Lower Saxony-Israel: 4 million euros for 8 cooperation projects

The Lower Saxony and Israel are cooperating ever more closely. The Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation are providing around 4 million euros in funding to promote cooperation between Israeli and Lower Saxony universities and research institutions.

A total of 8 outstanding joint research projects in the field of life sciences are being funded. The funds stem from zukunft.niedersachsen, the joint funding programme of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation.

“The research funding between Lower Saxony and Israel connects two strong scientific landscapes. Together, we want to develop answers to the challenges of the future. In addition to the scientific added value, we are also sending a clear signal: We stand in solidarity with our partners in Israel. I am certain that this deeper cooperation, even outside of laboratories and seminar rooms, will bring young researchers in particular closer together. We want to continue to breathe life into the deep bond between Lower Saxony and Israel,” says Lower Saxony’s Minister of Science, Falko Mohrs.

The funded projects cover a broad spectrum of forward-looking biomedicine: They range from research into fundamental metabolic and immune processes in microbial symbiosis to the development of new therapeutic approaches for the diaphragm. Other areas of focus include the influence of maternal oral health on early immune development, central networks in the brain for motor adaptation, and embryo-like models from stem cells to better understand early blood and vascular systems. The selection is complemented by new strategies for controlling biochemical mechanisms in specific enzymes and comparative studies on the neural basis of social behaviour in primates.

Since 1977, the Ministry and the Foundation have been supporting scientific exchange between universities and research institutions in Lower Saxony and Israel through their joint initiative “Research Cooperation Lower Saxony – Israel”. The programme is divided into three subject groups: “Humanities and Social Sciences”, “Biological and Life Sciences, Medicine” and “Natural Sciences, Mathematics, Engineering”, which are funded on an annual basis. In the current round of calls for proposals, it was the turn of research projects in the field of life sciences. Since last year, the funding period has been four years instead of three, and the maximum funding amount is €500,000 per research project.

The following cooperation projects will be funded:

• Alfred Wegener Institut (Bremerhaven); Weizmann Institute of Science:
  Resolving metabolic and immune mechanisms in protozoan endosymbiosis (REIME)
• Helmholtz-Zentrum für Infektionsforschung (Braunschweig); Hebrew University of Jerusalem:
  Elucidating the Mechanisms by Which Maternal Periodontitis Shapes Immune Development Along the Oral-Gut Axis
• Max-Planck-Institut für Multidisziplinäre Naturwissenschaften (Göttingen); Tel Aviv University:
  Multi-pronged innovative approaches to harness allostery in HECT ubiquitin ligases
• Deutsches Primatenzentrum Göttingen; Weizmann Institute of Science:
  Neural representations of social value across primate species
• Universität Göttingen; Technion-Israel Institute of Technology:
  Towards a regenerative therapy for the diaphragm
• Universitätsmedizin Göttingen; Deutsches Primatenzentrum Göttingen; Hebrew University of Jerusalem:
  Redefining the “motor” thalamus: parallel thalamocortical circuits for sensorimotor adaptation in health and disease
• Medizinische Hochschule Hannover; Weizmann Institute of Science:
  Naïve Pluripotent Stem Cell-based Embryo-Like Models – Tracing Human Intra- and Extraembryonic Hemato-Endothelial Ontogeny
• Universität Hannover; Tel Aviv University:
  Unravelling Gibberellin Glucosylation as an Overlooked Layer of Plant Hormone Regulation

Source: Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (in German)