ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

Centrosomes are the main microtubule-organizing centers of animal cells. They influence the morphology of the microtubule cytoskeleton and function as the base of primary cilium, a nexus for important signaling pathways. Structural and functional defects in centrosome/cilium complex cause a variety of human diseases including cancer, ciliopathies and microcephaly. To understand the relationship between human diseases and centrosome/cilium abnormalities, it is essential to elucidate the biogenesis of centrosome/cilium complex and the control mechanisms that regulate their structure and function. To tackle these fundamental problems, we will dissect the function and regulation of centriolar satellites, the array of granules that localize around the centrosome/cilium complex in mammalian cells. Only recently interest in the satellites has grown because mutations affecting satellite components were shown to cause ciliopathies, microcephaly and schizophrenia. Remarkably, many centrosome/cilium proteins localize to these structures and we lack understanding of when, why and how these proteins localize to satellites. The central hypothesis of this grant is that satellites ensure proper centrosome/cilium complex structure and function by acting as transit paths for modification, assembly, storage, stability and trafficking of centrosome/cilium proteins. In Aim 1, we will identify the nature of regulatory and molecular relationship between satellites and the centrosome/cilium complex. In Aim 2, we will elucidate the role of satellites in proteostasis of centrosome/cilium proteins. In Aim 3, we will investigate the functional significance of satellite-localization of centrosome/cilium proteins during processes that go awry in human disease. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the proposed research will expand our knowledge of the spatiotemporal regulation of the centrosome/cilium complex and provide new insights into pathogenesis of ciliopathies and primary microcephaly.

1 499 819 €

Start date: 2016-06-01, End date: 2022-05-31

This research project aims to identify a new welfare regime in emerging market economies and explain why it has emerged. The project will compare Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey to test two hypotheses: (i) emerging market economies are forming a new welfare regime that differs from liberal, corporatist and social democratic welfare regimes of the global north on the basis of extensive and decommodifying social assistance programmes, (ii) the new welfare regime emerges principally as a response to the growing political power of the poor as a dual source of threat and support for governments. Based on a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, the project follows a multi-method strategy that combines state-of-the-art computer-based protest event data collection techniques, macro-historical methods, quantitative data analyses and qualitative content analysis. The project will radically expand the literatures on welfare regimes, welfare state development and contentious politics, by challenging the existing paradigms dominated by structuralist perspectives, a myopic focus on Western countries, and limited data collection and analysis techniques. This project is genuinely innovative, unprecedented, ground-breaking, ambitious and high-risk/high-gain in three ways: (i) it re-shapes the welfare regimes literatures as the first study to classify and explain welfare systems of emerging markets as a new welfare regime and (ii) the project demonstrates a causal link between changes in grassroots politics and welfare policies and challenge the structuralist preponderance in the existing welfare state development literature (iii) it makes a prodigious contribution to our empirical knowledge on contentious politics in emerging markets by creating the first cross-national databases on protest event, employing state-of-the art computer methods, such as natural language processing and machine learning, on newspaper archives.

1 494 240 €

Start date: 2017-01-01, End date: 2021-12-31

The objective of this project is the realization of a radically new nanowire fabrication technique, and exploration of its potential for nanowire based science and technology. The proposed method involves fabrication of unusually long, ordered nanowire and nanotube arrays in macroscopic fibres by means of an iterative thermal co-drawing process. Starting with a macroscopic rod with an annular hole tightly fitted with another rod of another compatible material, by successive thermal drawing we obtain arrays of nanowires embedded in fibres. With the method, wide range of materials, e.g. semiconductors, polymers, metals, can be turned into ordered nanorods, nanowires, nanotubes in various cross-sectional geometries. Main challenges are the thermal drawing steps that require critical matching of the viscoelastic properties of the protective cover with the encapsulated materials, and the liquid instability problems and phase intermixing with higher temperatures and smaller feature sizes that require high thermal and mechanical precision. Initially, fabrication by drawing will begin with soft amorphous semiconductors, phase change materials, polymers of interest in high temperature polymers, followed by a wider range of materials, low melting temperature metals, metals and common semiconductors (Si, Ge) in silica glass matrices. In this way nanowires that are ordered, easily accessible and hermetically sealed in a dielectric encapsulation will be obtained in high volumes. Potentially, these nanowires are advantages over on-chip nanowires in building flexible out of plane geometries, light weight, wearable and disposable devices. Ultimately, attaining ordered arrays of 1-D nanostructures in an extended flexible fibre with high yields will facilitate sought-after but up-to-now difficult applications such as the large area nanowire electronics and photonics, nanowire based scalable phase-change memory, nanowire photovoltaics, and emerging cell-nanowire interfacing.

1 495 400 €

Start date: 2012-10-01, End date: 2017-09-30

The main research question of the study is: How and why do some European citizens generate a populist and Islamophobist discourse to express their discontent with the current social, economic and political state of their national and European contexts, while some members of migrant-origin communities with Muslim background generate an essentialist and radical form of Islamist discourse within the same societies? The main premise of this study is that various segments of the European public (radicalizing young members of both native populations and migrant-origin populations with Muslim background), who have been alienated and swept away by the flows of globalization such as deindustrialization, mobility, migration, tourism, social-economic inequalities, international trade, and robotic production, are more inclined to respectively adopt two mainstream political discourses: Islamophobism (for native populations) and Islamism (for Muslim-migrant-origin populations). Both discourses have become pivotal along with the rise of the civilizational rhetoric since the early 1990s. On the one hand, the neo-liberal age seems to be leading to the nativisation of radicalism among some groups of host populations while, on the other hand, it is leading to the islamization of radicalism among some segments of deprived migrant-origin populations. The common denominator of these groups is that they are both downwardly mobile and inclined towards radicalization. Hence, this project aims to scrutinize social, economic, political and psychological sources of the processes of radicalization among native European youth and Muslim-origin youth with migration background, who are both inclined to express their discontent through ethnicity, culture, religion, heritage, homogeneity, authenticity, past, gender and patriarchy. The field research will comprise four migrant receiving countries: Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and two migrant sending countries: Turkey and Morocco.

2 276 125 €

Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31

"Control of matter via light has always fascinated humankind; not surprisingly, laser patterning of materials is as old as the history of the laser. However, this approach has suffered to date from a stubborn lack of long-range order. We have recently discovered a method for regulating self-organised formation of metal-oxide nanostructures at high speed via non-local feedback, thereby achieving unprecedented levels of uniformity over indefinitely large areas by simply scanning the laser beam over the surface. Here, we propose to develop hitherto unimaginable levels of control over matter through laser light. The total optical field at any point is determined by the incident laser field and scattered light from the surrounding surface, in a mathematical form similar to that of a hologram. Thus, it is only logical to control the self-organised pattern through the laser field using, e.g., a spatial light modulator. A simple wavefront tilt should change the periodicity of the nanostructures, but much more exciting possibilities include creation of patterns without translational symmetry, i.e., quasicrystals, or patterns evolving non-trivially under scanning, akin to cellular automata. Our initial results were obtained in ambient atmosphere, where oxygen is the dominant reactant, forming oxides. We further propose to control the chemistry by using a plasma jet to sputter a chosen reactive species onto the surface, which is activated by the laser. While we will focus on the basic mechanisms with atomic nitrogen as test reactant to generate compounds such as TiN and SiN, in principle, this approach paves the way to synthesis of an endless list of materials. By bringing these ideas together, the foundations of revolutionary advances, straddling the boundaries of science fiction, can be laid: laser-controlled self-assembly of plethora of 2D patterns, crystals, and quasicrystals alike, eventually assembled layer by layer into the third dimension -- a 3D material synthesiser."

1 999 920 €

Start date: 2014-06-01, End date: 2019-05-31

We recently reported the first observation of dynamic adaptive colloidal crystals exhibiting characteristics similar to those commonly associated with living organisms: self-replication, self-healing, adaptation, competition, motility. Here, I propose to do the first experiments to clarify precisely how dynamic adaptive behavior arises far from equilibrium and how to control it. The key to both is a fundamental question at the heart of condensed matter, statistical and nonlinear physics: When far from equilibrium, in the presence of fluctuations and faced with multiple steady states with small energy differences, how does a system evolve? Specifically, my objectives are (1) to form crystals with periodic and aperiodic patterns, e.g. 2D Bravais lattices, quasicrystals, using passive identical particles, (2) to quantify their formation energies through the effective temperature of Brownian particles, (3) to identify the conditions for emergence and control of adaptive behavior. Then, I will draw a complete phase map of these dynamic adaptive colloidal crystals using fitness landscapes to characterize each pattern. I will further ask to what extent this control is extendable down to the few-nm scale, where fluctuations are even stronger and if and how these findings change when using nonidentical, in size or shape, but still passive particles. My system comprises quasi-2D-confined pure-polystyrene 500-nm spheres suspended in water. An energy flux to drive the system far from equilibrium and sustain it there is supplied by an ultrafast laser. My method exploits only three physical tenets, nonlinearity, fluctuations and positive/negative feedback mechanisms acting on identical passive particles, yet generates extremely rich emergent dynamics. A full understanding of how such dynamics arise from so few basic ingredients will advance our understanding of complex systems in addition to numerous practical applications to self-assembly, microfluidics, nanoscience and biology.

1 500 000 €

Start date: 2019-11-01, End date: 2024-10-31

Moore’s Law drove the technology revolution for more than five decades and left no aspect of our lives untouched. State-of-the-art computation relies on transistors, whose dimensions or power consumption could no longer be reduced. Nevertheless, growing need for information processing, battery-constrained internet-of-things devices and wireless connectivity necessitates discoveries of nanoelectronic building blocks with novel physics. Thus, fundamental breakthroughs are needed in highly power-efficient non-volatile computational elements that meet the speed, bandwidth and scalability requirements of microelectronics industry. Using electronic spins for non-volatile computation could offer very diverse new device physics and architectures to meet these requirements. In SKYNOLIMIT project, I aim to experimentally demonstrate ultra-wideband, ultralow-power and non-volatile logic circuit architectures that operate based on nanoscale spins called magnetic skyrmions. Skyrmions are nanoscale spin structures that allow for room temperature computation and memory functions near thermodynamic limits while being robust against fabrication imperfections and stray magnetic fields. In this project, (1) I first computationally model, fabricate and test the novel functional nanomaterials with giant spin-orbit coupling and low damping to achieve all-electric generation/detection and processing of skyrmions using multilayers of topological insulators and/or 2D transition metal dichalcogenides on insulating rare earth iron garnet films. Second, (2) I plan to experimentally demonstrate skyrmion processors including signal generators, logic gates, registers, and fast Fourier transformers. Third, (3) I plan to experimentally implement neural network hardware using skyrmionics. Thus, high-speed and ultra-wideband 2D skyrmionics could help reduce power consumption, extend mobile battery life by a few orders of magnitude and help spintronics become a part of mainstream electronics.

2 500 000 €

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