ERC Consolidator Grant success for Dr Francesco Licausi

We are delighted to congratulate Dr Francesco Licausi, who has just been awarded a prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant.

Consolidator Grants are awarded by the ERC for scientists to establish their very own research team, allowing them to continue to develop a successful career in Europe.

Upon receiving this award, Dr Licausi said: “I am overjoyed by the possibility to establish a new group in Oxford, with a considerable margin of financial security. At the same time, I am immensely grateful to all those who supported me with this, from the postdoc and graduate student who produced the preliminary results on which I built up the project and the colleagues who discussed ideas and read my application.”

Dr Licausi plans to use funding to apply the synthetic biology framework to study oxygen biology across eukaryotes, with a focus on plant cells. In particular, he plans to generate hybrid molecular devices that will allow the scientific community to better understand, and possibly exploit, oxygen sensing and the response to hypoxia.