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05.11.2024 15:50

Researchers at the University of Freiburg receive ERC Synergy Grants

Rimma Gerenstein Hochschul- und Wissenschaftskommunikation
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau

• The European Research Council (ERC) is honouring two international and interdisciplinary teams, including researchers from Freiburg.
• Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kleine-Vehn is investigating the plant hormone auxin as the key to plant growth. Kleine-Vehn is Chair of Molecular Plant Physiology at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Freiburg.
• Dr. Elisabeth Piller, Assistant Professor of Transatlantic and North American History, is investigating how resource scarcity and resource restrictions affected the era during both World Wars.

Researchers from the University of Freiburg have been successful in two European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grants. The ERC uses Synergy Grants to support international and interdisciplinary teams that meet the criteria of scientific excellence and promise outstanding results.

Over a period of six years, the project ‘STARMORPH - Unravelling Spatio-temporal Auxin Intracellular Redistribution for Morphogenesis’ by Prof. Dr Jürgen Kleine-Vehn, a biologist at the University of Freiburg, will receive a total of 10 million euros, with the University of Freiburg receiving around 2.5 million euros. The project „BLOCKADE - The Hidden Weapon. Blockade in the Era of the World Wars“ by Dr Elisabeth Piller, Assistant Professor of Transatlantic and North American History, with a total of 9.9 million euros and a share of around 2.3 million euros for the University of Freiburg. Kleine-Vehn is a member and spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies (CIBSS), where he is researching auxin signalling and its influence on plant growth from the subcellular to the organ level. Piller is investigating how the scarcity of resources affected the period during both World Wars.

The plant hormone auxin can trigger different effects

Auxin regulates the development of plant organs (morphogenesis). As plants grow, they develop roots and leaves as well as flowers and fruit. The plant hormone auxin can trigger or inhibit growth depending on its concentration and signalling strength. The diverse and complex processes with which auxin is associated seem to contradict its simple molecular structure. Unlike classical hormones, auxin has three receptors in different areas of the cell: in the nucleus, in the cytosol and in the extracellular space.

“The plant hormone auxin regulates an extremely large number of processes in plants, from embryonic development to the formation of flowers and fruits. Yet it is a simple molecule. Understanding how auxin encodes these complex processes gives us the key to plant development. We could use it to open the door to innovations in agriculture,” says Kleine-Vehn.

To gain a holistic understanding of plant morphogenesis, a team of researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, led by Stéphanie Robert, is working together across the fields of molecular cell biology, synthetic biology, organic chemistry, genetics and biophysics. They want to explore an auxin signalling concept that takes into account the auxin level in each compartment and determines an overall signal with quantitative and qualitative cell responses.

If STARMORPH succeeds in understanding the formation of plant organs and the role of auxin in this process, the findings can be used in a variety of ways due to the central function of auxin. According to Kleine-Vehn: “Plants integrate environmental information into their architecture. Auxin also controls growth in response to environmental conditions. In agriculture, such a response to the environment is not necessarily desirable, since one plant looks like another in the field and should still produce a good yield in a stressful environment.”

The blockade as a slow form of violence

Ever since wars have been waged, opponents have tried to cut each other off from resources. But what is a resource – food, fertiliser, capital – and how it is blocked has changed over time. In 1914, for example, the British first cut the telegraph and submarine cables of the German Empire, thus destroying communication and information channels. “BLOCKADE – The Hidden Weapon. Blockade in the Era of the World Wars” will examine how this hidden weapon was used in the era of the two world wars and what it triggered. The team of researchers from the University of Freiburg, the University of Hamburg, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) will re-examine the era of the world wars by focusing on the blockade.
“Blockades have not been understood as a component of violence so far. However, they are a slow-acting form of violence that starves people, but also has social and cultural effects,” says Piller. For a long time, blockades were mainly a topic of a narrower military history. “BLOCKADE – The Hidden Weapon. Blockade in the Era of the two World Wars,” on the other hand, focuses on states, companies and organisations as well as households and individuals. Thanks to the different perspectives and methodological approaches, the research team will be able to evaluate data and sources using methods from social, cultural, diplomatic and economic history.

Blockades during the world wars revealed the resilience and vulnerability of societies, but also led to the founding of charitable organisations. “Is there a blockade generation that was significantly shaped by the experience of deprivation and isolation? In Germany, the experience of the blockade after the First World War led to a policy of autarky. It caused a radicalisation and totalisation of the war. Eastern Europe was exploited to supply Germany. At the same time, the two major blockade powers of the Second World War, Great Britain and the USA, had to reorganise world trade during the war, which resulted in new ideas of governance that were later to determine the post-war period,” says Piller.

Overview of facts:
• Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kleine-Vehn is Chair of Molecular Plant Physiology at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Freiburg, as well as a member and spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies (CIBSS).
• Dr. Elisabeth Piller is Assistant Professor of Transatlantic and North American History at the Department of History at the University of Freiburg, Juniorprofessorin für Transatlantische und Nordamerikanische Geschichte am Historischen Seminar der Universität Freiburg. Since 2021 she has been PI in the Research Training Group “Empires” as well as a member of the Cluster of Excellence initiative “Constitution as Practice in Times of Transformation” (ConTrans).

Original publications:
• Waidmann S, Beziat C, Ferreira Da Silva Santos J, Feraru E, Feraru MI, Sun L, Noura S, Boutte Y, Kleine-Vehn (2023), Endoplasmic reticulum stress controls PIN-LIKES abundance and thereby growth adaptation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A (IF: 12.779) 120(31):e2218865120
• Elisabeth Piller, The Blockade and the Making of Modern Food Aid in the Era of the World Wars, The International History Review 46/4 (2024): 551-567, https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2024.2356877
• Alan Kramer, Samuël Kruizinga, Elisabeth Piller and Jonas Scherner, Introduction: The Blockade in the Era of the World Wars, The International History Review, 46/4 (2024): 383–392 https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2024.2377419

For more information:
https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/synergy-grant

Contact:
Office of University and Science Communications
University of Freiburg
Tel.: 0761/203-4302
e-mail: kommunikation@zv.uni-freiburg.de

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https://uni-freiburg.de/en/researchers-at-the-university-of-freiburg-receive-erc...

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Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kleine-Vehn and Dr. Elisabeth Piller receive ERC Synergy Grants.

Photos: Jürgen Gocke / University of Freiburg

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