ERC Consolidator Grant for Prof. Dennis Gillingham
Prof. Dennis Gillingham receives one of the coveted ERC Consolidator Grants from the European Research Council (ERC).
The Consolidator Grants of the European Research Council (ERC) will be awarded for the sixth time this year. The ERC thus supports highly qualified young researchers who have seven to twelve years of experience after completing their doctorate and who have a promising scientific track record. The researchers receive an average of two million euros for a five year project.
Small molecules to reprogram cancer signaling
In his research project, Prof. Dennis Gillingham studies how small molecules can take advantage of the genomic instability of cancer.
Genomic instability is a hallmark of cancer because it provides the means for rapid evolution. However, this very instability also creates unique vulnerabilities in cancer that can be exploited. The ERC project proposes to create small molecules that can infiltrate and reprogram signaling events that occur around sites of DNA damage or when DNA replication stalls. Such events occur frequently in genetically unstable cells, therefore this approach should deliver selectively toxic molecules that may be relevant for the development of new therapeutics. Gillingham`s project is funded with 1.9 Million Euros over five years.
In 2010 Dennis Gillingham was appointed as a tenure-track assistant professor at the department of Chemistry and was promoted in 2016 to associate professor.