Weather in deep space and brain repair – Trinity duo win ERC Starting Grants

Posted on: 05 September 2024

ERC Starting Grants draw funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe programme to enable excellent scientists, with up to seven years of post-PhD experience, to pursue their most promising ideas.

The funds also enable recipients to significantly grow their research teams over the five-year duration of the projects they support.

Dr Johanna Vos and Dr Michael-John Dolan, making light of the weather in Trinity's Front Square.

Dr Vos’ project: Exometeorology: Probing Extrasolar Atmospheres (Exo-PEA)

Over the past 30 years, astronomers have uncovered thousands of new extrasolar planets, which vary from small, rocky worlds, to giant planets like Jupiter. Additionally, lots of isolated or free-floating worlds have been discovered. We have already learned that the atmospheres of these strange worlds are highly complex, hosting a range of weather processes.

The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) enables a new era in our understanding of extrasolar atmospheres. By providing observations of unprecedented quality, this ground-breaking facility opens a new window into these atmospheres.

Dr Vos was recently awarded three observing programmes as PI with the JWST that form the basis of her ERC project. By combining new data from these programmes with state of the art computational and data-driven techniques, her team will reveal the dominant atmospheric processes that give rise to weather on giant extrasolar worlds.

Dr Vos, Assistant Professor in Trinity’s School of Physics, said: “I am honoured to have been awarded this ERC Starting Grant and for the opportunity to expand the breadth and scope of research in my group. This funding will allow me to build a team that will make use of ground-breaking data from JWST to provide key insights into the atmospheres of worlds beyond our solar system.”

Dr Dolan’s project: MICRODISSECT: Dissection of Microglial State Biology in Brain Repair

Dr Dolan’s research will focus on microglia, the brain's resident immune cells, which can form distinct subtypes, or “states” – especially during brain damage, disease, or repair. While microglia are crucial for regulating neuroinflammation and brain repair, these states are poorly understood at present.

This project will fill this gap by using cutting-edge molecular and genomic tools to create a detailed map of how these states change over time. Building on this, the team will investigate the emergence and function of a microglial subtype that interacts with the peripheral immune system, and finally, develop methods to control and inactivate any microglial state to reveal the neurobiological function of these poorly understood subtypes.

The team will focus on brain repair as a model system, with the ultimate goal of harnessing microglial states to rejuvenate and arrest neuropathology. Because microglia have been implicated in many neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders including Alzheimer’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis, the datasets, tools and insights will be broadly applicable to the study of brain disorders.

Dr Dolan, Assistant Professor in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology, said: “I am thrilled to be an ERC awardee and grateful to all my mentors and trainees for their support, in addition to Trinity’s fantastic Research Development Office. This award comes at a pivotal time for me, having just moved back to Ireland to start my group. This ERC grant will be the platform on which my lab will build and enable us to strike out in an ambitious new direction in neuroimmunology.”

Dr Linda Doyle, Provost and President of Trinity College Dublin, said: “ERC Starting Grants come at a critical point in a researcher's career, allowing awardees to build the foundations from which they can become leaders in their fields, while freeing them to pursue truly innovative, 'blue skies' research.

“I warmly congratulate Johanna and Michael-John in securing these prestigious and highly competitive awards. Winning an ERC grant is an acknowledgement that their projects are not only scientifically excellent, but will break new ground for their disciplines. The focus of their efforts – understanding weather patterns in strange worlds in deep space, and how we might drive misfiring human brains to repair – also underline the extraordinary breadth of world-leading research that is nurtured at Trinity.”

Professor Sinéad Ryan, Dean of Research at Trinity College Dublin, said:

“I congratulate Johanna and Michael-John on securing funding for these ambitious and exciting projects. These will embrace new cutting-edge technologies to transform our scientific understanding of the universe and the human brain.

“As they grow their research teams in Trinity, they will create focal points at Trinity for talented postdoctoral and PhD researchers, helping to establish the next generation of research leaders with the skills to impact their disciplines and wider society.”

Since the inception of the ERC, Trinity has participated in 86 projects with a value of around €129 million. These two new awards will join 40 active projects hosted at Trinity, including Starting, Consolidator, Advanced and Synergy Grants. For more information on our past and present projects, see ERC Awards at Trinity.

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