Felix Naef and Li Tang Win SNSF Sinergia Grants
© 2022 EPFL
Felix Naef and Li Tang, both Professors at the EPFL's Institute of Bioengineering (IBI), have been awarded major collaborative Sinergia grants by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
Swiss National Science Foundation Sinergia grants have recently been awarded to Institute of Bioengineering Professors Felix Naef, Head of the Laboratory of Computational and Systems Biology (UPNAE) at the School of Life Sciences, and Li Tang, Head of the Laboratory of Biomaterials for Immunoengineering (LBI) at the School of Engineering.
Naef's grant will fund a research collaboration with Jeffrey Chao (Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, CH) and Pierre Vandergheynst (EPFL School of Engineering). The proposal, titled "Integrated multi-scale analysis of translation: single-molecules, omics and computation", aims at the development of next-generation single-molecule and computational tools for monitoring translation dynamics, to then establish the context-dependency of translation regulatory mechanisms in a nutrient stress paradigm.
Tang's grant will fund a research collaboration with Profs. Ping-Chih Ho (University of Lausanne UNIL, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research LICR and Lausanne University Hospital CHUV; consortium coordinator), Santiago Carmona (UNIL and LICR) and Annette Oxenius (ETH Zurich). The proposal, titled "Exploiting regulatory circuits guiding tissue context- and metabolism-dependent differentiation program of T cell exhaustion in tumors and chronic viral infection", aims at understanding how chronic antigen exposure coordinates with tissue-dependent signals to orchestrate T cell differentiation in chronic viral infection and tumors. The ultimate goal of this project is to tailor T cell immune response with bioengineered approaches for the treatment of chronic viral infection and tumors.
SNSF Sinergia grants, awarded each year to researchers across disciplines, promote "the interdisciplinary collaboration of two to four research groups that propose breakthrough research." The Sinergia grant scheme defines breakthrough research as that which "addresses important challenges and presents a novel approach", "questions or goes beyond existing models, theories, doctrines, research approaches, methods, etc." and "opens up new lines of research and has a high potential for impact in or beyond academia".
The grants are both worth over 2.5 million Swiss Francs.
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).