Awards | Human Frontier Science Program

Funding
Funding
HFSP supports novel, innovative and interdisciplinary basic research focused on the complex mechanisms of living organisms. A clear emphasis is placed on novel collaborations that bring biologists together to focus on problems at the frontier of the life sciences.
Awardees
Awardees
In this section you find information about the awardees in the HFSP scientific programs. This includes a searchable database of HFSP awardees, information on the HFSP Nakasone Award and other achievements by HFSP awardees.
News & Impact
Events
Events
HFSP promotes and participates in several events every year. We are committed to bringing together the scientific community and forging new opportunities to network and have scientific discussions that help to create bridges and partnerships for the future of frontier science.
About
About
The Human Frontier Science Program is a program of funding for frontier research in the life sciences. It is implemented by the International Human Frontier Science Program Organization (HFSPO) with its office in Strasbourg. Here you can find all you need to know about the HFSPO.
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2024 -

Long-Term Fellowships - LTF

Unraveling spatial landscape of Mycobacterium tuberculosis transcriptome & its role in TB pathology

MEHDIRATTA Kritee (INDIA)

Immunology and Infectious Diseases - President and Fellows of Harvard College, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health - Boston - United States

RUBIN Eric (Host supervisor)

2024 -

Grant Awardees - Program Grants

Hormone-like Bacterial Signaling Molecules as Mediators of Gut-Brain Dialogues

XAVIER Karina (PORTUGAL)

- Fundação GIMM - Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine - Lisbon - PORTUGAL

MEIJLER Michael (ISRAEL)

- Ben-Gurion University of the Negev - Be'er-Sheva - ISRAEL

NEEDHAM Brittany (United States)

- Indiana University - Indianapolis - United States

Microbial symbionts inhabit all animals, with constant exchange of molecular cues between microbes and host. These communities of microbes, referred to as microbiota, influence many aspects of host physiology, including the brain and behavior. Specific signals and host receptors involved in these interactions remain largely unknown. To understand the permeating effects of interbacterial chemical crosstalk within the microbiota community, as well as signaling between the microbiota and the host, we will focus on the mammalian intestine, which houses a dense bacterial community and is ideal for elucidating these pathways. Recently, a novel family of bacterial signaling molecules, named pyrazinones, was found to regulate communication and virulence in bacterial intestinal pathogens. We predict that these pyrazinones are also produced by commensal members of a healthy gut microbiota. Intriguingly, bacterial pyrazinone receptors can sense human-derived neurotransmitters due to structural similarities between the compounds. This shared ligand profile between pyrazinones and host neurotransmitters, along with pyrazinone production by known (and potentially many unknown) microbes within the gut, offers a compelling new avenue of microbe-host connection. Pyrazinones are likely perceived by host neurotransmitter receptors, modulating the enteric, peripheral and/or central nervous systems. Thus, our proposal offers the transformative and unexplored notion that pyrazinones can serve as microbial-made neurotransmitters, impacting both animal behaviors and bacterial group behaviors. To test this, we will apply advance metabolomic methods to identify and characterize the pyrazinones produced by gut microbiota and synthesize novel chemical probes to identify host receptors and their spatial distribution in mice. We will genetically modify pyrazinone biosynthetic pathways in gut bacteria, allowing us to compare their effects in colonized mice. Once host receptors are characterized, we will use mutant mouse lines to confirm their involvement. Using these tools, we will study microbe-dependent neurological alterations and behavioral phenotypes to assess interplay with the nervous systems. Overall, we will determine how host monitoring of these microbial signals leads to altered host functions, establishing a new avenue of crosstalk between host and microbial symbionts.

2024 -

Long-Term Fellowships - LTF

Reward-based learning of assemblies in olfaction

MIEHL Christoph (AUSTRIA)

Department of Neurobiology - The University of Chicago - Chicago - United States

DOIRON Brent (Host supervisor)

OSWALD Anne-Marie (Host supervisor)

2024 -

Long-Term Fellowships - LTF

Exploring the viral influence on the human gut microbiome

MILLMAN Adi (ISRAEL)

Department of Biology - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT - Cambridge - United States

LAUB Michael (Host supervisor)

2024 -

Grant Awardees - Program Grants

From nano to organismal scale: structural regulation of regenerating jellyfish

SINIGAGLIA Chiara (ITALY)

- CNRS Languedoc-Roussillon - Montpellier - FRANCE

MODES Carl (United States)

- Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (Max-Planck-Institut für Molekulare Zellbiologie und Genetik) - Dresden - GERMANY

SHIMANOVICH Ulyana (ISRAEL)

- Weizmann Institute of Science - Rehovot - ISRAEL

Diverse species can recover lost body parts, but why not all injuries lead to regeneration, and how animals re-organise their bodies remain key open questions. Mechanical features, notably of the extracellular matrix (ECM), are known critical regulators of development - however they are only rarely considered by regeneration studies. New models are needed to understand how shapes re-emerge, able to address different cues across the molecular, cellular and organismal scales. The small jellyfish Clytia hemisphaerica boasts excellent repair capacities: wounds heal within 12 hours, and organs regenerate in a week. Recovery is regulated by both transcriptional and mechanical cues, and the simple anatomy, wherein a thick ECM (mesoglea) is covered by contractile epithelia, offers an unexplored experimental paradigm. We propose a unified vision of regeneration, where mechano-chemical features of cells and tissues robustly modulate Clytia repair. Our central hypothesis is that processes related to organ regeneration in Clytia, including recruitment of progenitor cells, regulation of transcriptional responses and orchestration of cell differentiation, are linked to the mechanisms of tissue-matrix interaction, and to the mechanical and topological features of the injured tissues. A purely in vivo investigation remains challenging, due to the complexity of living tissues and the ECM dynamics. Our solution is to combine in vivo manipulations with the power of analytical tools. We will thus be able to link the structural properties of the mesoglea (fibrillar network of structural and biologically active protein fibrils) with the forces generated within contractile epithelia (regenerative biology, in vivo – Sinigaglia). We will build topologically-informed mechanical models coupling the mesoglea network to the aligned patterns of actomyosin, enabling us to capture, in simple predictive rules, how different classes of injuries – to actomyosin pattern or mesogleal fidelity – affect regeneration (theoretical biophysics and computational biology, in silico – Modes). We will combine these manipulations with biomaterials engineering approaches to build synthetic analogues of self-repairing jellyfish-inspired biomaterial machinery (soft matter, biochemistry, in vitro – Shimanovich). Our regenerative platform, modular and cross-scale, will be adaptable to other contexts.

2024 -

Long-Term Fellowships - LTF

Neural dynamics of social role-taking and role-reversal in the medial prefrontal cortex

MUGNAINI Matias (ARGENTINA)

Animal Physiology/ Systems Neurobiology and Neural Computation - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Berlin - GERMANY

BRECHT Michael (Host supervisor)

2024 -

Cross Disciplinary Fellowships - CDF

Synthesis, characterization, and in vivo identification of novel oxyendocannabinoidome metabolites

MULLER chante (USA)

Medicine - Laval University (Université Laval, Québec) - Quebec - CANADA

Gill Center for Biomolecular Science - Indiana University - Bloomington - United States

MACKIE Kenneth (Host supervisor)

GUO Feng (Host supervisor)

2024 -

Long-Term Fellowships - LTF

Unravelling the molecular mechanisms of thyroglobulin endocytosis mediated by the R2 receptor

RAMANADANE Karthik (FRANCE)

Department of structural biology - Human Technopole - Milano - ITALY

COSCIA Francesca (Host supervisor)

2024 -

Grant Awardees - Early Career

A novel approach to tropical dendroclimatology using hyperspectral imaging and deep learning [ATHIL]

RANNESTAD Meley (NORWAY)

- Norwegian University of Life Sciences - Ås - NORWAY

SIYUM Zenebe (ETHIOPIA)

- Mekelle University, Institute of Climate and Society - Mekelle - ETHIOPIA

Dendroclimatology, the science of extracting past climate records from the distinct properties of annual tree-rings plays a critical role in climate research. The science has been widely applied in the temperate and boreal regions, where the strong yearly cycles in temperature and light availability induces annual ring formation in trees. In the tropics, however, its application has been limited as tree-ring formation in many tropical tree species can be complex due to mainly the low seasonal climatic changes and the high climatic fluctuations within seasons in the region. Consequently, paleo-climate records in tropical countries, particularly in Africa are scarce and the continent’s climate science is currently the least advanced in the world. Nevertheless, tree-rings are the widely available climate-proxy data sources in Africa, indicating the need for improved tree-ring detecting and characterizing technologies. Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) provides an efficient method for the characterization of physical and chemical features in objects at the molecular level. HSI systems capture vast amounts of spatially resolved spectral data and provide rich information about the composition and characteristics of objects in an image. On the other hand, deep learning (DL) provides an effective HIS data processing technique owing to its ability to automatically learn and extract complex patterns and features from images. In this context, the aim of the proposed project is to test a novel approach to dendroclimatology using a combination of these cutting-edge analytical technologies on two selected tropical tree species. To achieve the aim, we will collaborate between a fully equipped HSI in Norway with an emerging tropical dendroclimatology lab in Ethiopia. The proposed project will involve research in both HSI and DL techniques. Different HSI systems, sample preparation and instrumental setup techniques, and light conditions appropriate for detecting and characterizing tree-rings from different sample types will be explored in laboratory environment. Subsequently, advanced DL data processing algorithms will be explored to obtain good spectral signal from the samples and quality data for robust prediction models. Finally, a hyperspectral camera with relevant wavelength bands will be applied outdoors for field analysis of wooden samples.

2024 -

Long-Term Fellowships - LTF

Understanding the formation of schema representations in prefrontal cortex

REINERT Sandra (GERMANY)

Sainsbury Wellcome Center - University College London (UCL) - London - United Kingdom

MRSIC-FLOGEL Thomas (Host supervisor)

BEHRENS Timothy (Host supervisor)

2024 -

Cross Disciplinary Fellowships - CDF

Mechano-Chemical Coupling in Cytoplasmic Flows: The competition between Self-Organization and Chaos

RIEDL Michael (AUSTRIA)

Excellence Cluster Physics of Life - TU Dresden (Technische Universität Dresden) - Dresden - GERMANY

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Awardees

Unraveling spatial landscape of Mycobacterium tuberculosis transcriptome & its role in TB pathology

MEHDIRATTA Kritee (INDIA)

RUBIN Eric (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Hormone-like Bacterial Signaling Molecules as Mediators of Gut-Brain Dialogues

XAVIER Karina (PORTUGAL)

MEIJLER Michael (ISRAEL)

NEEDHAM Brittany (United States)

Abstract

Reward-based learning of assemblies in olfaction

MIEHL Christoph (AUSTRIA)

DOIRON Brent (Host supervisor)

OSWALD Anne-Marie (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Exploring the viral influence on the human gut microbiome

MILLMAN Adi (ISRAEL)

LAUB Michael (Host supervisor)

Abstract

From nano to organismal scale: structural regulation of regenerating jellyfish

SINIGAGLIA Chiara (ITALY)

MODES Carl (United States)

SHIMANOVICH Ulyana (ISRAEL)

Abstract

Neural dynamics of social role-taking and role-reversal in the medial prefrontal cortex

MUGNAINI Matias (ARGENTINA)

BRECHT Michael (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Synthesis, characterization, and in vivo identification of novel oxyendocannabinoidome metabolites

MULLER chante (USA)

DI MARZO Vincenzo (Host supervisor)

FLAMAND Nicolas (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Dissecting long-range gene regulation of cell differentiation through biophysical approaches

NAGANO Masahiro (JAPAN)

HANSEN Anders (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Visualizing specific lipid processing and uncovering molecular mechanisms using gut organoids

NAITOU Yuki (JAPAN)

HONIGMANN Alf (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Closing the neural and behavioural feedback loop of social interactions in freely-behaving primates

NAKAHASHI Ayuno (JAPAN)

GAIL Alexander (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Memory trace in a neuron: dissecting dendritic mechanisms of learning

NOGUCHI Asako (JAPAN)

LOSONCZY Attila (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Molecular and functional dissection of anti-polarity signal transmission in dopamine neurons

NOZAWA Kazuya (JAPAN)

KAESER Pascal (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Illuminating orphan GPCR signaling by novel biochemical approaches

OKAMOTO Hiroyuki (JAPAN)

MANGLIK Aashish (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Parasite immune evasion in a murine microcosm of the human immune system

PARIKH Shivang (INDIA)

BATISTA Facundo (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Ultrasound neuromodulation: search for the physical origin

PAVLIC Alen (SLOVENIA)

SHAPIRO Mikhail (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Islands of Calleja: a novel neural substrate linking maternal cannabis use with mental disorders

PROKOP Susanne (HUNGARY)

MACKIE Kenneth (Host supervisor)

GUO Feng (Host supervisor)

Abstract

Unravelling the molecular mechanisms of thyroglobulin endocytosis mediated by the R2 receptor

RAMANADANE Karthik (FRANCE)

COSCIA Francesca (Host supervisor)

Abstract

A novel approach to tropical dendroclimatology using hyperspectral imaging and deep learning [ATHIL]

RANNESTAD Meley (NORWAY)

SIYUM Zenebe (ETHIOPIA)

Abstract

Understanding the formation of schema representations in prefrontal cortex

REINERT Sandra (GERMANY)