The NWO board has approved seventeen applications in the Open Competition ENW-M. M-grants are intended for innovative, fundamental research of high quality and/or scientific urgency.
The topics range from increasing knowledge about dissociative chemisorption reactions on metal surfaces, to developing a super-fast optical coherence tomography technique. Another project investigates a kill-switch as a bacterial immune system, and developing a mobile setup to study the inner workings of ears is one of the projects.
The following applications have been approved (in alphabetical order of author):
Synthetic Barcodes of Sugar Molecules for a Healthy Gut Defense System
dr. Christian Büll & dr. Jochem Bernink (RU/AMC)
The intestinal wall produces proteins called mucins. Mucins contain sugar molecules that are attached to different parts of the protein with varying densities. Such sugar patterns form a molecular barcode with biological information that is recognized by receptor proteins, scanners, on gut immune cells. However, the significance of this code recognition has not yet been investigated. In this project, we will examine the codes and scanners in detail. Furthermore, we will map possible changes of these barcodes in intestinal inflammation and explore whether synthetic sugar codes can be used to suppress intestinal inflammation.