The unorthodox research ideas still have golden days at the Department of Biology
Every year, the VILLUM FONDEN distributes up to 100 million Villum Experiment DKK to support the wildest and most challenging research ideas. A good 10 of these risk-averse millions will finance projects at the Department of Biology over the next two years.
This year's 49 Villum Experiment grant recipients have been selected from a strong field of over 400 applicants. 11 of the grants went to researchers from SCIENCE, and of these, BIO accounts for an impressive 5:
Deyong Zhu, Postdoc:
Biofilms: Unicellular Assemblies or Multicellular Organisms?
Per Amstrup Pedersen, Associate Professor:
Re-shaping gateways for selective recycling of valuable chemical compounds and for microbial cell factories
Rodrigo Ibarra Chavez, Postdoc:
Weaponizable satellites: expanding the use of phage hyperparasites as multipurpose delivery platform to modify bacteria
Ole Hylling, Postdoc:
Polyploidy is the rule, not the exception, in the bacterial world
Jamie Auxillos, Postdoc:
A powerful new technique to discover how cells modify non-protein-coding RNAs
The special feature of the Villum Experiment is that the applicants are anonymised for the international assessment committee, who, therefore, cannot take researchers' previous careers and merits into account. Hereby, the research ideas are assessed solely based on their potential to challenge the norm and change the world.
Niels Kroer, Head of Department at the Department of Biology, shares his enthusiasm: “It is fantastic that BIO (once again) is doing so well in attracting the Villum Experiment grants. You can only admire the wealth of ideas and innovative thinking our researchers possess. Huge congratulations to the 5 grant recipients".