Millions in EU funding for a pharmacologist, two physicists and a cultural anthropologist at JGU

Four researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have been awarded prestigious ERC Consolidator Grants by the European Research Council (ERC). Each grant is worth EUR 2 million and will be provided over a period of five years. The ERC award recipients at JGU are Professor Andreas Bock, Director of the Institute of Pharmacology at the Mainz University Medical Center, Professor Čarna Brković, Professor of Cultural Studies/European Ethnology and Managing Director of the Department of Film, Theater, Media, and Cultural Studies, Professor Martin Fertl, Professor at the Institute of Physics and a member of the PRISMA⁺ Cluster of Excellence, and Stefan Schoppmann of the Detector Lab of the PRISMA⁺ Cluster of Excellence. ERC Consolidator Grants are among the most highly endowed ERC funding schemes for individuals. They support outstanding researchers with seven to twelve years of experience since completing their PhDs, enabling them to establish or consolidate their own research teams.

"We are delighted by the success of our researchers and would like to extend our warmest congratulations," said Professor Stefan Müller-Stach, the Vice President for Research and Academic Careers at JGU. "The awarding of ERC Consolidator Grants highlights the research strength of our university and further enhances our research profile. It underlines JGU's status as a hub of internationally outstanding and future-oriented research."

The Minister for Science and Health of Rhineland-Palatinate, Clemens Hoch, added: "The four ERC Consolidator Grants awarded to researchers at Mainz University represent a fantastic success for science made in Rhineland-Palatinate. They impressively demonstrate the interdisciplinary strength of the university – ranging from the fields of medicine and physics to cultural anthropology – while also underscoring the international visibility of outstanding research conducted in Rhineland-Palatinate. This first-class funding from the European Research Council demonstrates that outstanding research from Rhineland-Palatinate is setting standards worldwide, further strengthening our state as an attractive and high-performing research hub. I congratulate all the researchers and wish them every success in the implementation of their projects."


Details on the ERC-funded projects:

Andreas Bock: CLARITY – Elucidating the Role of Subcellular GPCR Nanoswitches in Signaling Specificity

The CLARITY project, entitled "Elucidating the Role of Subcellular GPCR Nanoswitches in Signaling Specificity", is to investigate physiological processes in the human body and identify target structures for innovative pharmaceutical agents. Its specific research focus is cell-cell communication. Through his research, Professor Andreas Bock aims to demonstrate that G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which play a central role in cell communication, do not simply relay broad-based, diffuse signals, as previously assumed, but rather generate signal fields only a few nanometers in size at various locations within the cell. Each of these tiny, extremely localized so-called nanoswitches stimulates the production of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), a chemical messenger, but – and this is the innovative insight – only in their immediate surroundings. This is an advantage when it comes to the transmission of signals from the external world, as it enables cells to precisely trace the origin of each cAMP molecule and determine which receptor triggered the signal. With this information, cells can respond in a precise and highly specific manner, even when numerous other receptors are active at the same time.

Andreas Bock employs advanced fluorescent biosensors, specialized microscopy techniques based on fluorescence lifetime, and cutting-edge proteomics methods to gain deeper insights into the structure of these nanoswitches and the interaction processes within cells. To illustrate the importance of the nanoswitches for normal physiological functions, he will also explore their role in the release of insulin by the pancreas. As part of this work, Bock will examine both responses to natural endogenous hormones and to drugs approved for the treatment of obesity. The long-term aim of the project is to contribute to the development of a new generation of medications characterized by active substances that target specific nanoswitches with pinpoint accuracy rather than cells in general. The enormous benefit would be the availability of more precise and effective treatments with fewer side effects.


Čarna Brković: Racial Socialism – Racialization and Value in Socialist Red Cross Societies

The project "Racial Socialism" will study humanitarian practices in socialist countries to develop new perspectives on racialization. Racialization is the process of constructing certain groups as fundamentally distinct from one another based on allegedly essential biological differences. The role that racialization has played in the historical emergence of capitalism is well understood, as the extraction of socio-economic value has often been justified by the framing of populations as ontologically different along racialized lines. Yet, historical sources also show that people in socialist societies were racialized, too. To date, little theoretical work has been done to clarify this apparent contradiction. By studying national Red Cross societies in the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, the German Democratic Republic, and the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the project will examine the ways that racialization was deployed in socialist societies. An anthropology of value is proposed as an analytical approach in order to systematically analyze the contradictions of racialization under socialism. In this project, socialist countries are understood as societies with multiple forms of value that were organized internally according to a particular logic, or a set of competing logics, operating at multiple scales.

The key objectives of Racial Socialism are to:

– undertake new empirical research on whether different groups were racialized in socialist Red Cross societies and, if so, how;
– in the selected socialist countries, identify different registers and struggles over value, including political, economic, social, and cultural value, and their modes of hierarchical integration;
– theorize racialization in socialism, which has typically been understood as part of capitalist social formations. By combining detailed historical research on socialist humanitarian organizations with anthropological theories of value and racialization, Brković will develop new perspectives on this contradiction.


Martin Fertl: NuLife – Towards an Accurate Measurement of the Lifetime of Ultracold Neutrons Suspended in a Novel Fully Magnetic Trap

The goal of the NuLife project is to determine the lifetime of neutrons as accurately as possible. This will enable highly precise testing of the structure of the weak interaction, which governs a wide range of phenomena, including the relative abundances of light elements in the early universe, such as helium and hydrogen, as well as the radioactive decay of neutrons and nuclei.

The NuLife project will be developed primarily in Mainz and will lay the groundwork for improving the precision of the future τSPECT² experiment. τSPECT² is based on the current τSPECT experiment, which is being conducted by Fertl's group at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. The τSPECT experiment involves the use of ultracold neutrons (UCNs) to measure the neutron lifetime. These extremely slow neutrons can be stored in traps, and their lifetime can be calculated from the number of neutrons that survive the storage period. As part of the NuLife project, researchers will develop a groundbreaking superconducting trap for capturing and storing UCNs. In combination with innovative beamline concepts, this will enable a substantial increase in the number of observed neutron decays. At modern UCN sources, these extremely slow neutrons are produced in large quantities. "The successful implementation of NuLife will increase the number of neutrons stored in the τSPECT² experiment by a factor of up to 200 compared with our τSPECT prototype setup," said Fertl. "This will enable the τSPECT² experiment to collect the large data sets required to determine the neutron lifetime with a precision of 0.1 seconds or better. This high level of precision will make it possible to test whether the measured neutron lifetime is consistent with the predictions of the Standard Model of particle physics and to shed light on experimental disparities between the results of these very precise measurements. Moreover, highly sensitive investigations of the mathematical structure of the Standard Model will be possible. These could either set very stringent constraints on physics beyond the Standard Model or lead to the discovery of new weak interactions, new particles, and new structures of the weak interaction."

The NuLife project is intended to translate the outstanding performance of the τSPECT experiment into unprecedented experimental precision in neutron lifetime measurements, thereby making it a potential reference point for research into physics beyond the Standard Model.


Stefan Schoppmann: NuDoubt⁺⁺ – Search for Double Beta Plus Decays with a Novel Detector Concept Combining Hybrid and Opaque Scintillator Techniques

The NuDoubt⁺⁺ project is dedicated to the study of an extremely rare nuclear process called double beta-plus decay, in which two positrons – particles similar to electrons but with a positive charge – are emitted. Because this event is so rare and the required detection methods are highly complex, and because the availability of suitable materials is very limited, it is difficult to observe and measure this decay. Nevertheless, the effort is justified, as measurements of double beta-plus decay provide a powerful tool for determining the nature of neutrinos. In particular, they make it possible to test whether neutrinos are in fact their own antiparticles, which would classify them as Majorana particles.

To this end, NuDoubt⁺⁺ will further advance the use of scintillator materials. These materials emit light when a charged particle or photon passes through them, making them ideal for their detection. In the case of the new class of slow hybrid scintillators with particularly high light output, which was developed at JGU, two different forms of light can be effectively distinguished, making them well suited for the detection of positrons. Typically, transparent crystals, plastics, or liquids are used for this purpose. In NuDoubt⁺⁺, however, opaque scintillators will also be employed. This novel type of material can significantly enhance the sensitivity of the experiment to double beta-plus decays. "I initially developed the opaque scintillator technology in 2019 by blending a standard transparent scintillator material with wax," explained Schoppmann. "My recent breakthrough in combining opaque and hybrid scintillators will allow NuDoubt⁺⁺ to bring together all the advantages of scintillator detectors in a unique, integrated approach that maximizes measurement sensitivity. Over the past two years, I have led a research group at JGU that has developed a preliminary detector design based on my concept using computer simulations. We are now ready to turn this work into reality."

In the first year of funding provided by the ERC Consolidator Grant, the detector concept and construction plans will be finalized. The detector will then be built and tested in the experimental hall of the Institute of Physics of JGU in the two following years. In the final two years of the NuDoubt⁺⁺ funding period, the researchers intend to measure two-neutrino double beta-plus decay and improve the precision of current experiments.