The prestigious €2.5m Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to explore how the mechanical and chemical properties of proteins influence their movement within the cell. The project will aim to expand our understanding of fundamental cellular function and disease.

Sergi leads the Single Molecule Mechanobiology Laboratory at the Crick, and is Professor of Biophysics at King’s College London. He investigates how mechanical forces travel across the cell to reach the nucleus and influence cell behaviour. Specifically, his lab looks at the elastic properties of the proteins controlling these processes, to capture how they unfold and refold under force. 

The new grant will allow Sergi’s team to begin to unravel whether their findings based on single protein molecules in a dish hold true for proteins within a more physiologically accurate context. 

They will first study how the regulation of protein elasticity affects how forces travel across the cell and how protein unfolding regulates how quickly or slowly proteins enter the nucleus. They will then test the idea that mechanical stability and structure of proteins govern their ability to travel across the cell through pores in the membranes of different compartments. 

The final goal of the project will be to measure changes in the mechanical stability of a single protein under forces inside a cell. This could help understanding with how forces are implicated in disease. 

Sergi said: 

I am thrilled and very honoured to have obtained this ERC grant, which will provide my laboratory with the unique and exciting opportunity to take on innovative investigations on the molecular mechanisms that regulate cellular and tissue mechanobiology. This would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of my team throughout the years, for which I would like to deeply thank them.

Sergi is one of 281 leading researchers awarded funding in the latest competitive round which attracted 2,543 proposals. Part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, the Advanced Grant scheme allows senior researchers to pursue ambitious projects. 

Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council, said: 

Congratulations to the new grant winners! Much of this pioneering research will contribute to solving some of the most pressing challenges we face - social, economic and environmental, etc.

Yet again, many scientists - around 260 - with ground-breaking ideas were rated as excellent, but remained unfunded due to a lack of funds at the ERC. We hope that more funding will be available in the future to support even more creative researchers in pursuing their scientific curiosity.