VIB’s Thomas Jacobs (VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology) has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant and his colleague Bert De Rybel has received an ERC Consolidator Grant. This funding helps scientists build and consolidate their research teams and themes. With the ERC grant, Thomas will develop technologies to engineer plant genomes at the megabase scale and Bert will unravel the molecular basis of conductive and vascular tissue development in plants.
Start and consolidate
ERC Starting Grants are awarded to early-career researchers with a strong scientific track record and evidence of great promise. The grants are a great springboard for young researchers to establish themselves as leading scientists. With the help of the funding, they can set up a team and initiate a research program that will push forward the frontiers of scientific knowledge.
Consolidator grants are rewarded to scientists (PhD 7-12 years) who've already amply proven that they are able to run their own lab. The European Research Council's grant allows them to expand their research and team.
Thomas Jacobs
Genomes and molecules
Genomics research combined with revolutionary genome editing tools has created exciting new opportunities to explore fundamental aspects of biology and develop novel (bio)technologies for medicine, agriculture, and industry. Thomas' OMEGA project will identify genome-wide essential genes and genetic interactions in the moss Physcomitrium patens using high-throughput CRISPR tools. His team will also develop technologies to move, edit, and delete DNA at the megabase scale, and a DNA assembly method to build biosynthetic pathways in vivo. These tools will create opportunities to explore fundamental aspects of genomics, chromosomal biology and synthetic biology.
“I’m really excited by the potential of the OMEGA project as it will develop technologies to explore the final frontier of plant genomes. This project will allow us molecular biologists to move beyond a gene-centric point of view and start to experimentally engineer the larger interacting plant genome. I think OMEGA will create new capabilities to test fundamental genome biology questions and improve crops.”
Bert De Rybel
Bert's PIPELINES project will use single-cell technology to identify key molecules specific to vascular and conductive tissues. At the moment, it remains unclear how the molecular development of conductive tissue in non-vascular plants takes place, despite the tissue's similarity with the vascular system in other plants. Moreover, unraveling conserved molecular players controlling vascular development will act as a starting point for targeted engineering of vascular tissues, which holds great potential for improving plant biomass and productivity in crop species.
“The PIPELINES project proposal is the result of a large amount of preliminary work performed in my team at PSB and lots of discussions with colleagues over the past few years. Getting the support and endorsement of the research community to unravel the molecular basis of the plumbing systems in plants is an enormous motivation to help move this field forward.”
- Log in to post comments