Cells don't pull – they push! – A generous ERC Synergy Grant has been awarded to a research group at ISTA.

The prestigious European Research Council grant of nearly €10 million has been awarded to a multi-institutional team with diverse research focuses to investigate how cells push rather than pull and adhere to one another as they respond to their environment. One of these four teams is led by Professor Michael Sixt, who also heads the Cellular Morphodynamics research group at ISTA. Approximately €2.5 million will be allocated to the research conducted at ISTA.

The project, titled PushingCell, brings together four leading researchers and their laboratories with a unique range of expertise. Michael Sixt's partners in the project are Anna Akhmanova, a cytoskeleton expert at Utrecht University; Patricia Bassereau, a membrane biophysicist at the Curie Institute in France; and theoretical physicist Pierre Sens, also at the Curie Institute.

What will the team investigate?

Recent studies have shown that a cell's response to its environment extends far beyond the pulling and adhering movements that are already quite well understood in cell biology. Cells also rely heavily on non-adherent interactions as they explore, perceive, and reshape their surroundings by pushing into them.

"The goal of the PushingCell project is to understand the mechanisms behind these lesser-known phenomena. The proposed work aims to provide new fundamental insights into the biological and physical principles underlying the control of cell shape, integrity, and movement," says Michael Sixt, whose lab investigates cell migration and focuses on the micro-construction of biocompatible "obstacle courses" for studying cellular phenomena and validating the results in situ and in vivo.

ERC Synergy Grant

The ERC Synergy Grant is designed to recognize particularly ambitious scientific ideas that are difficult to address with a single scientific approach. This made the PushingCell project a strong candidate, as it aims to improve our understanding of fundamental biological processes by exploring how cells adapt their shape and movement from different perspectives.

Anna Akhmanova, one of the partner scientists at Utrecht University, says: “This research is the logical continuation of a long-standing line of research in my lab, where we aim to understand, at the molecular level, how microtubules contribute to various physiological processes. The collaboration planned under the Synergy Grant will take this research to the next level, as we will be able to combine sophisticated biophysical measurements in cells and in vitro with theoretical analyses together with the other participating teams.”

“The ERC Scientific Council developed the Synergy Grants to provide ambitious researchers with a space where they can pool their resources to tackle multifaceted scientific challenges.”

“The funding supports groups of two to four outstanding researchers in bringing together complementary skills, knowledge, and resources in an ambitious project,” the ERC said in a statement.

Mehr dazu:

https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news/erc-synergy-grants-2022-project-highlights