Project acronym 2DNanoSpec
Project Nanoscale Vibrational Spectroscopy of Sensitive 2D Molecular Materials
Researcher (PI) Renato ZENOBI
Host Institution (HI) EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH
Country Switzerland
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE4, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary I propose to investigate the nanometer scale organization of delicate 2-dimensional molecular materials using nanoscale vibrational spectroscopy. 2D structures are of great scientific and technological importance, for example as novel materials (graphene, MoS2, WS2, etc.), and in the form of biological membranes and synthetic 2D-polymers. Powerful methods for their analysis and imaging with molecular selectivity and sufficient spatial resolution, however, are lacking. Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) allows label-free spectroscopic identification of molecular species, with ≈10 nm spatial resolution, and with single molecule sensitivity for strong Raman scatterers. So far, however, TERS is not being carried out in liquids, which is the natural environment for membranes, and its application to poor Raman scatterers such as components of 2D polymers, lipids, or other membrane compounds (proteins, sugars) is difficult. TERS has the potential to overcome the restrictions of other optical/spectroscopic methods to study 2D materials, namely (i) insufficient spatial resolution of diffraction-limited optical methods; (ii) the need for labelling for all methods relying on fluorescence; and (iii) the inability of some methods to work in liquids. I propose to address a number of scientific questions associated with the spatial organization, and the occurrence of defects in sensitive 2D molecular materials. The success of these studies will also rely critically on technical innovations of TERS that notably address the problem of energy dissipation. This will for the first time allow its application to study of complex, delicate 2D molecular systems without photochemical damage.
Summary
I propose to investigate the nanometer scale organization of delicate 2-dimensional molecular materials using nanoscale vibrational spectroscopy. 2D structures are of great scientific and technological importance, for example as novel materials (graphene, MoS2, WS2, etc.), and in the form of biological membranes and synthetic 2D-polymers. Powerful methods for their analysis and imaging with molecular selectivity and sufficient spatial resolution, however, are lacking. Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) allows label-free spectroscopic identification of molecular species, with ≈10 nm spatial resolution, and with single molecule sensitivity for strong Raman scatterers. So far, however, TERS is not being carried out in liquids, which is the natural environment for membranes, and its application to poor Raman scatterers such as components of 2D polymers, lipids, or other membrane compounds (proteins, sugars) is difficult. TERS has the potential to overcome the restrictions of other optical/spectroscopic methods to study 2D materials, namely (i) insufficient spatial resolution of diffraction-limited optical methods; (ii) the need for labelling for all methods relying on fluorescence; and (iii) the inability of some methods to work in liquids. I propose to address a number of scientific questions associated with the spatial organization, and the occurrence of defects in sensitive 2D molecular materials. The success of these studies will also rely critically on technical innovations of TERS that notably address the problem of energy dissipation. This will for the first time allow its application to study of complex, delicate 2D molecular systems without photochemical damage.
Max ERC Funding
2 311 696 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym BRCA-ERC
Project Understanding cancer development in BRCA 1/2 mutation carriers for improved Early detection and Risk Control
Researcher (PI) Martin WIDSCHWENDTER
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS7, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary Recent evidence demonstrates that cancer is overtaking cardiovascular disease as the number one cause of mortality in Europe. This is largely due to the lack of preventative measures for common (e.g. breast) or highly fatal (e.g. ovarian) human cancers. Most cancers are multifactorial in origin. The core hypothesis of this research programme is that the extremely high risk of BRCA1/2 germline mutation carriers to develop breast and ovarian cancer is a net consequence of cell-autonomous (direct effect of BRCA mutation in cells at risk) and cell non-autonomous (produced in distant organs and affecting organs at risk) factors which both trigger epigenetic, cancer-initiating effects.
The project’s aims are centered around the principles of systems medicine and built on a large cohort of BRCA mutation carriers and controls who will be offered newly established cancer screening programmes. We will uncover how ‘cell non-autonomous’ factors work, provide detail on the epigenetic changes in at-risk tissues and investigate whether these changes are mechanistically linked to cancer, study whether we can neutralise this process and measure success in the organs at risk, and ideally in easy to access samples such as blood, buccal and cervical cells.
In my Department for Women’s Cancer we have assembled a powerful interdisciplinary team including computational biologists, functionalists, immunologists and clinician scientists linked to leading patient advocacy groups which is extremely well placed to lead this pioneering project to develop the fundamental understanding of cancer development in women with BRCA mutations. To reset the epigenome, re-establishing normal cell identity and consequently reducing cancer risk without the need for surgery and being able to monitor the efficacy using multicellular epigenetic outcome predictors will be a major scientific and medical breakthrough and possibly applicable to other chronic diseases.
Summary
Recent evidence demonstrates that cancer is overtaking cardiovascular disease as the number one cause of mortality in Europe. This is largely due to the lack of preventative measures for common (e.g. breast) or highly fatal (e.g. ovarian) human cancers. Most cancers are multifactorial in origin. The core hypothesis of this research programme is that the extremely high risk of BRCA1/2 germline mutation carriers to develop breast and ovarian cancer is a net consequence of cell-autonomous (direct effect of BRCA mutation in cells at risk) and cell non-autonomous (produced in distant organs and affecting organs at risk) factors which both trigger epigenetic, cancer-initiating effects.
The project’s aims are centered around the principles of systems medicine and built on a large cohort of BRCA mutation carriers and controls who will be offered newly established cancer screening programmes. We will uncover how ‘cell non-autonomous’ factors work, provide detail on the epigenetic changes in at-risk tissues and investigate whether these changes are mechanistically linked to cancer, study whether we can neutralise this process and measure success in the organs at risk, and ideally in easy to access samples such as blood, buccal and cervical cells.
In my Department for Women’s Cancer we have assembled a powerful interdisciplinary team including computational biologists, functionalists, immunologists and clinician scientists linked to leading patient advocacy groups which is extremely well placed to lead this pioneering project to develop the fundamental understanding of cancer development in women with BRCA mutations. To reset the epigenome, re-establishing normal cell identity and consequently reducing cancer risk without the need for surgery and being able to monitor the efficacy using multicellular epigenetic outcome predictors will be a major scientific and medical breakthrough and possibly applicable to other chronic diseases.
Max ERC Funding
2 497 841 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym ChAMPioN
Project Game-changing Precision Medicine for Curing All Myeloproliferative Neoplasms
Researcher (PI) Tessa Holyoake
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS7, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary Despite decades of research, developing ways to overcome drug resistance in cancer is the most challenging bottleneck for curative therapies. This is because, in some forms of cancer, the cancer stem cells from which the diseases arise are constantly evolving, particularly under the selective pressures of drug therapies, in order to survive. The events leading to drug resistance can occur within one or more individual cancer stem cell(s) – and the features of each of these cells need to be studied in detail in order to develop drugs or drug combinations that can eradicate all of them. The BCR-ABL+ and BCR-ABL- myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) are a group of proliferative blood diseases that can be considered both exemplars of precision medicine and of the drug resistance bottleneck. While significant advances in the management of MPN have been made using life-long and expensive tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), patients are rarely cured of their disease. This is because TKI fail to eradicate the leukaemia stem cells (LSC) from which MPN arise and which persist in patients on treatment, often leading to pervasive drug resistance, loss of response to therapy and progression to fatal forms of acute leukaemia. My goal is to change the way we study the LSC that persist in MPN patients as a means of delivering more effective precision medicine in MPN that is a “game-changer” leading to therapy-free remission (TFR) and cure. Here, I will apply an innovative strategy, ChAMPioN, to study the response of the MPN LSC to TKI in innovative pre-clinical laboratory models and directly in patients with MPN - up to the resolution of individual LSC. This work will reveal, for the first time, the molecular and clonal evolution of LSC during TKI therapies, thus enabling the development of more accurate predictions of TKI efficacy and resistance and rational approaches for curative drug therapies.
Summary
Despite decades of research, developing ways to overcome drug resistance in cancer is the most challenging bottleneck for curative therapies. This is because, in some forms of cancer, the cancer stem cells from which the diseases arise are constantly evolving, particularly under the selective pressures of drug therapies, in order to survive. The events leading to drug resistance can occur within one or more individual cancer stem cell(s) – and the features of each of these cells need to be studied in detail in order to develop drugs or drug combinations that can eradicate all of them. The BCR-ABL+ and BCR-ABL- myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) are a group of proliferative blood diseases that can be considered both exemplars of precision medicine and of the drug resistance bottleneck. While significant advances in the management of MPN have been made using life-long and expensive tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), patients are rarely cured of their disease. This is because TKI fail to eradicate the leukaemia stem cells (LSC) from which MPN arise and which persist in patients on treatment, often leading to pervasive drug resistance, loss of response to therapy and progression to fatal forms of acute leukaemia. My goal is to change the way we study the LSC that persist in MPN patients as a means of delivering more effective precision medicine in MPN that is a “game-changer” leading to therapy-free remission (TFR) and cure. Here, I will apply an innovative strategy, ChAMPioN, to study the response of the MPN LSC to TKI in innovative pre-clinical laboratory models and directly in patients with MPN - up to the resolution of individual LSC. This work will reveal, for the first time, the molecular and clonal evolution of LSC during TKI therapies, thus enabling the development of more accurate predictions of TKI efficacy and resistance and rational approaches for curative drug therapies.
Max ERC Funding
3 005 818 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym GeoViSense
Project GeoViSense: Towards a transdisciplinary human sensor science of human visuo-spatial decision making with geographic information displays
Researcher (PI) Sara Irina FABRIKANT
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT ZURICH
Country Switzerland
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary Well-designed mobile, human responsive geographic information technology could improve the lives of millions who daily need to make time critical and societally relevant decisions on the go. However, what are the basic processes with which humans make visuo-spatial decisions when guided by responsive geographic information displays? Visualization research todate has been driven by technical and computational advances to overcome data deluges, but we still have a poor understanding whether, how, and when visual displays support spatio-temporal decision making and action, and for which kinds of users. We will break new ground to overcome this transdisciplinary knowledge gap and aim to: (1) integrate fragmented human-visualization-environment research across the sciences including natural, social/behavioral, and the engineering sciences, all critical to tackle this interdisciplinary problem, (2) develop missing, empirically evaluated design guidelines for human-computer interfaces of current/emerging mobile geographic information technology to support affective, effective, and efficient spatio-temporal decision-making, (3) develop unconventional evaluation methods by critical examination of how perceptual, cognitive, psycho-physiological, and display design factors might influence visuo-spatio-temporal decision making across broad ranges of users and mobile use contexts, and (4) scale up empirical methods from to-date controlled behavioral lab paradigms towards a new in-situ mobile human sensor science. A paradigm shift from current lab-based neuro-cognitive and affective science towards a location-based, close human sensing science will radically change the way we study human behavior across science. In doing so, we can improve spatio-temporal every-day decision making with graphic displays, and facilitate sustainable solutions for the increasingly mobile digital information society having to mitigate environmental emergencies, human refugee crises, or terror attacks.
Summary
Well-designed mobile, human responsive geographic information technology could improve the lives of millions who daily need to make time critical and societally relevant decisions on the go. However, what are the basic processes with which humans make visuo-spatial decisions when guided by responsive geographic information displays? Visualization research todate has been driven by technical and computational advances to overcome data deluges, but we still have a poor understanding whether, how, and when visual displays support spatio-temporal decision making and action, and for which kinds of users. We will break new ground to overcome this transdisciplinary knowledge gap and aim to: (1) integrate fragmented human-visualization-environment research across the sciences including natural, social/behavioral, and the engineering sciences, all critical to tackle this interdisciplinary problem, (2) develop missing, empirically evaluated design guidelines for human-computer interfaces of current/emerging mobile geographic information technology to support affective, effective, and efficient spatio-temporal decision-making, (3) develop unconventional evaluation methods by critical examination of how perceptual, cognitive, psycho-physiological, and display design factors might influence visuo-spatio-temporal decision making across broad ranges of users and mobile use contexts, and (4) scale up empirical methods from to-date controlled behavioral lab paradigms towards a new in-situ mobile human sensor science. A paradigm shift from current lab-based neuro-cognitive and affective science towards a location-based, close human sensing science will radically change the way we study human behavior across science. In doing so, we can improve spatio-temporal every-day decision making with graphic displays, and facilitate sustainable solutions for the increasingly mobile digital information society having to mitigate environmental emergencies, human refugee crises, or terror attacks.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-11-01, End date: 2023-04-30
Project acronym HCG
Project Honour in classical Greece: esteem, status, identity, and society in ancient Greek literature, life, and thought
Researcher (PI) Douglas CAIRNS
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary If ‘honour’ is an outmoded term, its modern analogues – esteem, respect, recognition, dignity, status, prestige, deference, face, image, etc. – still shape the dynamics of human social interaction. But modern understandings of honour in the societies and literatures of the past – especially the literature of ancient Greece – tend to present it as a single, specific, and more or less monolithic notion especially associated with zero-sum competition between alpha-males, a notion that is typically superseded by more co-operative, inclusive, and egalitarian values, whether in fifth-century BC Athenian democracy or in the eighteenth-century AD enlightenment. Where honour survives in popular perception as a characteristic of modern communities it is typically ghettoized in the world of inner-city gangs, in the Muslim East, or in the traditional machismo of the Mediterranean.
These and similar perceptions are erroneous, and their application to ancient Greek literature, society, and thought is deeply misleading. Using the findings of contemporary sociology and philosophy, with contributions from other disciplines from economics to literary studies, cognitive linguistics, and psychology, this project will lead to a root and branch transformation of the idées fixes that still mould the understanding of honour (Greek timê) in our ancient Greek sources. Far from being one value among many, timê is a pluralist, inclusive, and flexible notion, as important to ancient values of justice, friendship, and social solidarity as it is to the violence of heroic self-assertion and the pursuit of vengeance. It underpins not only the wrath of Achilles in the Iliad but also the community standards that seek to restrain and assuage that wrath. In Athenian law and politics it is as much about the rights that the law protects as it is about the pursuit of rivalry and competition through litigation. It pervades ancient Greek literature, thought, and society. This project will write its history.
Summary
If ‘honour’ is an outmoded term, its modern analogues – esteem, respect, recognition, dignity, status, prestige, deference, face, image, etc. – still shape the dynamics of human social interaction. But modern understandings of honour in the societies and literatures of the past – especially the literature of ancient Greece – tend to present it as a single, specific, and more or less monolithic notion especially associated with zero-sum competition between alpha-males, a notion that is typically superseded by more co-operative, inclusive, and egalitarian values, whether in fifth-century BC Athenian democracy or in the eighteenth-century AD enlightenment. Where honour survives in popular perception as a characteristic of modern communities it is typically ghettoized in the world of inner-city gangs, in the Muslim East, or in the traditional machismo of the Mediterranean.
These and similar perceptions are erroneous, and their application to ancient Greek literature, society, and thought is deeply misleading. Using the findings of contemporary sociology and philosophy, with contributions from other disciplines from economics to literary studies, cognitive linguistics, and psychology, this project will lead to a root and branch transformation of the idées fixes that still mould the understanding of honour (Greek timê) in our ancient Greek sources. Far from being one value among many, timê is a pluralist, inclusive, and flexible notion, as important to ancient values of justice, friendship, and social solidarity as it is to the violence of heroic self-assertion and the pursuit of vengeance. It underpins not only the wrath of Achilles in the Iliad but also the community standards that seek to restrain and assuage that wrath. In Athenian law and politics it is as much about the rights that the law protects as it is about the pursuit of rivalry and competition through litigation. It pervades ancient Greek literature, thought, and society. This project will write its history.
Max ERC Funding
1 893 626 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym IRiMaS
Project Interactive Research in Music as Sound:Transforming Digital Musicology
Researcher (PI) Michael Clarke
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary In an age when technology is revolutionizing the ways in which music is made and distributed, this project proposes correspondingly to transform approaches to musicology, moving from a primarily fixed, text-based approach to one that incorporates as an integral feature the interactive and aural. It brings skills and expertise from music technology to assist in the development of research strategies and software to enable musicological research to engage more directly with sound. It will pioneer a ground-breaking approach to music research in which dynamic interaction with sound is fundamental and music’s temporal and transient nature are central to research investigations and their dissemination, presenting a significant conceptual challenge to the traditional textual bias of much musical research and leading to new enhanced modes of musicological knowledge. Unlike current Digital Musicology, rather than using software primarily to extract quantized data, IRiMaS facilitates research through dynamic interactive engagement with sound.
The interactive approach will be developed in the context of three Case Studies in specific areas where prioritizing the aural is of particular significance. The Case Studies will focus on Spectralism in the field of Contemporary ‘Art’ Music; Tracking the Creative Process in Free Improvisation; and Folk Songs in Performance in the field of Ethnomusicology. Each study will produce substantial ground-breaking musicological outcomes in the form of software packages (as is appropriate to the nature of the project) and associated articles discussing the approach taken. They will also assist in working towards the development of models and generic tools to help establish the wider adoption of this interactive approach. Building on the PI's previous experience in related areas, researchers from musicological and technical backgrounds will come together to help realize these ambitious aims.
Summary
In an age when technology is revolutionizing the ways in which music is made and distributed, this project proposes correspondingly to transform approaches to musicology, moving from a primarily fixed, text-based approach to one that incorporates as an integral feature the interactive and aural. It brings skills and expertise from music technology to assist in the development of research strategies and software to enable musicological research to engage more directly with sound. It will pioneer a ground-breaking approach to music research in which dynamic interaction with sound is fundamental and music’s temporal and transient nature are central to research investigations and their dissemination, presenting a significant conceptual challenge to the traditional textual bias of much musical research and leading to new enhanced modes of musicological knowledge. Unlike current Digital Musicology, rather than using software primarily to extract quantized data, IRiMaS facilitates research through dynamic interactive engagement with sound.
The interactive approach will be developed in the context of three Case Studies in specific areas where prioritizing the aural is of particular significance. The Case Studies will focus on Spectralism in the field of Contemporary ‘Art’ Music; Tracking the Creative Process in Free Improvisation; and Folk Songs in Performance in the field of Ethnomusicology. Each study will produce substantial ground-breaking musicological outcomes in the form of software packages (as is appropriate to the nature of the project) and associated articles discussing the approach taken. They will also assist in working towards the development of models and generic tools to help establish the wider adoption of this interactive approach. Building on the PI's previous experience in related areas, researchers from musicological and technical backgrounds will come together to help realize these ambitious aims.
Max ERC Funding
2 471 416 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym LogNeuroDev
Project The molecular and cellular logic of vertebrate neural development
Researcher (PI) James BRISCOE
Host Institution (HI) THE FRANCIS CRICK INSTITUTE LIMITED
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS3, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary A central problem in biology and key to realising the potential of regenerative medicine is understanding the mechanisms that produce and organize cells in the complex tissues of an embryo. In broad terms, initially uncommitted progenitors acquire their fate in response to signals that control transcriptional programmes. These programmes drive cells through spatial and temporal successions of states that gradually refine cell identity. How these states are established and cell fate decisions implemented is poorly understood. To address this we use an experimentally tractable system – the formation of defined populations of progenitors in the vertebrate spinal cord. We take an interdisciplinary approach that combines our in vivo expertise with three recent advances in our group. First, we have developed in vitro differentiation systems and microfluidic devices that use embryonic stem cells to recapitulate development processes. Second, we have embraced new technologies that provide unprecedented ability to manipulate and assay single cells. Finally, we have established interdisciplinary collaborations to develop computational tools and construct data driven mathematical models. Using these approaches, alongside established embryological methods, we will establish a platform for manipulating and analysing mechanisms by which the multipotent progenitors that form the spinal cord acquire specific identities. We will identify the rules by which cells make decisions and we will define the design logic and network architectures that lead to distinct cell fate choices. The ability to: (i) follow the trajectory of a cell as it transitions to a specific neuronal subtype in vivo; (ii) manipulate the process in vitro and in vivo; and (iii) model it in silico, offers a unique system for understanding organogenesis. Together these approaches will provide the knowledge and technical foundations for rational, predictive tissue engineering of the spinal cord.
Summary
A central problem in biology and key to realising the potential of regenerative medicine is understanding the mechanisms that produce and organize cells in the complex tissues of an embryo. In broad terms, initially uncommitted progenitors acquire their fate in response to signals that control transcriptional programmes. These programmes drive cells through spatial and temporal successions of states that gradually refine cell identity. How these states are established and cell fate decisions implemented is poorly understood. To address this we use an experimentally tractable system – the formation of defined populations of progenitors in the vertebrate spinal cord. We take an interdisciplinary approach that combines our in vivo expertise with three recent advances in our group. First, we have developed in vitro differentiation systems and microfluidic devices that use embryonic stem cells to recapitulate development processes. Second, we have embraced new technologies that provide unprecedented ability to manipulate and assay single cells. Finally, we have established interdisciplinary collaborations to develop computational tools and construct data driven mathematical models. Using these approaches, alongside established embryological methods, we will establish a platform for manipulating and analysing mechanisms by which the multipotent progenitors that form the spinal cord acquire specific identities. We will identify the rules by which cells make decisions and we will define the design logic and network architectures that lead to distinct cell fate choices. The ability to: (i) follow the trajectory of a cell as it transitions to a specific neuronal subtype in vivo; (ii) manipulate the process in vitro and in vivo; and (iii) model it in silico, offers a unique system for understanding organogenesis. Together these approaches will provide the knowledge and technical foundations for rational, predictive tissue engineering of the spinal cord.
Max ERC Funding
2 357 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym PASTRES
Project Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: Global Lessons from the Margins
Researcher (PI) Ian Christofer SCOONES
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary Existing institutions, legal frameworks and governance systems are not equipped to respond to growing global uncertainties and the challenges of building resilience. Radical new thinking is needed. Important lessons potentially can come from surprising quarters. Drawing insights from pastoral areas across three continents, we will ask: What lessons can we learn from pastoral systems responding to rapid change that help us understand how to live with uncertainty and build resilience? Learning from the margins – through a reversal in conventional policy learning and debate - this project will draw out principles from deeply-embedded, culturally-rich responses to rapid change and uncertainty in pastoral areas in Africa (Borana, Ethiopia), Asia (Qinghai-Tibet, China) and Europe (Sardinia, Italy).
Working in a world-class team - including the PI (Prof. Ian Scoones), an experienced post-doctoral researcher (Dr Michele Nori) and three PhD students, together with local partners - we will explore how to respond to uncertainty and build resilience across three themes: i) environment and resources, ii) commodification and markets and iii) institutions and governance, while building the interdisciplinary research capacities of the team.
Through a process of theory-building, emerging from detailed empirical research in our three sites, we will engage in dialogue with wider debates across five areas – environmental and climate change, finance and commodity markets, infrastructure design, migration policy and conflict and security - about how to respond to risk and uncertainty and build resilience, offering both new theory and practical responses. The research will significantly extend past work through a path-breaking, cross-disciplinary reconceptualization of uncertainty and resilience, linking the experiences of marginal pastoralists to wider, global resilience challenges.
Summary
Existing institutions, legal frameworks and governance systems are not equipped to respond to growing global uncertainties and the challenges of building resilience. Radical new thinking is needed. Important lessons potentially can come from surprising quarters. Drawing insights from pastoral areas across three continents, we will ask: What lessons can we learn from pastoral systems responding to rapid change that help us understand how to live with uncertainty and build resilience? Learning from the margins – through a reversal in conventional policy learning and debate - this project will draw out principles from deeply-embedded, culturally-rich responses to rapid change and uncertainty in pastoral areas in Africa (Borana, Ethiopia), Asia (Qinghai-Tibet, China) and Europe (Sardinia, Italy).
Working in a world-class team - including the PI (Prof. Ian Scoones), an experienced post-doctoral researcher (Dr Michele Nori) and three PhD students, together with local partners - we will explore how to respond to uncertainty and build resilience across three themes: i) environment and resources, ii) commodification and markets and iii) institutions and governance, while building the interdisciplinary research capacities of the team.
Through a process of theory-building, emerging from detailed empirical research in our three sites, we will engage in dialogue with wider debates across five areas – environmental and climate change, finance and commodity markets, infrastructure design, migration policy and conflict and security - about how to respond to risk and uncertainty and build resilience, offering both new theory and practical responses. The research will significantly extend past work through a path-breaking, cross-disciplinary reconceptualization of uncertainty and resilience, linking the experiences of marginal pastoralists to wider, global resilience challenges.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 127 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2023-03-31
Project acronym Photoclin
Project Advanced clinical photoacoustic imaging systems based on optical microresonator detection
Researcher (PI) Paul Christopher BEARD
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS7, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary Photoacoustic imaging is widely viewed as one of the most exciting and promising biomedical imaging techniques to have emerged in recent years. It offers major opportunities for increasing our understanding of basic biological processes at an anatomical, physiological and molecular level, and for improving the clinical diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other major diseases. The aim of this project is to develop and evaluate a new generation of advanced photoacoustic scanners for clinical photoacoustic imaging based on a novel, highly sensitive, optical microresonator ultrasound sensor. This type of sensor offers the prospect of a major step forward in terms of imaging performance by providing orders of magnitude higher sensitivity than equivalently sized conventional detectors with the necessary broadband frequency response and small element size for high image quality. As a consequence, it promises greater penetration depth and improved image quality than possible with current state-of-the-art photoacoustic scanners. This will pave the way for in vivo high resolution human imaging at depths currently unattainable, opening up entirely new clinical applications in oncology, cardiovascular medicine, regenerative medicine and other areas which have hitherto been impossible due to hardware limitations. The project will involve the development of novel polymer optical microresonator sensors, advanced parallelised optical read-out schemes for real-time image acquisition, and engineering complete imaging instruments for use in clinical studies. These instruments will then be evaluated in a variety of clinical contexts including the assessment of skin cancer, head and neck cancers, cardiovascular disease and reconstructive surgery.
Summary
Photoacoustic imaging is widely viewed as one of the most exciting and promising biomedical imaging techniques to have emerged in recent years. It offers major opportunities for increasing our understanding of basic biological processes at an anatomical, physiological and molecular level, and for improving the clinical diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other major diseases. The aim of this project is to develop and evaluate a new generation of advanced photoacoustic scanners for clinical photoacoustic imaging based on a novel, highly sensitive, optical microresonator ultrasound sensor. This type of sensor offers the prospect of a major step forward in terms of imaging performance by providing orders of magnitude higher sensitivity than equivalently sized conventional detectors with the necessary broadband frequency response and small element size for high image quality. As a consequence, it promises greater penetration depth and improved image quality than possible with current state-of-the-art photoacoustic scanners. This will pave the way for in vivo high resolution human imaging at depths currently unattainable, opening up entirely new clinical applications in oncology, cardiovascular medicine, regenerative medicine and other areas which have hitherto been impossible due to hardware limitations. The project will involve the development of novel polymer optical microresonator sensors, advanced parallelised optical read-out schemes for real-time image acquisition, and engineering complete imaging instruments for use in clinical studies. These instruments will then be evaluated in a variety of clinical contexts including the assessment of skin cancer, head and neck cancers, cardiovascular disease and reconstructive surgery.
Max ERC Funding
2 163 061 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-12-01, End date: 2023-05-31
Project acronym SmartPhoneSmartAging
Project Smartphones, Smart Ageing and mHealth
Researcher (PI) Daniel MILLER
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2016-ADG
Summary This project will investigate fundamental changes in people’s relationship to age and health associated with the global rise of the smartphone. The aim is to combine an intellectual challenge in understanding the contemporary nature of age and the impact of new media, with an applied challenge to use this knowledge to help make mHealth a more effective intervention.
Through simultaneous 15 month ethnographies in China, Japan, Iran, Ireland, Nigeria and Tanzania (and supplementary work in Trinidad) a team will explore the experience of age for those between 45-70 i.e. neither clearly young nor elderly, who represent an unprecedented population that has resulted from changed life expectancy and changed aspirations. We will examine how this shift in the experience of age is impacted by the rise of smartphones that bring access to technologies associated with the young. mHealth started with youth orientated issues of fitness and wellbeing but is increasingly becoming a significant intervention in helping older populations deal with disease and frailties. mHealth has potential both for helping those with low access to professional care but also threatens to bypass and undermine professional medical services. Our aim is to complement technology led mHealth interventions with ethnography led participatory design, consisting of a collaboration between mHealth professionals with our ethnographically informed team and our informants.
The applied anthropology will inform our intellectual advances in the field of digital anthropology. Reflections on mHealth will contribute to the core aim of advancing our understanding of the experience of age in this new interstitial period of life, and to appreciate the major transformations in society and sociality represented by the new ubiquity of the smartphone. Both the intellectual and applied components will be shown to depend upon sensitivity to the forms of cultural diversity uncovered by our comparative ethnographic approach.
Summary
This project will investigate fundamental changes in people’s relationship to age and health associated with the global rise of the smartphone. The aim is to combine an intellectual challenge in understanding the contemporary nature of age and the impact of new media, with an applied challenge to use this knowledge to help make mHealth a more effective intervention.
Through simultaneous 15 month ethnographies in China, Japan, Iran, Ireland, Nigeria and Tanzania (and supplementary work in Trinidad) a team will explore the experience of age for those between 45-70 i.e. neither clearly young nor elderly, who represent an unprecedented population that has resulted from changed life expectancy and changed aspirations. We will examine how this shift in the experience of age is impacted by the rise of smartphones that bring access to technologies associated with the young. mHealth started with youth orientated issues of fitness and wellbeing but is increasingly becoming a significant intervention in helping older populations deal with disease and frailties. mHealth has potential both for helping those with low access to professional care but also threatens to bypass and undermine professional medical services. Our aim is to complement technology led mHealth interventions with ethnography led participatory design, consisting of a collaboration between mHealth professionals with our ethnographically informed team and our informants.
The applied anthropology will inform our intellectual advances in the field of digital anthropology. Reflections on mHealth will contribute to the core aim of advancing our understanding of the experience of age in this new interstitial period of life, and to appreciate the major transformations in society and sociality represented by the new ubiquity of the smartphone. Both the intellectual and applied components will be shown to depend upon sensitivity to the forms of cultural diversity uncovered by our comparative ethnographic approach.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 908 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
