Aleksandra Radenovic and Paolo De Los Rios win SNSF Sinergia grant

One of the 2020 Sinergia grants has been awarded to professors Aleksandra Radenovic, from the Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology, from the School of Engineering, and Paolo De Los Rios, from the Laboratory of Statistical Biophysics, from the Institute of Physics and Bioengineering. The grant, which is almost 2.7 million francs, will fund a collaborative research project with professors Karsten Weis from ETHZ and Alessandro Barducci from the Centre of Structural Biochemistry, Montpellier.

The project titled « Regulating RNA processing by non-equilibrium phase transitions » proposes « advancing our quantitative understanding of cellular phase separation by elucidating the intimate relationship between active processes, energy-consuming and the properties of biomolecular condensates involved in RNA processing. »

The SNSF Sinergia grants promote « interdisciplinary collaboration between two to four applicants whose project involves breakthrough research. » Given each year to researchers across disciplines, the Sinergia grants qualify breakthrough research as that which « calls into question or goes beyond existing models, theories, doctrines, research approaches, methods, etc. »