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UKF project leaders prof. dr. sc. Iva Tolić and prof. dr. sc. Nenad Pavin were awarded an ERC Synergy Grant
Prof. dr. sc. Iva Tolić from the Ruđer Bošković Institute (IRB) and prof. dr. sc. Nenad Pavin from the Faculty of Science (PMF), who led the UKF project “The role of microtubule pivoting in the formation of complex structures such as microtubule bundles and mitotic spindles” have received ten million euros from the European Research Council (ERC) under the ERC Synergy Program of Horizon 2020.
Together with their colleagues prof. dr. sc. Geert Kops from the University of Utrecht and prof. dr. sc. Angelika Amon from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) they will try to uncover the origins of errors in chromosome segregation and how these aberrations affect cell division, which is critical for early embryonic development, the formation of different types of cancers, and tissue response to therapies.
The aim of the project team is to bring together all the knowledge, high technology and sophisticated methodology to identify the origin of genetic abberations at the molecular level and to detect their impact on genome structure in both healthy and diseased tissues.
Prof. Tolić pointed out that the ERC enabled them to form a strong team, and with her laboratory that has expertise on biophysical analysis of the spindle, using high-end microscopy and laser scissors, there is a team of prof. Kops who developed methods on imaging organoids, then a great group led by prof. Angelika Amon and prof. Pavin.
Prof. dr. sc. Pavin points out that they will build mathematical models that simulate cell-cell interactions and cellular processes that are responsible for errors in cell division. The planned approach will give them an insight into important cell mechanisms that are experimentally unavailable, and in this way they will find out what is happening in each cell in a large number of divisions and what forces are responsible for the correct chromosome segregation.
This is the second project awarded by the European Research Council to the team of prof. Tolić and the first project to the team of prof. Pavin, and thus confirmed the excellence of their scientific research.
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