For further information visit the PERFUME website at www.itn-perfume.eu.

Future European Science Leaders to Work on Cutting-edge Peroxisome Research

The Marie Curie Initial Training Network PERFUME announces the start of a new multiple year research programme on Peroxisome Function Metabolism. The programme aims at providing state-of-the-art research training to 12 PhD students and 4 postdocs at the interface of medicine, plant and fungal biology.

Marie Curie Initial Training Networks are highly prestigious awards funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme, focused on the training of the next generation of European leaders in science to solve interdisciplinary questions of global concern and to increase the European competitiveness in research and development.

PERFUME is a multi-partner Initial Training Network under the European Union programme FP7-PEOPLE-2012-ITN with a total budget of 3.9 Mio €. PERFUME is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Ida van der Klei (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). It involves an interdisciplinary consortium formed by eleven European research groups from research institutes, universities and leading companies from different industrial sectors with a running period from January 2013 until December 2016 with Dr Michael Schrader representing University of Exeter.

The PERFUME fellows will be trained by a team of top scientists from the fields of cell biology, biochemistry, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, mathematical modeling, bioinformatics and protein structure analysis. The PERFUME training program offers outstanding young scientists the opportunity to maturate in science and enhance their career prospects through high-impact socially significant research.

The PERFUME network seeks to unravel the principles of peroxisome biology. Peroxisomes are small organelles that occur in nearly all cells, from a simple baker’s yeast cell to humans and crop plants. Peroxisomes are crucially important for cell vitality, and babies with inherited peroxisome defects generally die rather early. Despite 60 year of worldwide research, the atlas of peroxisome functions is still far from complete. Unraveling these requires extensive further analysis. Enhancing peroxisome knowledge is relevant for medicine, agriculture and biotechnology. For the first time, PERFUME combines expertise from different disciplines and sectors that cuts across historically separated fields of peroxisome biology.

The PERFUME objectives will be achieved by a diverse, well–balanced and interdisciplinary consortium with well-recognised experience in peroxisome biology and biotechnology. These include the University of Groningen (Prof. Dr. Ida J. van der Klei), the University Medical Centre Groningen (Prof. Dr. Barbara M. Bakker), the Amsterdam Medical Centre, Amsterdam (Dr. Hans R. Waterham), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Hamburg (Dr. Matthias Wilmanns), The University of Exeter (Dr. M. Schrader, Biosciences), The University of Stavanger (Prof. Dr. S. Reumann), the Ruhr University Bochum (Prof. Dr. Ralf Erdmann), the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg (Dr. D. Devos), Evitraproteoma AB (Dr. D. Molina, Sweden), Metabolomic Discoveries GmbH (Dr. Nicolas Schauer, Germany) and Lifeglimmer GmbH (Prof. Dr. Ir. Vitor A.P. Martins dos Santos, Germany).

Date: 9 April 2013

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