This week, the European Research Council presented good news to a large group of researchers that were awarded a Consolidator Grant. These prestigious, personal grants offer excellent researchers that already have established their own, independent line of research the means to further strengthen their team and create opportunities to work on new ideas. Out of 2,130 submissions, 308 proposals were selected - a total investment of €627 million.  

Among the laureates are:  

KNCV-member Kimberley Bonger (Radboud University Nijmegen), also board member of the Organic Chemistry Division for her proposal SynCAR-Ts: Synthetic Chimeric Antigen Receptors  —  Hijacking Nitrenium Ions for Targeting, Therapy and Safety of Next Generation T Cell Therapy 

KVCV-member Lynn Vanhaecke (Ghent University), also board member of Food Division for the proposal MeMoSA: Metabolomics-driven Molecular Source Analysis for personalized medicine in children 

Clemens Mayer (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), member of the KNCV-division on Medicinal Chemistry & Chemical Biology for his proposal ContiZymes: Continuous Enzyme Evolution – solving bottlenecks in enzyme engineering to design next-generation biocatalysts 

Other laureates at a Belgian or Dutch institute with a connection to the chemistry and life sciences field (in alphabetical order):  

Farbod Alijani (Delft University of Technology)  / NCANTO: Nonlinear Dynamics of Fluctuating Two-Dimensional Materials in Action 

Chase Broedersz (VU Amsterdam)  / Learn4DChromosome: Learning the dynamic statistical folding of bacterial chromosomes  

Yoeri van de Burgt (Eindhoven University of Technology)  / NEURO-LABS: Neuromorphic Learning in Organic Adaptive Biohybrid Systems 

Corentin Claeys Bouuaert (Catholic Univerity Louvain)  / MeioticCondensate: Elucidating the role of biomolecular condensation in meiotic DNA double-strand break formation 

Danny Incarnato (University of Groningen) / RNAStrEnD: RNA structure ensemble dynamics in living cells 

Ben Jeurissen (Antwerp University)  / ADAMI: A Data-driven Approach to Microstructural Imaging 

Jonathan Maelfait (Ghent University)  / ZIGNALLING: Molecular and Functional Characterisation of Z-nucleic Acid-induced Signalling  

Thomas Marichal (University of Liège) / MoMacTrajectALI: Monocyte-to-Macrophage Trajectories After Lung Injury: Spatio-temporal investigation, molecular regulation & functional implications for lung regeneration and immunity  

Jeroen de Ridder (UMC Utrecht) / FoundationDX: Foundation models for molecular diagnostics - machine learning with biological ‘common sense’ 

Massimo Sartori (Twente University) / ROBOREACTOR: Robotic bioreactors for the longitudinal control of restorative remodelling in the human skeletal muscle 

Pieter Vader (UMC Utrecht)  / UNRAVEL: Unravelling extracellular vesicle heterogeneity to inspire improved therapeutic RNA delivery systems  

Roosmarijn Vandenbroucke (VIB Flanders Institute for Biotechnology)  / DeliChoP: Drug DELIvery to the brain via CHOroid Plexus targeting