04.05.18 – Professors Thomas Rizzo and Frédéric Courbin have each received European Research Council Advanced Grants for 2018.

The ERC Advanced Grants are given each year to established, leading principal investigators to fund long-term funding for “ground-breaking, high-risk” research projects in any field. This year, the ERC has awarded several EPFL professors with Advanced Grants, including two from the Faculty of Basic Sciences.

Professor Thomas Rizzo (SB-LCPM)

GLYCANAL: High-Throughput Cryogenic Spectroscopy for Glycan Analysis”

Glycans, or oligosaccharides, are ubiquitous in biological systems. Because they decorate the surface of cells, they play a key role in virtually all cellular recognition processes and are implicated in almost every major disease. This project involves designing and constructing an instrument that combines state-of-the-art ion mobility separation, cryogenic ion spectroscopy, and time-of-flight mass spectrometry to perform high throughput analysis of glycan primary structure. The success of this project would represent a tremendous breakthrough for glycoscience.

Professor Frédéric Courbin (SB-LASTRO)

COSMICLENS: Cosmology with Strong Gravitational Lensing

Answering fundamental questions about the expansion of the Universe requires a precise measurement of the Hubble parameter, (H0), which is the prime parameter in the cosmological distance scale. The COSMICLENS project aims to measure H0 using the time-delay method in gravitationally lensed quasars. Capitalizing on the COSMOGRAIL pathfinder program initiated and lead by EPFL, we can fully exploit time delays with an observational, modeling and technical boost, made possible only through ERC funding.