Three research projects in physics have been granted funding from the Swedish Research Council
Three researchers at the Department of Physics have received funding from the Swedish Research Council's calls Röntgen-Ångström Cluster 2021 and Natural and Engineering Sciences 2021: Vitali Zhaunerchyk, Sviatlana Shashkova and Bernhard Mehlig.
Dynamic structure of chiral molecules
Vitali Zhaunerchyk has been granted SEK 7,8 million in funding from Röntgen-Ångström Cluster 2021. The aim of the project is to get insight into the underlying processes in chiral systems at the natural timescale of electron dynamics, as well as to fully understand the formation and evolution of chiral fragmentation dynamics in biologically relevant molecules such as peptides.
“There is a fundamental puzzle of life - why terrestrial biopolymers are predominantly composed of homo-chiral building blocks; the L-form of amino acids and the D-form of monosaccharides. Understanding molecular chirality, apart from fundamental perspectives, is critical to, for example, medicine and pharmacology,” says Vitali Zhaunerchyk.
Within the scope of the project, a consortium of Swedish and German researchers has been created.
Cellular heterogeneity on protein aggregation
Sviatlana Shashkova has received a starting grant of SEK 4 million and starts at the Department of Physics as Associate Senior Lecturer. The aim of the project is to quantify the effect of cellular heterogeneity on protein aggregation induced during metabolic stress using super-resolution single-molecule fluorescence imaging of living cells.
“By revealing cellular variability, we wish to uncover strategies that cells undertake to adapt to metabolic stress. In the future, this can be applied to whole organs and multicellular organisms for understanding of causes and cellular responses to metabolic diseases,” says Sviatlana Shashkova.
Turbulent aerosols
Bernhard Mehlig has been granted SEK 3,8 million for a research project studying turbulent aerosols. Turbulence has a significant effect on the physical properties of aerosols as it stirs and mixes the particles. The impact of the turbulence raises several questions but is difficult to measure as there are many different mechanisms that can affect this complex dynamic.
“Due to these difficulties, we have chosen to instead simplify the presentation of the problem by formulating statistical models that we can analyse with great accuracy with the help of mathematical methods and computation,” says Bernhard Mehlig.
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Swedish Research Council: Research project grant Röntgen-Ångström Cluster 2020