New ERC grant for USC, to fight bacterial resistance to antibiotics

05/09/2024

The European Research Council (ERC) today announced the award of 494 Starting Grants to young researchers from across Europe. Dr Ignacio Insua, a researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), has been awarded funding from this prestigious programme, which supports cutting-edge research and ground-breaking ideas: “Empowering researchers early on in their careers is at the heart of the mission of the ERC" said the President of the European Research Council, Prof. Maria Leptin.

Starting Grants amount to €1.5 million per grant for a period of five years. The selection process is highly competitive and selective. In this case, 3.474 proposals were submitted and evaluated by a committee of internationally renowned researchers. Only 14.2% of proposals were selected for funding.

Dr Insua will focus on bacterial resistance to antibiotics. His project (REPLICATE) aims to develop self-replicating antibiotics: in a nutshell, these are molecules capable of making copies of themselves to amplify their antimicrobial action. "By administering inactive precursor molecules, these can combine in the membrane of pathogenic bacteria, thus activating their self-replicating and antimicrobial action locally at infection niches" explains the researcher. This innovative strategy will contribute to tackling the rise of antimicrobial resistance, a serious global threat causing 1.8 million deaths per year, and estimated to become more lethal than cancer by 2050.

Dr. Insua received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham, and completed his postdoctoral training at CiQUS, first as a Juan de la Cierva researcher and then as a Marie Curie researcher. He is currently a Ramón y Cajal researcher attached to the Department of Pharmacology, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology of the USC. He intends to develop his ERC project at the USC, as the institution offers an excellent context for work in this frontier field between chemistry and biology, in his own words.

About the ERC

The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe.

The ERC offers four core grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants and Synergy Grants. With its additional Proof of Concept Grant scheme, the ERC helps grantees to bridge the gap between their pioneering research and early phases of its commercialisation.

The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. Maria Leptin has been the President of the ERC since November 2021. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than €16 billion, as part of the Horizon Europe programme, under the responsibility of European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Iliana Ivanova.