13 October 2009
SCILLS Scientist receives €1.4 million from the European Research Council
A scientist at the Scottish Institute for ceLL Signaling (SCILLS) in Dundee has been awarded a €1.4 million grant from the European Research Council to support an innovative research programme that could lead to the development of a novel class of drugs to treat cancer.
Dr Thimo Kurz, a Programme Leader within SCILLS, has received the Starting Grant from the ERC for his research on types of protein modification in human cells.
Human cells contain thousands of proteins that perform a myriad of essential tasks, all of which must be tightly regulated to ensure that they function properly. One mode of regulation is the attachment of two small proteins, Ubiquitin and Nedd8, to larger proteins, in processes termed 'ubiquitylation' and 'neddylation', respectively. These modifications can switch the function of a protein on or off, trigger its relocation to a different position within the cell, or even initiate its destruction. Defects in this system cause many diseases, including cancer.
'These grants are highly competitive and it is a great honour to be selected for this award, so I am very pleased that the ERC decided to fund my laboratory,' said Dr Kurz. 'I am confident that our work will advance the understanding of how Ubiquitylation and Neddylation regulate cellular function. While we are carrying out fundamental research to understand these processes, our work may eventually lead to the development of new treatments against cancer.'
The grant will fund Dr Kurz’s research for the next five years and will enable the recruitment of three staff and the purchase of specialised laboratory equipment for SCILLS, which is located at the University of Dundee.
Sir Philip Cohen, the Director of SCILLS said, 'I am really thrilled that Thimo has received this grant, as he was one of only ten young life scientists in Europe to be awarded a Starting Grant out of several hundred who applied in the field of biochemistry. The award demonstrates the calibre of the Programme Leaders that we are recruiting to SCILLS. Although SCILLS was only founded 12 months ago it is remarkable that it has already received £2.2 million in external research funding.'
NOTES TO EDITORS
Dr Thimo Kurz was born and brought up in Germany, but carried out the research for his PhD degree at the University of Oregon, USA. He then spent six years in Zurich, Switzerland, before moving to Dundee in June 2009. He met his wife Debbie, a Californian, while he was working in the USA and they have a three year old son, called Noah.
About SCILLS - The SCottish Institute for ceLL Signalling
Launched in October 2008 with funding of £10 million from the Scottish Government over the next five years, SCILLS is the world’s first research Unit dedicated to the study of protein ubiquitylation and related modifications, which play key roles in regulating almost all aspects of cell life. It is located in the Sir James Black Centre at the College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee.
There is increasing evidence that abnormal levels of ubiquitylation may be a cause or consequence of many diseases, such as cancer and chronic inflammatory diseases. For these reasons the development of drugs that target components of the ubiquitin system is predicted to become of major importance to the pharmaceutical industry in the future. Indeed, the first drug developed in this area, Velcade, was approved for clinical use in 2007. Developed by Millenium Pharmaceuticals, this compound is being used to treat haematological tumours, such as multiple myeloma and relapsed mantle cell lymphoma.
The Protein Ubiquitylation Unit is the first research division of SCILLS. Its major aims are to advance understanding of the role of protein ubiquitylation and related modifications in cell regulation and human disease, to facilitate the development of drugs to treat diseases caused by abnormalities in this process, to generate reagents and improve technologies on which more rapid progress in this area depends, and to train the next generation of scientists who will advance the subject in the future.
About the European Research Council (ERC)
The European Research Council (ERC) is a pioneering part of the EU's Seventh Research Framework Programme and has a total budget of €7.5 billion (2007-2013). Set up in 2007, the ERC aims to stimulate scientific excellence in Europe by supporting and encouraging the best creative scientists, scholars and engineers of any nationality in any field of research, to work in European host institutions.
ERC Starting Grant in brief
- Supports early-career top research leaders who are about to establish or consolidate a proper research team and to start conducting independent research in Europe.
- Funds pioneering frontier research in any field.
http://erc.europa.eu
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