Grant Winners

EUROPEAN RESEARCH COUNCIL

The European Research Council has announced the winners of its Advanced Grants in life sciences. The awards are worth up to EUR2.5 million (£1.95 million), but they can rise to EUR3.5 million in exceptional circumstances. The 18 UK-based researchers, from a total of 78 winners, are listed below.

Award winner: David Baulcombe

Institution: University of Cambridge

RNA silencing in regulation and evolution

Award winner: Matteo Carandini

Institution: University College London

Computations by neurons and populations in visual cortex

Award winner: Caroline Dean

Institution: John Innes Centre

Dissection of environmentally mediated epigenetic silencing

Award winner: John Endler

Institution: University of Exeter

Using sensory biology and environmental conditions to predict the direction of evolution

Award winner: Jeremy Martin Henley

Institution: University of Bristol

Mechanisms and consequences of synaptic SUMOylation in health and disease

Award winner: Sebastian Lennox Johnston

Institution: Imperial College London

Human and mouse models of rhinovirus-induced acute asthma exacerbations

Award winner: Jonathan Jones

Institution: Sainsbury Laboratory

Genomics and effectoromics to understand defence suppression and disease resistance in Arabidopsis-Albugo candida interactions

Award winner: Dimitri Michael Kullmann

Institution: University College London

Long-term synaptic plasticity in interneurons: mechanisms and computational significance

Award winner: Kevin Neville Laland

Institution: University of St Andrews

The evolution of culture

Award winner: Nicholas Mazarakis

Institution: Imperial College London

Improved retrograde lentiviral vectors for gene therapy in motor neuron diseases

Award winner: Vincent Savolainen

Institution: Imperial College London

Understanding the origin of species: ecological genomics and transcriptomics on oceanic islands

Award winner: Michael David Schneider

Institution: Imperial College London

Cardiac death and regeneration

Award winner: Christopher Joseph Schofield

Institution: University of Oxford

Molecular mechanism of oxygen sensing by enzymes

Award winner: Brigitta Stockinger

Institution: Medical Research Council

The influence of Aryl hydrocarbon receptor ligands on protective and pathological immune responses

Award winner: Alan Tunnacliffe

Institution: University of Cambridge

Surviving the dry state: engineering a desiccation-tolerant mammalian cell

Award winner: Michael David Tyers

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Systematic chemical genetic interrogation of biological networks

Award winner: Fritz Vollrath

Institution: University of Oxford

Skills as biomimetic ideals for polymers

Award winner: Stuart West

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Evolutionary explanations for co-operation: microbes to humans

THE BRITISH ACADEMY

Two international awards have been made through a collaborative scheme that enables research to be carried out by international partners. The funding, which totals £290,000, is to be provided over a three-year period. The successful projects are:

Project name: Islam, trade and politics across the Indian Ocean: interaction between South-East Asia and Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, 16th to the 20th centuries

Institutions: University of Chichester, among others

Value: £150,000

Project name: Clerical authority in Shiite Islam: culture and learning in the seminaries of Iraq and Iran

Institutions: The universities of Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, Oxford and St Andrews, among others

Value: £140,000.