Swedish Research Council’s project and starting grants announced

Early in November, the Swedish Research Council announced which research projects were funded with project grants, and which researchers were funded through starting grants within natural and engineering sciences. This year, no less than twelve group leaders from the SciLifeLab community were granted funding.

The purpose of the Swedish Research Council’s project grant is to give researchers the freedom to formulate their own research concept, method and implementation, and to solve a specific research task within a limited period. The purpose of the starting grant is to give junior researchers the opportunity to establish themselves as independent researchers in Sweden.

SciLifeLab group leader Burcu Ayoglu (KTH) was among the successful starting grant applicants.

“My project aims to identify the chronology of immune adaptations taking place in blood and tissues over the course of early pregnancy. We will have a system-level approach to analyze human maternal and fetal specimen with cutting-edge protein imaging and analysis techniques we have here at SciLifeLab. The starting grant will support the salaries of myself and a Ph.D. student to be recruited, and of course costs for our proteomics work, she says.

SciLifeLab group leader Ilaria Testa (KTH) who was granted project funding commented ”This grant will give us the possibility to develop a method which can measure rotation of molecules and their complexes directly in cells. We recently presented the fundamental principle of using photo-switching to measure slow rotation. Now we are ready to tackle the difficult problem of molecular motions in crowded and 3D cellular environment, which will foster new and exciting collaboration within the SciLifeLab community.”

To be eligible for Starting grants from the Swedish Research Council the applicant must have completed a doctoral degree more than two years ago, and up to seven years ago. The funding is in the form of career support over a four-year period.

“Starting Grants are truly competitive – this year’s approval rate was fifteen percent. I am very glad that my merits and research ideas met the criteria to be selected and supported by the Swedish Research Council. I should add that this was the fourth time I applied for a starting grant, so a message to colleagues seeking a starting grant is to keep trying and improve your proposal each time!” Burcu Ayoglu says.

The following group leaders from the SciLifeLab community were granted funding from this year’s Swedish Research Council call for Natural and engineering sciences:

• Burcu Ayoglu (KTH)

• Ilaria Testa (KTH)

• Jens Lagergren (KTH)

• Joakim Lundeberg (KTH)

• Lucie Delemotte (KTH)

• Peter Nilsson (KTH)

• Oskar Karlsson (SU)

• Sarahi Garcia (SU)

• Matthew Webster (UU)

• Per Andrén (UU)

• Marcus Lundberg (UU)

•Anna Herland (KTH)