Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

Biological agents that actively attack Cultural Heritage stoneworks

Objective

There is a social and political need to protect and preserve European Cultural Heritage (CH). Outdoor CH stoneworks can be damaged by physical and chemical processes including deterioration processes caused by microorganisms. To effectively protect and maintain long-term conservation of European CH stonework, it is vital to identify the active components of the microbial community that cause the most damage in the biodeterioration processes and define their specific roles. Research in this area has been initially limited to the use of cultivation studies. More recently, in the last decade, research through the application of cultural-independent molecular methods focused on the structural analysis of the microbial community, detection of specific microbial agents, and identification of microorganisms present in the environments where biodeterioration occurs, have been carried out. But only few studies have been performed for the detection of metabolically active components in the biodeterioration processes in prehistoric paintings in caves. Therefore the proposed project is innovative in the CH field, and it focuses on the identification of the active “key players” in the biodeterioration processes and on the understanding of their function and activity. The project will use the most advanced techniques in the microbial molecular ecology including Whole Genome Amplification, 16S rRNA gene, functional gene and RNA analyses to investigate the active components of the microbial community colonising outdoor CH stoneworks. The project has a multidisciplinary approach, based on microbiology, molecular biology, and biogeochemistry linking in-situ with lab-chamber based studies to assess the development and population dynamics of microbial communities on stone. This multidisciplinary approach is essential for a better understanding of the microbial diversity and functional activity in the processes that alter our CH patrimony.

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: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

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.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008
See other projects for this call

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.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
EU contribution
€ 246 416,33
Address
KIRBY CORNER ROAD UNIVERSITY HOUSE
CV4 8UW COVENTRY
United Kingdom

See on map

Region
West Midlands (England) West Midlands Coventry
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

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.

No data
My booklet 0 0