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.