Three researchers at Stockholm University, including Oskar Karlsson at ACES, receive the prestigious Starting Grant from the European Research Council, ERC. Project funding amounts to up to 1.5 million euros each.
Oskar Karlsson, researcher at the Department of Environmental Science and Analytical Chemistry and SciLifeLab Fellow.
The European Research Council allocates different types of funding and the purpose of the ERC Starting Grant is to encourage talented young research leaders in Europe to become independent and build their own careers. This year, 403 research projects in the EU will amount to a total of 603 million euros.
Oskar Karlsson, at the Department of Environmental Science and Analytical Chemistry and SciLifeLab Fellow, is granted funding for his project ”Paternal Epigenetic Inheritance: A man’s life experiences may impact health of his unborn children and grandchildren”.
“We are interested in if, and how, male life experiences such as adult exposure to environmental contaminants, may affect offspring through paternal epigenetic inheritance. In this ERC funded project, we focus on anti-androgenic model compounds. We will integrate mouse and human studies to identify environmentally induced alterations in sperm biomolecules, and experimentally investigate their role in fertilization and embryogenesis, development and long-term health of the offspring”, says Oskar Karlsson.
What does this grant mean for your research?
“I am honored to receive the ERC starting grant, which enables me to venture more into this exciting field. The funding allows recruitment of new group members and the use of new technologies, to help us better understand how the adult male environment may influence future generations”, says Oskar Karlsson.
The other two researchers at Stockholm University who have been granted funding are Alexey Amunts, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, for the project “Protein synthesis in organelles”, and Anders Jerkstrand, Department of Astronomy, for the project “Three-dimensional spectral modelling of astrophysical transients: unravelling the nucleosynthetic content of supernovae and kilonovae”.