’Consolidator Grant’ for Seraphine Wegner

EU Research Council funds synthetic biology 4 million euros

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Prof Seraphine Wegner from the Institute of Physiological Chemistry and Pathobiochemistry at the University of Münster with an ERC Consolidator Grant worth 2.4 million euros. With this grant, the EU is supporting the five-year "Lighthouse" project, which aims to get biological cells to communicate with each other using light signals.

In multicellular systems such as tissues and biofilms, cells communicate via chemical signals. These signals are highly complex and have so far made it impossible for humans to selectively manipulate cell-to-cell communication. Seraphine Wegner and her team want to develop a new form of communication between cells that does not yet exist in nature and is based on light rather than chemical signals. "This form of communication is extremely effective and fast, as the signal reaches the target cell at the speed of light and is not affected or disrupted by natural cell signals," emphasises Seraphine Wegner. This means that new communication paths in multicellular systems can be programmed according to a modular scheme. This should enable innovative applications in biotechnology and cellular bionics.

Seraphine Wegner’s research is in the field of synthetic biology. This concept involves developing artificial biological systems with new properties. For example, they can be used to understand cellular functions, produce medical agents or other desired substances, or be used as biological sensors.

The biochemist has been a professor at the Institute of Physiological Chemistry and Pathobiochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine since 2019. She was awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2018. Seraphine Wegner is a member of the Collaborative Research Centres "Dynamic Cellular Interfaces", "inSight" and "Intelligent Matter" and is part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network SigSynCell.