Ghent University hits milestone: 150 ERC grantees with 4 new winners

The winning projects by Prof Jonathan Leliaert (Faculty of Sciences, Department of Solid state sciences), Prof Ine Lentacker (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Department of Pharmaceutics), Prof Nele Vandersickel (Faculty of Sciences, Department of Physics and astronomy) and Prof Sarah Verhulst (Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Department of Information Technology – INTEC) bring the number of grantees at our university to 150!

Ten percent of Ghent University professors have won ERC funding.

“It is hard to realize that in 2023, just two years ago, I became the 100th ERC grantee of Ghent University after winning an ERC Starting Grant in Call 2022, and that now, only two years later, we are celebrating the 150th ERC grantee! This remarkable achievement reflects not only the excellence of our researchers, but also the importance for universities and research institutions to invest in strong support systems for talent. This support was instrumental in my own success. I share in the joy of the 50 grantees who have seen their careers transformed since then and wish them all the best.” (Emilie Caspar, ERC Grantee and ERC Ambassador)

The winning projects

THERMAGINE (Jonathan Leliaert): Faster magnetic nanoparticles for medical innovation and cancer therapy

Magnetic nanoparticles are used today in applications like medical imaging and in the cancer therapy known as “magnetic hyperthermia.” For these applications, you need particles that respond strongly to an alternating magnetic field. But the larger the particles get, the slower their magnetization reacts. At some point they can’t keep up with the field anymore, and the technique breaks down.

The ERC project THERMAGINE looks for a way to overcome that limit. The idea is to couple classical magnetic nanoparticles to antiferromagnetic materials. These materials don’t have a measurable magnetization, but their internal magnetic dynamics are much faster. We’re investigating whether they can act like a motor that speeds up the behavior of the nanoparticles. This could create a combination that isn’t possible today: responding to a magnetic field both strongly and quickly at the same time.

To test this, THERMAGINE uses two advanced techniques. With an ultra-sensitive NV microscope, we measure the magnetic response of individual nanoparticles. On top of that, we run large-scale simulations on a supercomputer to understand the underlying physics. Together, these efforts should lead to new fundamental insights and better medical applications of magnetic nanoparticles.

My-NANO (Ine Lentacker): Making cancer treatment more effective by reprogramming cells at the nanoscale

Cancer remains one of the biggest health challenges worldwide. Immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint therapies, which remove the brakes on the immune system, have revolutionized cancer treatment, but they do not work for every patient and often fail. A key reason is that chronic inflammation during tumor development drives the infiltration of immature myeloid cells into the tumor, where they maintain immune suppression and thus block effective immune attacks.

To make immune checkpoint therapies more effective for a broader patient population, My-NANO aims to “reprogram” these myeloid cells using mRNA packaged in lipid nanoparticles (mRNA-LNPs) - a similar technology as used in the COVID-19 mRNA-vaccines - to actively support anti-tumor immunity within the tumor. The project will investigate how mRNA-LNPs can be optimally designed and engineered to target myeloid cells, break their suppressive power, and finally turn them into powerful allies against cancer.

These advances can make current immunotherapies more effective and applicable to a wider range of cancer patients. Gaining fundamental insights into how LNPs interact with and travel via myeloid cells to tumors will enable better patient stratification, ensuring  patients receive the optimal therapy. Furthermore, by designing LNPs that can directly target these myeloid cells, My-NANO aims to reduce healthcare costs, supporting a more sustainable health care system.

TOPOHEART (Nele Vandersickel): Topology for Better Treatment of Cardiac Arrhythmia

By applying topology (a discipline in Mathematics) to the heart, we demonstrate that reentry based arrhythmias always occur in pairs: one clockwise loop and one counterclockwise. Only when both loops are eliminated simultaneously can the arrhythmia be terminated. This challenges the current dogma that a single circuit can exist independently and opens the way to entirely new ablation therapies.

This leads to fewer failed procedures, fewer repeat interventions and lower healthcare costs. For industry, they can uptake our (open source) algorithms to detect these pairs, and for patients it increases the likelihood of curing the arrhythmia and improves quality of life.

InSilicoEars (Sarah Verhulst): Unlocking bio-inspired machine hearing and accelerating personalized hearing technologies

By integrating auditory neuroscience with deep learning, the InSilicoEars project aims to develop computational models of the auditory system that accurately capture the unique ways humans process sound, even amid demanding and noisy surroundings. These digital auditory twins can be personalized to reflect individual hearing differences, paving the way for advances in precision hearing diagnostics, machine-hearing technologies that remain robust in complex noisy environments, and consumer audio products that deliver personalized, optimized sound and music processing.

ERC Plus: new funding for researchers with bold ideas and a drive for change

The ERC is launching ERC Plus, a new funding scheme that supports outstanding principal investigators with bold ideas and a vision for foundational research that goes beyond the other ERC programs.

"Ghent University’s 150 ERC grantees show what is possible when bold ideas meet strong support. With the launch of ERC Plus—a scheme designed to back even higher-risk, visionary research beyond the scope of existing ERC calls—we aim to build on this success by empowering the next generation of outstanding researchers to push the boundaries of knowledge even further." (Sean Bex, Head Research Projects, Ghent University)

• More about ERC Grants

• Overview of EU-funded projects at Ghent University
• ERC News

Contact

EU Team Ghent University (eu-team@ugent.be)