which are extremely efficient to describe and investigate irregular phenomena."
Summary
"Several important partial differential equations (PDEs) arising in the mathematical description of physical phenomena exhibit transport features: physical quantities are advected by velocity fields that drive the dynamics of the system. This is the case for instance for the Euler equation of fluid dynamics, for conservation laws, and for kinetic equations.
An ubiquitous feature of these phenomena is their intrinsic lack of regularity. From the mathematical point of view this stems from the nonlinearity and/or nonlocality of the PDEs. Moreover, the lack of regularity also encodes actual properties of the underlying physical systems: conservation laws develop shocks (discontinuities that propagate in time), solutions to the Euler equation exhibit rough and ""disordered"" behaviors. This irregularity is the major difficulty in the mathematical analysis of such problems, since it prevents the use of many standard methods, foremost the classical (and powerful) theory of characteristics.
For these reasons, the study in a non smooth setting of transport and continuity equations, and of flows of ordinary differential equations, is a fundamental tool to approach challenging important questions concerning these PDEs.
This project aims at establishing:
(1) deep insight into the structure of solutions of nonlinear PDEs, in particular the Euler equation and multidimensional systems of conservation laws,
(2) rigorous bounds for mixing phenomena in fluid flows, phenomena for which giving a precise mathematical formulation is extremely challenging.
The unifying factor of this proposal is that the analysis will rely on major advances in the theory of flows of ordinary differential equations in a non smooth setting, thus providing a robust formulation via characteristics for the PDEs under consideration. The guiding thread is the crucial role of geometric measure theory techniques, which are extremely efficient to describe and investigate irregular phenomena."
Max ERC Funding
1 009 351 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-06-01, End date: 2021-05-31
Project acronym GRAPHCPX
Project A graph complex valued field theory
Researcher (PI) Thomas Hans Willwacher
Host Institution (HI) EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE1, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The goal of the proposed project is to create a universal (AKSZ type) topological field theory with values in graph complexes, capturing the rational homotopy types of manifolds, configuration and embedding spaces.
If successful, such a theory will unite certain areas of mathematical physics, topology, homological algebra and algebraic geometry. More concretely, from the physical viewpoint it would give a precise topological interpretation of a class of well studied topological field theories, as opposed to the current state of the art, in which these theories are defined by giving formulae without guarantees on the non-triviality of the produced invariants.
From the topological viewpoint such a theory will provide new tools to study much sought after objects like configuration and embedding spaces, and tentatively also diffeomorphism groups, through small combinatorial models given by Feynman diagrams. In particular, this will unite and extend existing graphical models of configuration and embedding spaces due to Kontsevich, Lambrechts, Volic, Arone, Turchin and others.
From the homological algebra viewpoint a field theory as above provides a wealth of additional algebraic structures on the graph complexes, which are some of the most central and most mysterious objects in the field.
Such algebraic structures are expected to yield constraints on the graph cohomology, as well as ways to construct series of previously unknown classes.
Summary
The goal of the proposed project is to create a universal (AKSZ type) topological field theory with values in graph complexes, capturing the rational homotopy types of manifolds, configuration and embedding spaces.
If successful, such a theory will unite certain areas of mathematical physics, topology, homological algebra and algebraic geometry. More concretely, from the physical viewpoint it would give a precise topological interpretation of a class of well studied topological field theories, as opposed to the current state of the art, in which these theories are defined by giving formulae without guarantees on the non-triviality of the produced invariants.
From the topological viewpoint such a theory will provide new tools to study much sought after objects like configuration and embedding spaces, and tentatively also diffeomorphism groups, through small combinatorial models given by Feynman diagrams. In particular, this will unite and extend existing graphical models of configuration and embedding spaces due to Kontsevich, Lambrechts, Volic, Arone, Turchin and others.
From the homological algebra viewpoint a field theory as above provides a wealth of additional algebraic structures on the graph complexes, which are some of the most central and most mysterious objects in the field.
Such algebraic structures are expected to yield constraints on the graph cohomology, as well as ways to construct series of previously unknown classes.
Max ERC Funding
1 162 500 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-07-01, End date: 2021-06-30
