ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

Ancient ceramic vessels are not merely lumps of clay that were formed and fired to be utilised at some point in the past. They represent vigorous discourses among raw materials, technological knowhow and the societies that produced and used them. In addressing the complexities inherent in archaeological ceramics, we attain an indispensable insight into past communities and the antiquity of our own society. Special-function vessels used in the transhipment of goods, termed Maritime Transport Containers (MTCs), can shed light on the multi-level mechanisms involved in ancient seaborne commerce. In the temporal and geographical context of the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age eastern Mediterranean (LBA-EIA, ca. 1650-750 BC), the highly visible hallmarks of the flourishing trade between sophisticated states are three distinct MTC types: the Canaanite Jars, Egyptian Jars and Transport Stirrup Jars, produced in the Levant, Egypt and the Aegean respectively. Cyprus was a key player within interregional commercial strategies, and its archaeological contexts have yielded prolific amounts of MTCs; however, the lack of a systematic study of these assemblages undermines our understanding of LBA-EIA Mediterranean interconnections. The proposed project aspires to provide a holistic study of the Levantine, Egyptian and Aegean MTCs from the Cypriot contexts of the LBA-EIA periods, addressing their morphology, origin, contents, chronology, capacity, manufacture technology, marking strategies and depositional practices. The project implements an innovative methodology, integrating archaeological, scientific, and technologically advanced approaches to illuminate the production, circulation, and consumption of MTCs and their contents. Acknowledging MTCs as principal contributors to the study of interregional exchanges, the proposed research will elucidate the transformative character of ancient commerce, and will provide substantial insights on intercultural connectivity in the Mediterranean.

1 254 300 €

Start date: 2021-06-01, End date: 2026-05-31

We know remarkably little about the impact of war on political competition in postwar societies in spite of the fact that postwar elections have garnered tremendous interest from researchers in a variety of fields. That interest, however, has been limited to establishing the relationship between electoral democratization and the incidence of conflict. Voters’ and parties’ electoral behaviour after the immediate post‐conflict period have remained largely neglected by researchers. The proposed project will fill this gap in our understanding of electoral legacies of war by analysing the evolution of political competition over the course of more than two decades in the six postwar states of Southeast Europe: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. Organised around three thematic areas/levels of analysis – voters, parties, communities – the project will lead to a series of important contributions. Through a combination of public opinion research, oral histories, and the innovative method of matching of individual census entries, the project will answer to which extent postwar elections are decided by voters’ experiences and perceptions of the ended conflict, as opposed to their considerations of the parties’ peacetime economic platforms and performance in office. In-depth study of party documents and platforms, party relations with the organisations of the postwar civil sector, as well as interviews with party officials and activists will shed light on the influence of war on electoral strategies, policy preferences, and recruitment methods of postwar political parties. And a combination of large-N research on the level of the region’s municipalities and a set of paired comparisons of several communities in the different postwar communities in the region will help expose the mechanisms through which war becomes embedded into postwar political competition and thus continues to exert its influence even decades after the violence has ended.

1 499 788 €

Start date: 2017-04-01, End date: 2022-03-31

In mammalian cells genetic information is stored in two compartments: in the nucleus and in the mitochondria. DNA in mitochondria (mtDNA), just like in theIn mammalian cells genetic information is stored in two locations: in the nucleus and in mitochondria. DNA in mitochondria, just like in the nucleus, must be faithfully copied and mistakes (i.e. mutations due to exogenous and endogenous DNA damaging agents) lead to formation of DNA lesions. Persistence of these DNA lesions leads to genomic instability and human diseases like cardiovascular, skeletal muscular and neurological disorders, cancer as well as normal aging process. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is anchored to the inner mitochondrial membrane thus is in a close proximity to the electron transport chain and is subjected to a constant attack by reactive oxygen species (ROS), generated as byproducts of oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). As a result mitochondria must have a robust DNA repair mechanism which becomes particularly important in non-dividing cells. It is accepted that DNA base excision repair (BER) pathway is a major defense mechanism against oxidative damage in human mitochondria. Aptly localized on mitochondrial inner membrane, mitochondrial BER enzymes: catalytic subunit of DNA polymerase γ (PolγA) along with its accessory subunit, DNA polymerase γ (PolγB), inner-membrane 5'-exo/endonuclease (EXOG), Apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 (APE1) and Ligase 3 (Lig3) form a membrane-bound, high molecular weight, complexes called “mitochondrial repairosome”, capable of carrying out complete DNA repair. Although BER can be readily detected in mitochondria and major components have been identified, the spatial-temporal organization of mitochondrial repairosome and molecular mechanism by which mtDNA is repaired is not well understood. The goal of this research project is to provide fundamental mechanistic insights into the assembly, composition, activities and structures of human mitochondrial repairosome.

1 500 000 €

Start date: 2020-02-01, End date: 2025-01-31

"DNA damage caused by chemical and physical factors can lead to detrimental effects to the cell and must be corrected. One of the primary pathways to achieve this repair is nucleotide excision repair (NER). In NER, the DNA damage is first located, a stretch of bases harboring the lesion is removed, and the gap is filled by a DNA polymerase. The unique feature of NER is its ability to correct a wide spectrum of DNA modifications of different sizes and chemical structures. The aim of the project is to structurally and biochemically characterize protein complexes involved in NER pathways in bacteria and eukaryotes. In bacterial NER, a complex of UvrA and UvrB proteins locates the damage and verifies its presence. In the first part of the project we plan to determine the crystal and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) structures of a UvrA-UvrB-DNA complex to elucidate the details of the mechanism of the first steps of bacterial NER. In eukaryotic NER, the 3′ incision is executed by XPG/Rad2 protein. Currently, no structural information is available for this protein. In the second part of the project, we plan to solve the crystal structures of XPG/Rad2 nuclease in apo form and in complex with the DNA substrate to elucidate the mechanism of the 3′ cut. We also plan to determine the structure of XPG/Rad2 in complex with the XPG/Rad2-binding domain from the p62 component of TFIIH, which will be an important building block for the determination of the architecture of the eukaryotic NER pre-incision complex. The third part of the project will elucidate the structure and mechanism of the Rad16-Rad7 yeast NER complex. It is implicated in numerous stages of NER, from damage detection to ubiquitination of other NER components. We plan to solve the crystal structures of the Rad16-Rad7 alone and in complexes with DNA or partner protein Abf1 to elucidate the mechanisms of various activities of Rad16-Rad7 and help design experiments that could test the in vivo function of this complex."

1 498 000 €

Start date: 2012-01-01, End date: 2017-12-31