Christoph Bock, Principal Investigator at CeMM and Professor of Medical Informatics at the Medical University of Vienna, has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). With €2.5 million in grant funding from the European Union, the Solid-CART project seeks to develop stronger and smarter CAR T cells as immunotherapy for solid tumors.

Thomas Pock, head of the Institute of Visual Computing at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), has been awarded an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his project EAGLE – Efficient Algorithms for Generative Learning. In his research, the computer scientist aims to develop novel generative learning methods and algorithms. He will receive funding of 2.5 million euros for this, with the project running for five years.

• Huntington’s disease is a genetic disorder that gradually destroys brain cells over the course of 10 to 30 years, typically starting between the ages of 35 and 50

• Phase 1b/2a will evaluate the safety of the treatment and provides hope for those with few options to slow the progression of the disease

• Clinical trial will enroll 21 people with early-stage Huntington’s disease, with 12 participants in a phase 1b dose-escalation group and nine in a phase 2a expansion group

While cryo-electron microscopy is a powerful method for determining the three-dimensional structure of proteins, preparing high-quality samples for it remains challenging.

The Papp Team at EMBL Grenoble has developed two prototypes to automate sample preparation and quality control: EasyGrid and EasyGrid Control, as described in a recent Nature Methods publication.

These unique instruments can be used across scales for cryo-electron microscopy and tomography, as well as X-ray nano-imaging.

EasyGrid Control will soon be offered as a service to the scientific community and prepared to be commercialised.

Kyushu University researchers have overcome a long-standing challenge of efficiently converting visible light into UV in solid materials through precise molecular design. By adding side chains to the sp³ carbon atoms of an organic molecule, they achieved high luminescence and efficient energy transfer in the solid state. The system reaches 1.9% conversion efficiency under weak light intensity comparable to sunlight, opening the door to applications including solar-driven photocatalysts, indoor air purification, OLEDs, and 3D printing.