Project description
Structural insight into self-assembly
Self-assembly refers to the phenomenon in which individual units of a material spontaneously come together to form well-organised and structured patterns. Understanding self-assembly at the atomic level is necessary for designing novel materials for drug delivery and other applications. Self-assembled structures typically exhibit soft material properties, lacking crystalline order and displaying limited solubility. Consequently, conventional X-ray crystallography or solution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) often proves inadequate to provide structural information. Funded by the European Research Council, the Weakinteract project aims to develop an NMR spectroscopy method using isotope labeling. The key objective is to elucidate the mechanisms and weak interactions implicated during self-assembly.
Objective
Self-assembly is a fundamental process by which individual subunits organize into ordered supramolecular entities, usually through weak interactions. A longstanding goal is to engineer synthetic self-organized structures, often inspired by protein assemblies found in the context of living cells, to design materials of high potentiality, e.g. drug delivery, scaffolding or electronic applications. There is a tremendous interest in physical chemistry to understand the role of weak interactions at the supramolecular interfaces. However, self-organizations usually form soft material, lacking crystalline order and at the same time exhibiting poor solubility. As a consequence, standard techniques for structural investigation such as X-ray crystallography or solution NMR usually fail or deliver only partial information, preventing an atomic-level understanding and therefore the design of new architectures.
The Weakinteract project aims at developing NMR spectroscopy in the relevant supramolecular solid-state for those non-crystalline and insoluble self-organizations. Weakinteract will exploit strategic isotope labeling, state-of-the-art solid-state NMR methods and integration of hybrid approaches to elucidate the assembly mechanisms, revealing the weak interactions at the supramolecular interfaces. The project comprises three different aspects of growing complexity: (1) Elaboration of a proof-of-concept for atomic resolution structure determination of self-assembled nanotubes in hydrogel form. (2) Determination of the structural basis for bacterial filaments (3) Investigation of the phenomenon of heterogeneous supramolecular templating, in the context of amyloid fold initiation. One major aim of Weakinteract is to provide a robust approach dedicated to chemists, biophysicists and structural biologists in order to tackle weak interactions in the relevant assembled state, ultimately delivering atomic level structures and an understanding of the assembly process.
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 geology mineralogy crystallography
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- natural sciences physical sciences optics microscopy electron microscopy
- natural sciences physical sciences optics spectroscopy absorption spectroscopy
- natural sciences chemical sciences physical chemistry
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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-2014-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.
75794 PARIS
France
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.