ETH projects receive European grants

ETH Zurich has received significant funding from the European Research Council (ERC) for three of its projects, announced a statement. They each won a coveted ERC Synergy Grant, an initiative of the European Union to promote interdisciplinary collaboration on research projects. Each project receives 10 to 14 million euros. Eligible to apply are any teams based in EU countries or countries that are associated to the EU research programme Horizon 2020 by special agreements. 

Two of the successful projects are being led by the ETH, and the Zurich university is participating in the third. The team led by Domenico Giardini, ETH Professor of Seismology and Geodynamics, is working on understanding the physics of earthquake processes. Their research in a new underground experimental facility, the Bedretto Lab, is seeking to better predict earthquakes. The findings will also be used to experiment on the safe use of geo-energy. 

Jacob Corn, ETH Professor of Genome Biology, is coordinating the second Synergy project. The Corn Lab works on genome editing to understand human disease and to cure genetic disorders. Its main aim is to find out how cells repair damage to their DNA, which could lead to new approaches to treat cancer.

The third project is researching the molecular mechanisms of viruses. Recent outbreaks of Ebola, Zika and West Nile are reminders that viruses pose one of the greatest threats to human health. The ETH’s Bode Research Group led by Jeffrey Bode is working with Patrick Matthias from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) in Basel and Yohei Yamauchi from the University of Bristol to enable novel broadband antiviral therapies.