Biologist Peter Fabian from Masaryk University’s Faculty of Science has received a prestigious award, being the first young scientist of this faculty to receive the highly valued ERC Starting grant. The grant is awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) with the aim to support the best young scientists start new ambitious research projects.
The ERC Starting grant will support the establishment of Peter’s new research group at the Institute of Experimental Biology (Department of Animal Physiology and Immunology) at Masaryk University’s (MU) Faculty of Science and its operation for a period of five years. The aim of the project is to study a completely new type of cells that play a key role in maintaining the homeostasis and metabolism of skeletal stem cells, thereby ensuring healthy bone regeneration. The research will be carried out on a small model fish species, the zebrafish, using state-of-the-art genomic, genetic and high-resolution imaging methods.
“We are very happy that we managed to attract Dr. Fabian and his ambitious research to MU’s Faculty of Science. For us, obtaining such a prestigious project is proof that our personnel and infrastructure policy, and our subsequent focus on project support, is the right path. I believe that Peter Fabian’s project will generate many local synergies and further increase the attractiveness of our institute and faculty for talented young researchers,” said Vítězslav Bryja, Director of the Institute of Experimental Biology at Masaryk University’s (MU) Faculty of Science.
This year, 400 young researchers from 24 countries across Europe were successful in the grant competition, and they will share a total of EUR 628 million between them. Individual grants of up to EUR 1.5 million will enable the recipients to create their own research team and engage in unique research for a period of up to five years.
Overall, the young scientists submitted 2,696 applications, meaning that the success rate was 14.8%. Of these, 110 proposals covered subjects in the natural sciences, 173 proposals were in the physical and technical sciences and 117 proposals covered the social sciences and humanities.
Dr. Fabian is a researcher in the field of developmental biology, with a focus on understanding the processes that underly embryonic development and the proper functioning of vertebrate organs, along with disorders in these processes that could impact on human health. The main goal of his research is to understand the role of stem cells in maintaining tissue metabolism and to study the mechanisms dictating how different types of cells arise and how they help in the formation and functioning of complex organs in the vertebrate body.
Dr. Fabian joined the Institute of Experimental Biology at Masaryk University’s Faculty of Science as an assistant professor in Autumn 2022. He had already begun to focus on developmental biology during his Doctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. Zbyněk Kozmik at Charles University in Prague, where he also studied developmental and evolutionary biology with Doc. Robert Černý. He acquired skills in in vivo imaging and single cell approaches while studying striped Dania genetics during a five-year post-doctoral stay in the laboratory of Prof. Gage Crump at the University of Southern California in the USA.
This year, he received the prestigious Chi-Bin Chien Award 2023 for his contribution to the zebrafish research community, based on his outstanding scientific work to date in the field of developmental biology, using zebrafish as a model organism. He is only the third scientist from outside the US to receive this award. Peter Fabian’s research was also supported this year by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic as part of their JUNIOR STAR Grants.
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