EUROPEAN RESEARCH COUNCIL

The European Research Council has announced the winners of its Advanced Grants in life sciences. The awards are worth up to EUR2.5 million (?1.95 million), but they can rise to EUR3.5 million in exceptional circumstances. The 18 UK-based researchers, from a total of 78 winners, are listed below.

Award winner: David Baulcombe

Institution: University of Cambridge

RNA silencing in regulation and evolution

Award winner: Matteo Carandini

Institution: University College London

Computations by neurons and populations in visual cortex

Award winner: Caroline Dean

Institution: John Innes Centre

Dissection of environmentally mediated epigenetic silencing

Award winner: John Endler

Institution: University of Exeter

Using sensory biology and environmental conditions to predict the direction of evolution

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Award winner: Jeremy Martin Henley

Institution: University of Bristol

Mechanisms and consequences of synaptic SUMOylation in health and disease

Award winner: Sebastian Lennox Johnston

Institution: Imperial College London

Human and mouse models of rhinovirus-induced acute asthma exacerbations

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Award winner: Jonathan Jones

Institution: Sainsbury Laboratory

Genomics and effectoromics to understand defence suppression and disease resistance in Arabidopsis-Albugo candida interactions

Award winner: Dimitri Michael Kullmann

Institution: University College London

Long-term synaptic plasticity in interneurons: mechanisms and computational significance

Award winner: Kevin Neville Laland

Institution: University of St Andrews

The evolution of culture

Award winner: Nicholas Mazarakis

Institution: Imperial College London

Improved retrograde lentiviral vectors for gene therapy in motor neuron diseases

Award winner: Vincent Savolainen

Institution: Imperial College London

Understanding the origin of species: ecological genomics and transcriptomics on oceanic islands

Award winner: Michael David Schneider

Institution: Imperial College London

Cardiac death and regeneration

Award winner: Christopher Joseph Schofield

Institution: University of Oxford

Molecular mechanism of oxygen sensing by enzymes

Award winner: Brigitta Stockinger

Institution: Medical Research Council

The influence of Aryl hydrocarbon receptor ligands on protective and pathological immune responses

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Award winner: Alan Tunnacliffe

Institution: University of Cambridge

Surviving the dry state: engineering a desiccation-tolerant mammalian cell

Award winner: Michael David Tyers

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Systematic chemical genetic interrogation of biological networks

Award winner: Fritz Vollrath

Institution: University of Oxford

Skills as biomimetic ideals for polymers

Award winner: Stuart West

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Evolutionary explanations for co-operation: microbes to humans

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THE BRITISH ACADEMY

Two international awards have been made through a collaborative scheme that enables research to be carried out by international partners. The funding, which totals ?290,000, is to be provided over a three-year period. The successful projects are:

Project name: Islam, trade and politics across the Indian Ocean: interaction between South-East Asia and Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, 16th to the 20th centuries

Institutions: University of Chichester, among others

Value: ?150,000

Project name: Clerical authority in Shiite Islam: culture and learning in the seminaries of Iraq and Iran

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Institutions: The universities of Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, Oxford and St Andrews, among others

Value: ?140,000.