Objective
The history of life is a subject that attracts the interest from both researchers and the society in general - it is in the human nature to wonder about our own history. Our only sources of information about microbial evolution reside in genomic data and geological records. Major advances in sequencing techniques are overwhelming databases with rich and novel insights into microbial taxonomic diversity, in particular about new uncultured lineages. Through metagenomics we now know that they are there but we still do not understand what they are doing.The key to that understanding is not genomics, it is physiology.Our main impediment to understand environmental microbial life is our lack of insights into the physiology of newly discovered lineages, how they harness and conserve energy.While phylogenetic trees based on universal genes can be generated for thousands of lineages at a time, they do not represent the genome as a whole and, most importantly, due to lateral gene transfer, branching patterns in the tree of life have never correlated well with key physiological traits.The goal of this proposal, whose focus is physiology, is to better understand how microbes harness energy from available environmental sources, how they learned to use new ones, and how this process unfolded during microbial evolution.This will involve i) large-scale comparative phylogenetic analysis of genes involved in and genomically associated with physiology combined with ii) experimental data, using as evolutionary constraints geochemical records of available environmental energy sources.With a top-down approach this work will successively eliminate among extant biological traits ones that cannot be ancient, constraining the physiological space of older microbial solutions.This proposal will lead to testable predictions regarding the order of events in evolutionary bioenergetic transitions, the focus on biological energy harnessing will narrow the gap between geochemistry and microbiology.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences geochemistry
- natural sciences computer and information sciences databases
- medical and health sciences basic medicine physiology
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics genomes
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-STG - Starting Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2018-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1010 Wien
Austria
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.