Professor Andrew Baldwin Awarded Prestigious ERC Grant

Congratulations to Fellow and Tutor in Chemistry Professor Andrew Baldwin, who has been awarded a €2 million Euro grant by the European Research Council (ERC) for his research work studying protein assemblies within human cells.

Specifically, the research project seeks to gain greater understanding of membraneless organelles – protein aggregates that form in all of our cells at different times to do a wide range of biochemical duties. The project hypothesises that these membraneless organelles conduct different reactions at different times during the cell life cycle, a view that is significantly different from the current understanding of molecules within cells. This has allowed the research team to discover that organisms, whenever they need to, can behave a little bit like organic chemists and create patches of solvent suspended inside cells with carefully designed properties.

This exciting research project also resulted in Andy receiving the prestigious Norman Heatley Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry earlier on in 2020.

After receiving the ERC grant, Andy commented: “The award is really a recognition of the work of many outstanding individuals, students and collaborators that have gotten the project to this exciting stage.”