Three Leiden researchers receive NWO Open Competition grant for innovative science
Sustainable biotechnology, new insights into genome evolution and combining forces in mathematics. The NWO has awarded grants to these three innovative Leiden research projects in the ENW-M Open Competition.
In this round, 21 applications received funding, three of which were for Leiden researchers.
Creating bacterial partnerships for renewable medicine production
Applicants: Dennis Claessen (Leiden University)
Industrial biotechnology, a multi-billion-euro industry, has grown to encompass thousands of research topics. Through the creation and adaptation of biological systems, they can be designed to perform countless functions. While this can be applied to many different fields, current practices are largely unsustainable, hindering the growth of the industry. Our goal is to make industrial processes more sustainable by combining photosynthesizing cyanobacteria with bacterial production strains. This approach allows us to utilize light energy and carbon dioxide for renewable medical compound production. The project aims to generate knowledge for broader implementation of green biotechnology, developing an eco-friendlier industrial landscape.
Unravelling novel principles of archaeal chromatin organisation
Applicants: Remus Dame (Leiden University) & Gijs Wuite (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
The genomes of all forms of life are structurally and functionally organised to orchestrate the DNA-encoded key functions in the cells of these organisms, such as transcription of genes. Histones and histone-like proteins are central players in genome organisation. Canonical histones organise genomic DNA by wrapping DNA around a protein core. Here, we investigate the possibility that a class of non-canonical histones that we identified bioinformatically functions in a completely different, unconventional, manner. The knowledge generated in this project is key to advancing our understanding of the structural principles that underly genome organisation and of genome evolution.
Three facets of laminated dynamical systems (3-FOLDS)
Applicants: Olga Lukina (Leiden University) & Robbert Fokkink (TU Delft)
Laminations arise in different theories in mathematics. They provide models for quasi-crystals, strange attractors in chaotic dynamical systems, arise in the geometric study of PDEs. They also find surprising applications in algebra, number theory and non-commutative geometry. In the proposal, we combine techniques from three different areas of mathematics to gain new insights in the properties of a specific class of laminations, called solenoidal manifolds, with the goal of finding new invariants to classify them.
The NWO Open Science ENW-M grant funds innovative, high-quality fundamental research in the field of Science and Natural Sciences. The grant offers researchers the opportunity to develop creative, risky ideas and bring about scientific innovations.
Read here which projects have been awarded funding in this round.