Publication date: 17/12/20
ThemesNews
Joseph Moran, a researcher at the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires and Damien Daval, a researcher at the Laboratoire d'Hydrologie et de Géochimie de Strasbourg, are among the 27 French researchers who were awarded the 2020 European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grants.
An ERC Consolidator Grant has been awarded to Joseph Moran, who is already the holder of an ERC Starting Grant, for the “MetabolismOrigins” project. It will enable the researcher from the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires to continue his research into a new, metabolism-driven approach to prebiotic chemistry. The aim is to gain an in-depth understanding of how and why the biochemistry of life emerged, and to explain how it functions now, based on the fundamental principles of catalysis and organic chemistry. The grant will be used in particular to finance a team of 4 to 5 people for a period of 5 years.
Find out more about Joseph Moran’s work
- Joseph Moran: winner of an ERC Starting Grant
- New clues to the origin of life on Earth
- Joseph Moran and Harun Tüysüz awarded the “Forcheurs Jean-Marie Lehn” prize
The other winner of the grant is Damien Daval, a researcher at the Laboratoire d'Hydrologie et de Géochimie de Strasbourg (LHYGES). The aim of his project, entitled “Mobidic”, is to describe and to model the physico-chemical imprint left by living organisms on the surface of minerals during their alteration. The challenge is twofold: to identify specific biosignatures of alteration by living organisms while determining the contribution of living organisms to alteration fluxes.
- Find out more about Damien Daval’s work:
- CNRS Bronze Medal 2020
The Consolidator Grant is intended for young researchers, seven to twelve years after obtaining their doctorate. This year, it was awarded to 327 researchers of 39 nationalities for research projects carried out in 23 different countries. Created in 2007, the European Research Council has made it possible to fund nearly 7 000 projects in ten years, after a strict selection process in which only 11% of the candidate projects are successful. Every year, the ERC awards four types of individual research grants for a period of 5 years (except for the Proof of Concept grant). The sums awarded range from EUR 1.5 million to 3.5 million per researcher
- See the list of ERC grant winners from the University of Strasbourg (from 2007 to 2017)
- See all of the 2020 grant winners on the ERC website
