Alumni Spotlight presents outstanding research achievements and special awards received by members of the Alumni Club and the Medical University of Vienna. This time the spotlight was again on research projects awarded with a European Research Council (ERC) grant.


Two recently awarded researchers - Sarah Melzer and Wolfgang Bogner - presented their projects and spoke about useful tipps for the application process and how they came up with their research projects.
In a talk moderated by Vice-Rector Michaela Fritz two grant holders, who find themselves in the middle of their projects - Maria Sibilia and Tibor Harkany - spoke about the impact on researchers’ careers and the importance of international networks.
 

Sarah Melzer, group leader and Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the Medical University of Vienna, Center for Brain Research, received an ERC Starting Grant for her project “Neuropeptidergic modulation of synaptic circuits in fear and anxiety". Sarah Melzer's research group at the Department of Neuronal Cell Biology seeks to understand the key molecular and neuronal mechanisms that underlie the regulation of emotion and cognition.
 

Wolfgang Bogner, team leader at the High Field MR Center of the Medical University Vienna, is awarded the renowned ERC Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council and will receive funding of € 2.5 million euros for a period of five years. In his "GLUCO-SCAN" project, Wolfgang Bogner's team will develop a new magnetic resonance (MR)-based full-body imaging method that can map the metabolism of sugar throughout the entire human body.
 

Maria Sibilia, Head of the Institute for Cancer Research at MedUni Vienna, received a generous 2.5 million Euro European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant for her project entitled "TNT Tumors" which is looking at immunomodulation of the innate immune system to fight cancer.
 

Tibor Harkany, Head of the Department of Molecular Neurosciences at the Center for Brain Research at MedUni Vienna received in 2021 a highly endowed "Advanced Grant" of 2.5 million euros for the following five years to implement his research project "Life-long cross-generational priming of the hypothalamus for obesity" (FOODFORLIFE).

 

Photos: Alumni Club MedUni Wien/Hörmandinger