It concerns:
Breaking Barriers in Parkinson’s disease: Focused Ultrasound Unlocks New Treatment Potential of Wissam Beaino from Amsterdam UMC.
Beaino's research focuses on revolutionizing Parkinson’s disease treatment by combining Focused Ultrasound (FUS) with immunotherapy. Temporarily opening the blood-brain barrier allows therapeutic antibodies to directly reach the brain and attack harmful alpha-synuclein proteins, which drive Parkinson's disease's progression. By using advanced imaging, he can track the brain’s response to the treatment in real-time. This groundbreaking approach offers hope for slowing or even stopping Parkinson’s disease, creating new possibilities for patients, and advancing the development of effective therapies.
GAT4ML: Reducing the Environmental Impact of ML-Enabled Systems via Green Architectural Tactics of researcher in empirische software engineering Justus Bogner and professor software engineering Patricia Lago.
Training and using machine learning (ML) models consumes a lot of energy, leading to negative environmental impact. While the discipline of Green AI has formed to combat this, current research results are scattered, difficult to apply, and trade-offs are not well understood. Bogner and Lago will therefore synthesize reusable software design guidance for ML-enabled systems to improve their environmental sustainability via green architectural tactics. Their contributions will greatly improve the applicability and effectiveness of Green AI practices, thereby reducing the negative societal and environmental impact of ML-enabled systems.
Unravelling novel principles of archaeal chromatin organisation of professor of Molecular and Cellular Chemistry Remus Dame (Leiden University) and professor of Physics of Living Systems Gijs Wuite.
The genomes of all forms of life are structurally and functionally organised to orchestrate the DNA-encoded key functions in the cells of these organisms, such as transcription of genes. Histones and histone-like proteins are central players in genome organisation. Canonical histones organise genomic DNA by wrapping DNA around a protein core. Here, Dame and Wuite will investigate the possibility that a class of non-canonical histones that we identified bioinformatically functions in a completely different, unconventional, manner. The knowledge generated in this project is key to advancing our understanding of the structural principles that underly genome organisation and of genome evolution.
Read about the other awards on the NWO website