DFG Funds New Research Training Group at the TU Kaiserslautern

To pro­tect them­selves, organ­isms switch to stress mode in extreme envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions such as heat, drought or high salt con­cen­tra­tions. Sim­i­lar reac­tion rou­tines take place in the cells of fun­gi, plants, ani­mals and humans. But what are the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples behind these process­es, and what changes in the cells ulti­mate­ly lead to resis­tance and thus to adap­ta­tion to “uncom­fort­able” liv­ing con­di­tions? Researchers from the depart­ments of biol­o­gy and chem­istry at the TUK are now inves­ti­gat­ing this in the new STRES­Sis­tance Research Train­ing Group. The Ger­man Research Foun­da­tion (DFG) is fund­ing the project with around 3.9 mil­lion euros in an ini­tial fund­ing peri­od over four and a half years.

“This is a remark­able suc­cess and anoth­er award for our edu­ca­tion and research in the nat­ur­al sci­ences. The fund­ing will enable us to finance nine doc­tor­al posi­tions based in nine work­ing groups — eight in biol­o­gy and one in chem­istry. Each research group will con­duct research on a dif­fer­ent organ­ism or cells from oth­er organ­isms so that we can cap­ture and deci­pher the basic prin­ci­ples and reac­tion path­ways in the for­ma­tion of stress resis­tance across the bio­log­i­cal spec­trum, from algae to humans.”

- Prof. Dr. Johannes Herrmann

Offi­cial­ly, the Research Train­ing Group will begin its research work next Jan­u­ary. Nine oth­er doc­tor­al stu­dents who are also involved in the research will be able to ben­e­fit from the accom­pa­ny­ing train­ing pro­gram, which includes work­shops, sem­i­nars, etc. The pro­gram will be coor­di­nat­ed by Dr. rer. nat. Gabriele Amoroso, who will take care of the sci­en­tif­ic and non-sci­en­tif­ic needs of the PhD students.

“We are delight­ed that the DFG is invest­ing in our pro­mo­tion of young sci­en­tists and thus in our future with this new research train­ing group,” says Prof. Dr. Wern­er Thiel, Vice Pres­i­dent for Research and Tech­nol­o­gy at TUK. “I would like to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­grat­u­late all those involved! It should be empha­sized that the pro­gram com­bines the research exper­tise of nine work­ing groups and thus gives more vis­i­bil­i­ty to our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research achieve­ments in the nat­ur­al sci­ences. Last but not least, it fol­lows on almost seam­less­ly from a Research Train­ing Group that was based in biol­o­gy and was com­plet­ed after nine years of fund­ing. This means we can now con­tin­ue the suc­cess sto­ry with a new research topic.”

Con­grat­u­la­tions also come from the Rhineland-Palati­nate Min­istry of Sci­ence and Health. “I con­grat­u­late all the sci­en­tists involved in the ini­tia­tive on this suc­cess,” said Sci­ence Min­is­ter Clemens Hoch. “The acqui­si­tion of a new research train­ing group is an excel­lent demon­stra­tion of the research strength and the train­ing of young sci­en­tists at the TU Kaiser­slautern. TUK has suc­cess­ful­ly expand­ed its focus on mem­brane and sys­tems biol­o­gy in recent years, in part by tak­ing advan­tage of the state’s research ini­tia­tive. The new research train­ing group will fur­ther strength­en the pro­file of the Kaiser­slautern site.”

From the research work, the par­tic­i­pants hope to gain a fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of stress resis­tance at the mol­e­c­u­lar lev­el. In this way, the find­ings from the Research Train­ing Group could, for exam­ple, con­tribute to keep­ing peo­ple and ani­mals healthy longer in old age or to mak­ing crops resis­tant to drought.

The Research Train­ing Group is affil­i­at­ed with the “Bio­Comp — Com­plex Data Analy­sis in Life Sci­ences and Biotech­nol­o­gy” pro­file area, which is fund­ed at the TUK as part of the state’s research ini­tia­tive. This has enabled essen­tial prepara­to­ry research work in recent years.