We are incredibly proud to share that the recipients of this year’s prestigious ERC Synergy Grants include not one but two Somervillians. Professor Aditi Lahiri MAE, FBA, CBE, our Senior Research Fellow, has been awarded a grant for her research in Linguistics, making her the recipient of a record-breaking six ERC grants. Meanwhile, Professor Elena Seiradake, our Fellow in Biochemistry, has been awarded a grant for her ground-breaking cancer research.
Synergy grants are the largest awards made by the European Research Council. This year they are awarding fifty-seven research groups a total of €571 million, to be spent addressing complex scientific problems across a wide range of disciplines. These grants aim to foster collaboration between outstanding researchers across Europe and beyond, allowing them to combine their expertise and resources to advance scientific discovery.
Professor Aditi Lahiri
Professor Lahiri is the founder of Oxford’s Department of Linguistics, and a leading figure in the world of Linguistics globally. She is embarking on a project with Paula Fikkert (Radboud University, The Netherlands) and Linda Wheeldon and Allison Wetterlin (both University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway), the latter of whom was formerly a Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville. Their project, PAAL, has been awarded up to 14 million Euros over the 6-year period of the grant, with Oxford receiving 3.2 million Euros.
Colin Phillips, Professor of Linguistics at Oxford and Somerville’s Professorial Fellow, commented that, ‘Aditi Lahiri is unstoppable. And that is very good news for all of us. This new award, the latest in a long line of ERC awards to Aditi’s team, will help to keep Oxford Linguistics and Somerville College at the centre of interdisciplinary approaches to language into the next decade. This new project is a fabulous international collaboration, and we are very much looking forward to supporting it.’
The project is titled ‘Phonological cognisance and allied linguistic representations: acquisition, bilingualism, change and script’ (PAAL). PAAL’s objective is to investigate the interaction of phonological representations with cognisance, and their relationship to script. The project’s abstract states, ‘We view cognisance as part of the native speaker’s core knowledge of their language. Our working hypothesis is that phonological cognisance and representation govern spoken and written language processing, language acquisition and change.’
Professor Lahiri reflected, ‘I am deeply honoured to receive this grant. In the current academic atmosphere where Humanities is thought to be of no real importance, this grant suggests that the ERC appreciates our work. It will be a special privilege to be able to closely interact with colleagues in Norway and the Netherlands. And, as always, the success of all grants depends on the hard work of the postdoctoral fellows. These are the scholars who should be feted.’
‘I am deeply honoured to receive this grant. In the current academic atmosphere where Humanities is thought to be of no real importance, this grant suggests that the ERC appreciates our work.’
Professor Lahiri
Professor Elena Seiradake Wins ERC Synergy Grant for SUNRISE Project
We are equally delighted by the news that Professor Elena Seiradake and her collaborators have been awarded an ERC Synergy Grant for their project ‘SUNRISE’, which aims to address key challenges in paediatric cancer research. Professor Seiradake will be working with Valerie Castellani (National Centre for Scientific Research, Lyon) and Daniel del Toro (University of Barcelona).
Professor Seiradake reflected that, ‘I am so pleased that the European research Council is supporting collaborative research that addresses some of the biggest questions. Cutting-edge research requires international collaboration that brings together the best teams for the job. I am thrilled about the opportunity to work with my colleagues in France and Spain to address this very important research question.’
Prof Elena Seiradake (centre) with her collaborators, Valerie Castellani (left) and Daniel del Toro (right)
SUNRISE, which stands for ‘Structure-encoded Unc5 interactome in aggressive behaviours of Neuro-developmental tumours’, focuses on paediatric tumours like neuroblastoma (NB), which, unlike adult cancers, originate from embryonic cells with unique migratory and signalling characteristics. Building on recent research (Akkermans et al., Cell 2022), which showed how NB cells exploit the UNC5 receptor family and the ligand GPC3 to spread, the SUNRISE project will explore a broader network of UNC5 interactions to uncover mechanisms driving aggressive cancer behaviours. The project takes an innovative approach by integrating molecular and structural biology with targeted, structure-based experiments to precisely investigate these interactions. Ultimately, SUNRISE aims to provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms behind NB and other paediatric cancers, paving the way for new therapeutic strategies.
‘Cutting-edge research requires international collaboration that brings together the best teams for the job.’
Professor Seiradake
Huge congratulations to Professor Lahiri and Professor Seiradake and their research teams on this fantastic achievement. We look forward to hearing about the research generated by these two very different projects.