Three Uppsala researchers receive major project funding from KAW
Professors Sebastian Sobek, Sebastian Deindl and Leif Andersson have been granted funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt
Professors Sebastian Sobek, Sebastian Deindl and Leif Andersson have all been granted project funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW). The research in their projects will focus on lake shore carbon cycling, a new platform for advanced DNA analysis, and the links between fish genes and different traits.
The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) has granted a total of SEK 835 million to 30 basic research projects in the fields of medicine, natural sciences and technology that are deemed to have the potential to lead to future scientific breakthroughs. Three of the projects will be led by researchers at Uppsala University.
Lakes as ecosystems
In a project led by Sebastian Sobek, Professor at the Department of Ecology and Genetics, researchers will take a holistic approach to the cycling of carbon and greenhouse gases at lake shores. The project aims to revise the view of lakes as ecosystems, and contribute to climate research through new carbon and greenhouse gas budgets of lakes. It also seeks to improve our conceptual understanding of the terrestrial carbon cycle, including the role of terrestrial ecosystems as carbon sinks and greenhouse gas sources.
Project: “Connecting the shore to the lake: towards revised carbon and greenhouse gas budgets of lake and land ecosystems (RELITORATE)”
Funding granted: SEK 32 million over five years.
Platform for DNA analysis
Sebastian Deindl, Professor at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, is the lead applicant of a project now granted funding to create a platform intended to revolutionise scientists’ ability to investigate sequence-dependent properties of DNA across the genome at the single-molecule level. Using the platform, the researchers hope to gain crucial insights into how specific DNA sequences influence the regulation of genetic information flow under different cellular processes and conditions.
Project: “Context matters: How underlying DNA sequence affects genomic processes”
Funding granted: SEK 25 million over five years.
Relationships between fish genes
Leif Andersson, Professor at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, and his research team have spent a decade sequencing the entire genomes of thousands of herrings. In the new project, they will go further and study the most interesting relationships between fish genes and different traits – links they have already identified but have not yet been able to get to the bottom of.
Project: “CLUPEA – unravelling molecular mechanisms behind adaptation to environmental heterogeneity and change”
Funding granted: SEK 26 million over five years.
Uppsala researchers other than those mentioned here will also benefit from KAW funding by participating in projects in which the lead applicant works at another university.
Linda Koffmar
Project funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
A total of 30 projects, in medicine, natural sciences and technology, have been evaluated after an international peer review process to have such high scientific potential that they have the possibility of leading to future scientific breakthroughs. Each project has been evaluated by at least four or five international experts in the respective field.