The ERC today announced 100 new Proof of Concept grants, of which a total of three were awarded to researchers in Sweden.
The grants are only open to researchers who currently hold or have previously been awarded ERC grants. The Proof of Concept grants are worth €150,000 each and are designed to help researchers bridge the gap between their cutting-edge research and the practical application of the results, including early stages of commercialisation.
Per Augustsson, associate professor of biomedical engineering, and his research team are studying, among other things, how sound can be used to sort and separate cells from blood samples. In the new project, he focuses on metastatic cancer and the development of equipment to monitor disease progression in breast and prostate cancer.
Filipe Pereira and his research team have discovered a recipe on how to reprogram cancer cells into antigen-presenting dendritic cells, essential for initiating and enhancing anti-tumour immunity. This approach provides a promising strategy for cancer treatment. The goal of the now awarded project is to engineer the "vehicle" to deliver the instruction converting the cells, utilizing RNA vectors for this purpose.
In 2024, there are two calls for Proof of Concept grants, with a total budget of €30 million. The funding is part of the EU's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
ERC Proof of Concept Grant to Filipe Pereira – Faculty of Medicine website