We are happy to announce that two COS PIs, Prof. Anna Dowbaj and Prof. Julian Grünewald, have been awarded prestigious ERC Starting Grants in the latest funding round of the European Research Council, among 10 total awarded to TUM investigators.

Anna Dowbaj’s project AgingNiche investigates why the liver’s regenerative capacity declines with age. Using complex liver organoids, Anna and her team will investigate how age-related changes in the cellular microenvironment affect tissue regeneration. They will also perform targeted manipulations to identify strategies for restoring regenerative capacity in aged livers.

Julian Grünewald’s project ONE2MANY aims to make gene editing for inherited heart muscle diseases more scalable by developing AI-supported tools that can address entire groups of mutations. His team will also develop new lipid nanoparticle-based approaches for delivering these tools to the heart.

We warmly congratulate Anna and Julian on this outstanding achievement and look forward to seeing these ambitious projects develop at COS.