Skip to main content

Prestigious Grant from the European Innovation Council Awarded to Tel Aviv University’s Research Team

Written on |

Dr. Iftach Nachman from the Faculty of Life Sciences leads the Israeli research team, as part of an international consortium.

The European Innovation Council Pathfinder Challenges program announced a 4.95M Euro funding to an international consortium from six countries. Dr. Iftach Nachman from the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry & Biophysics at The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences at Tel Aviv University leads the Israeli research team. The funding is given to an international consortium for the development of the Supervised Morphogenesis in Gastruloids (SUMO) project.

As part of the SUMO project, the researchers develop embryo like models (called ‘gastruloids’) based on pluripotent stem cells, to mimic cardiac and gastric tissues. With the help of advanced microscopy and machine learning, the consortium aims to make the gastruloids more robust and reproducible. The researchers hope that those models could be implemented in drug scanning and study of mutations in the future, and thus be a viable substitute to the use of lab animals.

Dr. Iftach Nachman: “In recent years the research field of embryonic models is seeing a huge boost. One of the main problems with growing such in-vitro stem-cell based models (and organoids in general) is the great variability between the different samples. We need to learn how to tame and control this variability to realize the promise of those models to the fields of medicine and basic science. This grant will enable us to deepen the scope of the research in this field.”

The SUMO consortium unites researchers from the University Hospital Oslo, Norway (HTH director: Stefan Krauss, coordinator), Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) (Jesse Veenvliet), Imperial College London, UK (HTH PI: Molly Stevens), University of Glasgow, UK (HTH PI: Nikolaj Gadegaard), Tel Aviv University, Israel (Iftach Nachman), Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP), Germany (Jens von Kries) and University of Oslo (HTH PI: Jan Helge Solbakk). 

 

European Innovation Council - Funded by the European Union

Related posts

The Reason Behind the Dancing Sunflowers

21 August 2024

Animals Experience War Stress Too

18 August 2024

How a Brain Parasite Becomes a Brain Cure

4 August 2024

Can Bats Think Ahead of Time?

25 July 2024

Tel Aviv University Shatters Limits with Self-Repairing Glass

26 June 2024

Global Coral Crisis: Deadly Sea Urchin Disease Discovered

22 May 2024

Wake-Up Call: Global Warming and Deforestation Threaten Wildlife

21 May 2024

Go Fish: Decline in Poleward-Moving Fish

4 April 2024

Do Viruses Have Consciousness?

17 March 2024

Unlocking Quantum Mysteries with Pendula

17 March 2024

Bye Bye Birdie: How Will Crows Survive Without Us?

10 March 2024

Revolutionizing Plant Cloning: Boosting Global Agriculture?

20 February 2024

A Scientific Breakthrough That Will Help Increase Plant Yields in Dry Conditions

31 January 2024

Head of Science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Meets TAU’s Scientific Community

2 August 2023

Researchers Produce Highly Efficient, Low-cost “Green” Hydrogen

17 July 2023

Researchers Induce Cancer Cell “Suicide”

17 July 2023

Victoria

Tok Corporate Centre, Level 1,
459 Toorak Road, Toorak VIC 3142
Phone: +61 3 9296 2065
Email: [email protected]

New South Wales

Level 22, Westfield Tower 2, 101 Grafton Street, Bondi Junction NSW 2022
Phone: +61 418 465 556
Email: [email protected]

Western Australia

P O Box 36, Claremont,
WA  6010
Phone: :+61 411 223 550
Email: [email protected]