This is the first such grant awarded to IQS and the URL by the European Research Council and involves one of the largest (€1,500,000) grants awarded by the European Commission to finance groundbreaking projects with the greatest potential for impact.
The project "Creating an orthogonal brain gate" (OBGate), led by Dr Benjamí Oller Salvia, with the IQS Department of Bioengineering, has received a "Starting Grant" from the prestigious European Research Council (ERC). This is the first such grant awarded to IQS and the URL by the European Research Council and involves one of the largest (€1,500,000) grants awarded by the European Commission to finance groundbreaking projects with the greatest potential for impact.
In total, the ERC has awarded €636 million in grants to emerging scientific talent across Europe, with 408 researchers earning grants this year. This aid for top young researchers with postdoctoral experience of 2 to 7 years is used to launch their projects, train their own teams, and pursue their most promising ideas.
The aid granted by the European Research Council to the various researchers will be invested in scientific projects in different areas ranging from engineering research projects to life sciences or humanities.
Regarding Dr Benjamí Oller's project, the objective of OBGate is to develop a new system to increase drug delivery to the brain, with unprecedented selectivity and efficiency.
This year's call for grants attracted nearly 3,000 proposals, which were reviewed by panels of renowned research professionals from around the world. The grants will create more than 2,000 jobs for postdoctoral researchers, doctoral students, and other staff members at host institutions.