Queen Mary academics receive €8 million funding from European Research Council

Four headshots, one of each of the successful ERCC grant winners

These highly competitive grants had over 3,000 applicants this year. They are awarded to provide support to exceptionally talented, mid-career researchers with a strong track-record of delivering research excellence to set up a new research group, or strengthen an existing one, to develop their pioneering research. 

To have four of these grants be awarded to Queen Mary academics is testament to the calibre of their research and the talent that exists at the University. These grants were awarded to:  

• Dr Stefaan Verbruggen, Lecturer in Medical Technology, School of Engineering and Materials Sciences 
• Professor Claudia Langenberg, Director of the Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI) and Professor of computational medicine at Berlin Institute of Health 
• Dr Xuekun Lu, Senior Lecturer in Green Energy, School of Engineering and Materials Sciences 
• Dr Alexandre De Mendoza Soler, Reader in Evolutionary Epigenomics, School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences   

Speaking on this achievement, Professor Andrew Livingston, Vice-Principal for Research and Professor of Chemical Engineering at Queen Mary, said: “I am delighted that these four brilliant academics have been awarded these prestigious awards.  

“In a highly competitive funding round, their successes reflect the important and impactful research we have at Queen Mary, and our commitment to supporting research with world-reaching benefits. I’m looking forward to following these highly promising scientific ideas and to seeing how the results of these projects make a difference to people’s lives.” 

Dr Stefaan Verbruggen: Cancer-osteocyte network atlas (CONTRA)  

CONTRA will uncover how breast cancer cells communicate with the hidden network of osteocytes – the cells that control bone health – when cancer spreads to bone. Using advanced imaging and molecular mapping, it will create the first detailed atlas of these interactions. Understanding this early crosstalk could reveal how metastatic tumours take hold. This knowledge will open new pathways for preventing and treating bone metastases.  

Speaking on receiving the award, he said: "I’m thrilled that the ERC is supporting this frontier research. CONTRA will finally let us see how cancer and bone cells talk to each other – and that could transform how we treat metastatic disease." 

Professor Claudia Langenberg: Mechanisms of multimorbidity – from populations to cells (D-MAPS)

D-MAPS will – for the first time – provide a comprehensive map of disease connections based on their shared causes. Using large-scale human molecular and clinical data from diverse populations, it will identify nodal mechanisms and points of intervention not for one, but multiple, indications. D-MAPS will prioritise groups of diseases that through their combination, significantly alter patient outcomes and prognosis, innovating targeted prevention. 

Professor Langenberg said: “The European Commission’s ERC Consolidator funding of D-MAPS supports the development of a fundamentally different scientific approach and catalyses a move from focusing on one disease at a time to studying disease and organ systems and shared causes. It is a huge privilege to be given the opportunity to lead and deliver this ambitious programme of work with my outstanding team.” 

Dr Xuekun Lu: High-performance pressure-free silicon all-solid-state batteries by integrated physical and digital twin techniques (TWIN-SiNERGY) 

TWIN-SiNERGY aims to develop a breakthrough monolithic silicon all–solid-state battery that significantly increases energy density, cycle life and rate performance without the need for external pressure. This transformative advance will be driven by an evidence-guided materials strategy powered by an integrated physical and digital-twin framework, combining multiscale, multimodal operando imaging with state-of-the-art 3D physics-based and data-driven models. 

On receiving this accolade, Dr Lu said: “I am thrilled to receive this ERC Consolidator Grant, which provides me with a major platform to drive battery science and technologies into its next chapter leveraging my academic strengths, delivering innovations that could transform the future of energy storage and transport electrification.” 

Dr Alexandre de Mendoza Soler: The epigenetic cost and benefit balance of giant virus endogenizations (ENDOGIANT) 

The ENDOGIANT project explores how giant viruses sometimes integrate their DNA into the genomes of the organisms they infect. It aims to understand how these large viral fragments become inherited as part of the host’s own genetic material and how they influence traits, evolution and vulnerability to infection. Giant viruses are particularly intriguing because they contain far more genes than typical viruses, show clear signs of past gene exchanges with their hosts, and often encode factors involved in gene regulation, evidence of a long-running arms race with their eukaryotic hosts. By uncovering these ancient interactions, the project may reveal unexpected roles of viruses in shaping microbial and animal biodiversity and inspire new biotechnological tools based on their unique genetic machinery. 

In response to his award, Dr de Mendoza Soler said: "Holding an ERC Consolidator Grant is a great privilege because it supports bold, curiosity-driven research while embracing risk. I am excited to explore this new dimension of genome evolution, where the genome itself emerges not as the product of a simple linear family tree, but as a complex jigsaw, a detective story full of surprising twists that can challenge our basic assumptions about gene regulation and genetic inheritance." 

Read more:  

• Queen Mary academics’ research excellence recognised on global scale - Queen Mary University of London  
• Queen Mary researchers among top 100 in UK - Queen Mary University of London 
• Queen Mary early-career researchers awarded prestigious European Research Council Starting Grants - Queen Mary University of London