Project acronym CANCERMETAB
Project Metabolic requirements for prostate cancer cell fitness
Researcher (PI) Arkaitz Carracedo Perez
Host Institution (HI) ASOCIACION CENTRO DE INVESTIGACION COOPERATIVA EN BIOCIENCIAS
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS4, ERC-2013-StG
Summary The actual view of cellular transformation and cancer progression supports the notion that cancer cells must undergo metabolic reprogramming in order to survive in a hostile environment. This field has experienced a renaissance in recent years, with the discovery of cancer genes regulating metabolic homeostasis, in turn being accepted as an emergent hallmark of cancer. Prostate cancer presents one of the highest incidences in men mostly in developed societies and exhibits a significant association with lifestyle environmental factors. Prostate cancer recurrence is thought to rely on a subpopulation of cancer cells with low-androgen requirements, high self-renewal potential and multidrug resistance, defined as cancer-initiating cells. However, whether this cancer cell fraction presents genuine metabolic properties that can be therapeutically relevant remains undefined. In CancerMetab, we aim to understand the potential benefit of monitoring and manipulating metabolism for prostate cancer prevention, detection and therapy. My group will carry out a multidisciplinary strategy, comprising cellular systems, genetic mouse models of prostate cancer, human epidemiological and clinical studies and bioinformatic analysis. The singularity of this proposal stems from the approach to the three key aspects that we propose to study. For prostate cancer prevention, we will use our faithful mouse model of prostate cancer to shed light on the contribution of obesity to prostate cancer. For prostate cancer detection, we will overcome the consistency issues of previously reported metabolic biomarkers by adding robustness to the human studies with mouse data integration. For prostate cancer therapy, we will focus on a cell population for which the metabolic requirements and the potential of targeting them for therapy have been overlooked to date, that is the prostate cancer-initiating cell compartment.
Summary
The actual view of cellular transformation and cancer progression supports the notion that cancer cells must undergo metabolic reprogramming in order to survive in a hostile environment. This field has experienced a renaissance in recent years, with the discovery of cancer genes regulating metabolic homeostasis, in turn being accepted as an emergent hallmark of cancer. Prostate cancer presents one of the highest incidences in men mostly in developed societies and exhibits a significant association with lifestyle environmental factors. Prostate cancer recurrence is thought to rely on a subpopulation of cancer cells with low-androgen requirements, high self-renewal potential and multidrug resistance, defined as cancer-initiating cells. However, whether this cancer cell fraction presents genuine metabolic properties that can be therapeutically relevant remains undefined. In CancerMetab, we aim to understand the potential benefit of monitoring and manipulating metabolism for prostate cancer prevention, detection and therapy. My group will carry out a multidisciplinary strategy, comprising cellular systems, genetic mouse models of prostate cancer, human epidemiological and clinical studies and bioinformatic analysis. The singularity of this proposal stems from the approach to the three key aspects that we propose to study. For prostate cancer prevention, we will use our faithful mouse model of prostate cancer to shed light on the contribution of obesity to prostate cancer. For prostate cancer detection, we will overcome the consistency issues of previously reported metabolic biomarkers by adding robustness to the human studies with mouse data integration. For prostate cancer therapy, we will focus on a cell population for which the metabolic requirements and the potential of targeting them for therapy have been overlooked to date, that is the prostate cancer-initiating cell compartment.
Max ERC Funding
1 498 686 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-11-01, End date: 2019-10-31
Project acronym CEAD
Project Contextualizing Evidence for Action on Diabetes in low-resource Settings: A mixed-methods case study in Quito and Esmeraldas, Ecuador.
Researcher (PI) Lucy Anne Parker
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD MIGUEL HERNANDEZ DE ELCHE
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2018-STG
Summary The relentless rise in diabetes is one of the greatest global health emergencies of the 21st century. The increase is most pronounced in low and middle income countries where today three quarters of people with diabetes live and over 80% of the deaths attributed to non-communicable diseases occur. In light of the wealth of knowledge already available about how to tackle the problem, most major international organizations call for the adoption healthy public policies and initiatives to strengthening health systems. However, implementation of recommended action remains limited in many settings. Most evidence comes from high-income settings and may generate recommendations that cannot be successfully implemented in other settings without careful consideration and contextualization. I propose here that this “know-do” gap can be reduced by revealing the barriers to implementing evidence-based recommendations, engaging local stakeholders in developing context-led innovations and developing a tool-kit for contextualizing and implementing diabetes recommendations in low-resource settings. I plan the research in two carefully selected settings in Ecuador, with mixed-methods combining quantitative epidemiological research and qualitative methodology to generate the rich and varied knowledge that is required to trigger policy action and/or changes in care models. Furthermore, I will engage patients, community members, health workers and decision makers in the process of knowledge generation, interpretation and use. The overarching objective is hence, to explore the process by which global recommendations can be translated into context-specific, evidence-informed action for diabetes prevention in low-resource settings. The findings will support the global endeavour to bridge the global “know-do” gap, one of the most important public health challenges this century and a great opportunity for strengthening health systems and achieving health equity.
Summary
The relentless rise in diabetes is one of the greatest global health emergencies of the 21st century. The increase is most pronounced in low and middle income countries where today three quarters of people with diabetes live and over 80% of the deaths attributed to non-communicable diseases occur. In light of the wealth of knowledge already available about how to tackle the problem, most major international organizations call for the adoption healthy public policies and initiatives to strengthening health systems. However, implementation of recommended action remains limited in many settings. Most evidence comes from high-income settings and may generate recommendations that cannot be successfully implemented in other settings without careful consideration and contextualization. I propose here that this “know-do” gap can be reduced by revealing the barriers to implementing evidence-based recommendations, engaging local stakeholders in developing context-led innovations and developing a tool-kit for contextualizing and implementing diabetes recommendations in low-resource settings. I plan the research in two carefully selected settings in Ecuador, with mixed-methods combining quantitative epidemiological research and qualitative methodology to generate the rich and varied knowledge that is required to trigger policy action and/or changes in care models. Furthermore, I will engage patients, community members, health workers and decision makers in the process of knowledge generation, interpretation and use. The overarching objective is hence, to explore the process by which global recommendations can be translated into context-specific, evidence-informed action for diabetes prevention in low-resource settings. The findings will support the global endeavour to bridge the global “know-do” gap, one of the most important public health challenges this century and a great opportunity for strengthening health systems and achieving health equity.
Max ERC Funding
1 475 334 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym HEARTHEALTHYHOODS
Project Social and Physical Urban Environment and Cardiovascular Health: The Much Needed Population Approach
Researcher (PI) Manuel Carlos Franco Tejero
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE ALCALA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2013-StG
Summary Previous research has shown that the environments where we live and work have a major impact on our health. Given the economic and public health burden of cardiovascular diseases in Europe, we propose to measure specific aspects of the social and physical urban environment and to assess their contribution to cardiovascular risk. These results will provide the scientific evidence needed to develop population-wide preventive interventions.
Specifically, for this project we will assess the food, physical activity and tobacco environments of 90 neighbourhoods in Madrid, Spain, using three complementary approaches: inhabitant perceptions, geographic information systems and systematic social observation. We will then correlate these data with cardiovascular health obtained from two different sources: first, a primary care-based cohort study including 2200 persons from 90 neighbourhoods, and second, a whole-population study including every inhabitant of the targeted neighbourhoods using primary care electronic health records (>99% coverage).
The methodology of this proposal includes state-of-the-art qualitative and quantitative tools. We will combine ecometrics, geography, sociology and anthropology, to obtain a comprehensive description of the environments within which our population resides and works. In addition, the cohort study will include direct measures of cardiovascular health indicators, constituting a robust and multi-faceted source of data. The whole-population study offers the potential to have a complete portrait of the cardiovascular health of the 2.2 million inhabitants of our designated neighbourhoods. Cohort studies of this kind offer the opportunity for collaborative work, which can lead to a large and extended multidisciplinary scientific project.
This proposal offers a novel way of understanding cardiovascular health by combining a social science perspective with high-quality cardiovascular data collection within a rigorous epidemiological design.
Summary
Previous research has shown that the environments where we live and work have a major impact on our health. Given the economic and public health burden of cardiovascular diseases in Europe, we propose to measure specific aspects of the social and physical urban environment and to assess their contribution to cardiovascular risk. These results will provide the scientific evidence needed to develop population-wide preventive interventions.
Specifically, for this project we will assess the food, physical activity and tobacco environments of 90 neighbourhoods in Madrid, Spain, using three complementary approaches: inhabitant perceptions, geographic information systems and systematic social observation. We will then correlate these data with cardiovascular health obtained from two different sources: first, a primary care-based cohort study including 2200 persons from 90 neighbourhoods, and second, a whole-population study including every inhabitant of the targeted neighbourhoods using primary care electronic health records (>99% coverage).
The methodology of this proposal includes state-of-the-art qualitative and quantitative tools. We will combine ecometrics, geography, sociology and anthropology, to obtain a comprehensive description of the environments within which our population resides and works. In addition, the cohort study will include direct measures of cardiovascular health indicators, constituting a robust and multi-faceted source of data. The whole-population study offers the potential to have a complete portrait of the cardiovascular health of the 2.2 million inhabitants of our designated neighbourhoods. Cohort studies of this kind offer the opportunity for collaborative work, which can lead to a large and extended multidisciplinary scientific project.
This proposal offers a novel way of understanding cardiovascular health by combining a social science perspective with high-quality cardiovascular data collection within a rigorous epidemiological design.
Max ERC Funding
1 467 896 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-04-01, End date: 2019-03-31
Project acronym MapModern
Project Social Networks of the Past: Mapping Hispanic and Lusophone Literary Modernity, 1898-1959
Researcher (PI) Diana Roig Sanz
Host Institution (HI) FUNDACIO PER A LA UNIVERSITAT OBERTA DE CATALUNYA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Data mining and big data approaches are changing the ways in which we create knowledge, access information and preserve our cultural heritage. This research applies cutting-edge technology to analyse a neglected aspect of European and non-European social and cultural life of the 20th century: the impact of Hispanic and Lusophone literary networks and cultural mediators in international modernity between 1898 and 1959. The project pursues three central goals: 1) to retrieve the lost history of Iberoamerican mediators in modernist intercultural and multilingual networks and reappraise their role; 2) to narrow the knowledge divide in terms of access and production in the Iberoamerican field by generating and making freely available new and reliable data that addresses the lack of documented cultural heritage, and 3) to offer an innovative and reproducible model that can be applied across periods, languages, and disciplines to analyse cross-border phenomena, under-examined mediators and networks and overshadowed geographical scales in their relations to the wider world. These goals will be achieved by a twofold methodology: i) an open and collaborative research tool providing a data source for quantitative and qualitative analysis on Iberoamerican mediators, and ii) four subprojects on key cultural transformation processes distinctive of modern societies (the institutionalization of Iberoamerican cultures, the rise of translated literature in key Iberoamerican modernist journals, the position of Iberoamerican women in the cultural field, and the role of Iberoamerican mediators in new forms of mass media). By combining computational methods, cultural, literary history, translation, sociology, gender and media studies, I will lead an interdisciplinary team of 6 researchers that will fill the gap in modernist studies and will offer an original, reproducible and empirically tested method for studying social human interaction within a global, cultural and decentred approach
Summary
Data mining and big data approaches are changing the ways in which we create knowledge, access information and preserve our cultural heritage. This research applies cutting-edge technology to analyse a neglected aspect of European and non-European social and cultural life of the 20th century: the impact of Hispanic and Lusophone literary networks and cultural mediators in international modernity between 1898 and 1959. The project pursues three central goals: 1) to retrieve the lost history of Iberoamerican mediators in modernist intercultural and multilingual networks and reappraise their role; 2) to narrow the knowledge divide in terms of access and production in the Iberoamerican field by generating and making freely available new and reliable data that addresses the lack of documented cultural heritage, and 3) to offer an innovative and reproducible model that can be applied across periods, languages, and disciplines to analyse cross-border phenomena, under-examined mediators and networks and overshadowed geographical scales in their relations to the wider world. These goals will be achieved by a twofold methodology: i) an open and collaborative research tool providing a data source for quantitative and qualitative analysis on Iberoamerican mediators, and ii) four subprojects on key cultural transformation processes distinctive of modern societies (the institutionalization of Iberoamerican cultures, the rise of translated literature in key Iberoamerican modernist journals, the position of Iberoamerican women in the cultural field, and the role of Iberoamerican mediators in new forms of mass media). By combining computational methods, cultural, literary history, translation, sociology, gender and media studies, I will lead an interdisciplinary team of 6 researchers that will fill the gap in modernist studies and will offer an original, reproducible and empirically tested method for studying social human interaction within a global, cultural and decentred approach
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-12-01, End date: 2023-11-30
Project acronym MULTIPALEOIBERIA
Project Population dynamics and cultural adaptations of the last Neandertals and first Modern humans in inland Iberia: a multi-proxy investigation
Researcher (PI) Manuel ALCARAZ-CASTAnO
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE ALCALA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2018-STG
Summary The relations between cultural developments and environmental change among hunter-gatherers are crucial for studying population dynamics during the last glaciation (110,000–11,700 years ago). However, proposing solid interpretations on how climate and environment variability affected the social and techno-economic organisation of hominins, requires robust geoarchaeological, chronological, and palaeoecological evidence. In the Iberian Peninsula, a key area for this period due to its geographic position and ecological variability, models on these topics are biased by the poor quality of available evidence for its interior lands. The Iberian interior has been traditionally depicted as a marginal and few populated region due to its harsh ecological conditions compared to the coastal areas. Based on preliminary data suggesting that this picture could be wrong, I hypothesize (1) that the human settlement of interior Iberia during this period was more stable than previously thought and (2) that his has relevant implications at the European scale for problems such as the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans, the first modern human peopling of Europe, and the patterns of land use and mobility during the coldest stages of the last glacial. To test these hypotheses, this project will investigate population dynamics and human-environment interactions of the last Neandertals and first modern humans in interior Iberia based on completely unprecedented evidence gathered by means of a macro-regional and interdisciplinary research project. This involves the participation of a wide team of scholars coordinated by the PI, and a network of methods including field surveys, geoarchaeological excavations and chronometric, paleoecological, zooarchaeological, techno-economic and symbolic studies. The results will significantly change our views on key biocultural and ecological processes of the European prehistory, and the way human societies have dealt with challenging environments.
Summary
The relations between cultural developments and environmental change among hunter-gatherers are crucial for studying population dynamics during the last glaciation (110,000–11,700 years ago). However, proposing solid interpretations on how climate and environment variability affected the social and techno-economic organisation of hominins, requires robust geoarchaeological, chronological, and palaeoecological evidence. In the Iberian Peninsula, a key area for this period due to its geographic position and ecological variability, models on these topics are biased by the poor quality of available evidence for its interior lands. The Iberian interior has been traditionally depicted as a marginal and few populated region due to its harsh ecological conditions compared to the coastal areas. Based on preliminary data suggesting that this picture could be wrong, I hypothesize (1) that the human settlement of interior Iberia during this period was more stable than previously thought and (2) that his has relevant implications at the European scale for problems such as the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans, the first modern human peopling of Europe, and the patterns of land use and mobility during the coldest stages of the last glacial. To test these hypotheses, this project will investigate population dynamics and human-environment interactions of the last Neandertals and first modern humans in interior Iberia based on completely unprecedented evidence gathered by means of a macro-regional and interdisciplinary research project. This involves the participation of a wide team of scholars coordinated by the PI, and a network of methods including field surveys, geoarchaeological excavations and chronometric, paleoecological, zooarchaeological, techno-economic and symbolic studies. The results will significantly change our views on key biocultural and ecological processes of the European prehistory, and the way human societies have dealt with challenging environments.
Max ERC Funding
1 387 515 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym WINK
Project Women's Invisible Ink: Trans-Genre Writing and the Gendering of Intellectual Value in Early Modernity
Researcher (PI) Carmen FONT PAZ
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Literature scholars have succeeded in recovering texts by early modern women from different languages, genres, and sociopolitical contexts. Still, compared to their male counterparts, few women writers feature in national canons, or they compose a separate set of ‘early modern women writers’. A nuanced qualitative approach to their textual production reveals forms of self-taught, intellectually-minded trans-genre discourse (traversing poetry, drama, prose, novels) traditionally deemed irrelevant as it did not conform to a practice of scholarly male-dominated discourse. Thus, much original thinking by women has remained intact even if their texts are available to us.
The proposed research locates, identifies and examines the invisible written production of women in early European modernity in order to modify the single-gender paradigm of intellectual value. It surveys sources in six languages through a methodology based on trans-genre writing rather than on close genre types, allowing patterns of persuasive argumentation to emerge as intellectual input, while exposing the rhetorical models that have impinged on the social and cognitive processes identifying intellectual value as being androcentric.
The main research unfolds in three strands: 1) Synergies, examining religious and life-writing themes that shaped into ethical discourses on the common good. 2) Cloud intertextualities, tracing fragmented chains of intuitive argument in discursive narrative. 3) Textual porosity, understanding patterns of knowledge transference and authorial attribution in the management of sources.
The research outcomes will render co-authored articles, a virtual space environment as the reservoir and task field for comparative textual analysis, and a four-volume collection on the cultural history of textual misogyny. WINK approaches intellectual value as a category of gender analysis, bringing to light transformative thinking from understudied and underrepresented women authors.
Summary
Literature scholars have succeeded in recovering texts by early modern women from different languages, genres, and sociopolitical contexts. Still, compared to their male counterparts, few women writers feature in national canons, or they compose a separate set of ‘early modern women writers’. A nuanced qualitative approach to their textual production reveals forms of self-taught, intellectually-minded trans-genre discourse (traversing poetry, drama, prose, novels) traditionally deemed irrelevant as it did not conform to a practice of scholarly male-dominated discourse. Thus, much original thinking by women has remained intact even if their texts are available to us.
The proposed research locates, identifies and examines the invisible written production of women in early European modernity in order to modify the single-gender paradigm of intellectual value. It surveys sources in six languages through a methodology based on trans-genre writing rather than on close genre types, allowing patterns of persuasive argumentation to emerge as intellectual input, while exposing the rhetorical models that have impinged on the social and cognitive processes identifying intellectual value as being androcentric.
The main research unfolds in three strands: 1) Synergies, examining religious and life-writing themes that shaped into ethical discourses on the common good. 2) Cloud intertextualities, tracing fragmented chains of intuitive argument in discursive narrative. 3) Textual porosity, understanding patterns of knowledge transference and authorial attribution in the management of sources.
The research outcomes will render co-authored articles, a virtual space environment as the reservoir and task field for comparative textual analysis, and a four-volume collection on the cultural history of textual misogyny. WINK approaches intellectual value as a category of gender analysis, bringing to light transformative thinking from understudied and underrepresented women authors.
Max ERC Funding
1 489 550 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-03-01, End date: 2024-02-29
