Developing new, nature-inspired ways of modifying natural substances and researching the adaptation of organisms to environmental changes: The European Research Council (ERC) is funding the projects TAILOMET by Lena Barra and PHENOTIPPING by Catalina Chaparro-Pedraza with ERC Starting Grants of 1.5 million euros each.

The European Research Council (ERC) announced the new ERC Starting Grants projects on 4 September 2025. One grant goes to Konstanz chemist Lena Barra. For her project TAILOMET, she will receive a total of 1.5 million euros over a period of five years. Catalina Chaparro-Pedraza also receives a grant worth a total of 1.5 million euros for her project PHENOTIPPING. The ecologist, who currently works at Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in Zurich, plans to carry out the project at the Limnological Institute of the University of Konstanz.

Lena Barra: TAILOMET – with a little magic to new bioactive molecules
TAILOMET is all about terpenes – natural carbon compounds that characterize the scent of many plants, for example. Accordingly, they have always been used in perfumes and as natural flavourings. Moreover, terpenes are of great interest to the pharmaceutical industry, as many of them have antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory or other medically relevant properties. To exploit their potential for new products and active ingredients, terpenes would have to be specifically modifiable.

Particularly intriguing are the non-classical terpenes, which deviate from the usual "construction rules" of nature. Normally, nature always assembles terpenes from the same C5 building blocks, with a basic structure of five carbon atoms – a kind of universal modular principle. In some organisms, however, these rules are broken as additional carbon atoms are inserted. Such rare "exceptions to the rule" bring out new types of chemical structures that have hardly been researched to date and harbour enormous potential for new applications.

And this is exactly what Barra wants to achieve with her team: She intends to modify terpenes with the help of enzymes by adding what is known as methyl groups. "It is well known that adding a single methyl group can have drastic effects on the pharmacological properties of an active ingredient or on the odour of a flavouring agent. The effect of such a methylation is often surprising and hardly predictable, which is why it is also referred to as the 'magic methyl effect'," explains Barra.

Inspired by nature: new ways of modifying natural substances
To date, there are hardly any suitable methods for incorporating methyl groups into terpene scaffolds and utilizing this magical methyl effect for the development of terpene-based active ingredients. Nature itself, however, seems to have produced numerous ways of modifying terpenes through a wide variety of organisms – from bacteria to fungi and plants. "Our research results show that there is a previously hidden treasure trove of natural enzymes and reaction pathways that opens up completely new possibilities for us", says Barra. Uncovering this treasure is now the goal of the TAILOMET project.

"We want to identify the enzymes that enable these reactions in nature and to reveal their reaction pathways. With this knowledge, we plan to develop catalytic systems modelled on nature that allow us to methylate terpenes in a targeted manner", Barra explains. The project seeks to bridge knowledge gaps in the enzyme biochemistry of terpene methylation and provide access to terpenes with fine-tuned or even completely new properties.

Catalina Chaparro-Pedraza: PHENOTIPPING – adaptation of organisms in times of ecological change
At an accelerating rate, anthropogenic changes impose stress upon ecosystems. There is growing concern that these gradual environmental changes will lead to major shifts in how ecosystems function, making them tip into an alternative stable state (ASS). While researchers have focused much attention on understanding and predicting tipping phenomena, the capacity of organisms to adapt to environmental change has remained rather neglected. Ecologist Catalina Chaparro-Pedraza plans to analyze how such adaptation influences ecological resilience. Her research proposal was recently awarded an ERC Starting Grant.

Whether and when an ecosystem reaches a critical threshold causing it to tip depends a lot on how sensitive organisms react to environmental stress. This kind of sensitivity is influenced by phenotypic traits. Basically, there are two ways these traits can adapt to changing environmental conditions: via evolution over time or via phenotypic plasticity. This means that a single genotype – an organism’s set of genetic material – can express different phenotypes, that is observable traits, depending on environmental conditions. "With this project, I will investigate how ecological dynamics, environmental stress and adaptation interact. And I want to find out how they influence the resilience of ecological systems subjected to environmental change," Chaparro-Pedraza says.

Her interdisciplinary approach combines theoretical and empirical approaches. Catalina Chaparro-Pedraza explains: "First, I plan to develop a theoretical framework to understand how adaptation influences tipping phenomena in ecological systems. In a second step, I will test theoretical predictions, by experimenting with how the rate of environmental change and adaptation interact, and how they affect the ecological dynamics after reaching an alternative stable state." The ecologist will carry out experiments on phytoplankton populations.

Chaparro-Pedraza is currently working as a Junior Group Leader at Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. With the ERC Starting Grant, she plans to lead a research team at the University of Konstanz’s Limnological Institute, and work in close collaboration with Lutz Becks and his team in Konstanz.

About the ERC Starting Grant
Every year, the ERC awards Starting Grants to promising early-career researchers. The aim is to give them the opportunity to set up and expand their own research teams and to move forward research projects with high innovation potential.


Key facts:

• Lena Barra receives an ERC Starting Grant in the amount of 1.5 million euros.
• The "TAILOMET" project is investigating new, nature-inspired ways of modifying natural substances for the production of customized terpenoids.
• Barra was appointed as a tenure-track professor for systemic chemical biology at the University of Konstanz in 2022, where she has headed the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group "Identification and biosynthetic studies of NAD-derived natural substances" since 2023.
• Catalina Chaparro-Pedraza, too, was awarded an ERC Starting Grant amounting to 1.5 million euros.
• The project "PHENOTIPPING: Tipping dynamics and resilience in adapting ecological systems" examines how adaptations – by means of evolution or phenotypic plasticity – influence ecological resilience. The project combines both theoretical and empirical approaches.
• Since 2025, Chaparro-Pedraza has worked as a Junior Group Leader at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. With the ERC Starting Grant, she plans to lead a research team at the University of Konstanz’s Limnological Institute.