Vici grants for two MS researchers at Radboud University

Anouk Rijs and Jana Roithová of Radboud University have been awarded NWO-Vici grants worth 1.5 million euros. The Vici grant will enable them to develop an innovative line of research and set up their own research group in the coming five years. Vici is one of the largest scientific grants for individuals in the Netherlands and targets advanced researchers.

Anouk Rijs: Peptide self-assembly: one non-covalent interaction at a time

The spontaneous assembly of biological molecules into ordered nanostructures plays a vital role in the development of incurable neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s. The researchers will develop new experimental methodology that will track their assembly, uniquely, one peptide at a time, in order to understand and control the aggregation process.

Jana Roithová: Selecting the Optimal Catalyst

Natural enzymes are much better than any man-made catalyst at catalysing challenging reactions such as CO2 fixation. Biomimetic catalysts attempt to reconstruct the chemistry that nature has developed over millions of evolutionary steps. This research aims to find the optimal catalyst by using cutting-edge spectroscopic methods to select the most efficient chemical modifications.