Press release: Traffic rules inside nerve cells and the search for Earth-like planets
No. 163 - 12.11.2026
Two researchers from the University of Göttingen participate in ERC Synergy Grants
(pug) Team awards at European level: Two researchers from the University of Göttingen have each been awarded an ERC Synergy Grant in collaboration with international partners. Through this scheme, the European Research Council (ERC) recognises teams of between two and four researchers working across national borders. The Göttingen-based biophysicist Professor Stefan Klumpp is involved in the project ‘TransportRules’, together with researchers from the University of Warwick and the TUD Dresden University of Technology. The Göttingen-based astrophysicist Professor Ansgar Reiners is involved in the project ‘Spectral Fidelity’, together with researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Geneva.
Our nerve cells face an extraordinary logistical challenge: they have to deliver essential materials through extremely narrow spaces, along tiny tracks, over distances up to one meter. Molecular motors act as delivery vehicles, hauling their cargo along microscopic tracks. Moreover, these motors do not travel on empty highways, but rather on narrow streets with dense traffic at different speeds and in both directions.
The project TransportRules aims at discovering how this traffic is organized. “We want to understand, for example, if there are traffic lanes or if the motors form convoys.” explains Professor Stefan Klumpp. To achieve that goal, the teams of Klumpp in Göttingen, Professor Anne Straube in Warwick and Professor Stefan Diez in Dresden combine expertise ranging from cell biology to nano-engineering. The researchers will perform a comprehensive traffic survey in live neurons, build a data-driven computer model and reconstruct the entire transport system in the laboratory.
The ERC is funding the project ‘Reconstituting long-distance vesicle transport to decode and control neuronal logistics’ (TransportRules) for six years with a total of just over ten million euros, of which around 2.5 million euros will go to the University of Göttingen.
The project ‘Spectral Fidelity’ aims to revolutionize the search for Earth-like planets outside our solar system. Together, the three research teams of Professor Ansgar Reiners in Göttingen, Professor Suzanne Aigrain in Oxford and Professor Xavier Dumusque in Geneva want to fundamentally improve the precision of astronomical measurements. “Using new methods, we want to significantly better filter out interference signals from the measurement instruments and from the stars themselves,” says Reiners. “It's like finally bringing a blurry image into sharp focus.”
So far, these disturbances have prevented the detection of Earth-sized planets around Sun-like stars. ‘Spectral Fidelity’ addresses this issue: with a radically new approach to calibration and data analysis, the measurement accuracy is to be improved to such an extent that even the tiniest signals from Earth-like worlds become detectable. The project combines hardware development, new observations of the Sun and other stars, and state-of-the-art analysis methods. The researchers hope not only to make progress in the discovery of habitable exoplanets but also to gain new insights into stars and fundamental physics.
The ERC is also funding the project ‘Delivering spectral fidelity to discover exoplanets, understand their host stars, and enable progress in fundamental physics’ (Spectral Fidelity) for six years with a total of around eleven million euros, of which just over four million euros will go to the University of Göttingen.
Through the ERC Synergy Grants, the European Research Council funds projects designed to lead to discoveries at the interfaces between established disciplines and to substantial advances at the frontiers of knowledge. These may include the development of new methods and techniques, as well as unconventional approaches. The projects must be made possible solely through collaboration between the nominated researchers. It must be made clear why the project is only meaningful and promising as a result of this collaboration.
Contact:
Professor Stefan Klumpp
University of Göttingen
Faculty of Physics
Institute for the Dynamics of Complex Systems
Phone: +49 551 39-26942
Email: stefan.klumpp@phys.uni-goettingen.de
Web: www.uni-goettingen.de/en/527801.html
Professor Ansgar Reiners
University of Göttingen
Faculty of Physics
Institute for Astrophysics and Geophysics
Phone: +49 551 39-28530