Creating the Future
Doctoral ProjectsDoctoral Projects
Every year, the Hector Fellow Academy supports several doctoral positions for promising young scientists from all over the world. Under the supervision of a Hector Fellow, they will work on their innovative doctoral projects over a period of three years. In addition to financing their positions, they receive additional research funding from the Academy and take part in further training events.
Current projects
The following doctoral projects projects are supported
Mitochondrial DNA mutational landscape in human T cells
Yu-Hsin Hsieh – Hector RCD Awardee Leif Ludwig
T cell differentiation and function are tightly regulated by numerous cellular processes, including cellular metabolism, which can be significantly affected by mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations. However, the impact of mtDNA mutational burden on T cell differentiation and functional heterogeneity remains poorly understood. Thus, this project aims to characterize the mtDNA mutational landscape and its functional consequences in human T cells using single-cell multi-omics approaches.
High-throughput Virus Discovery in Next Generation Sequencing Data
Franziska Klingler – Hector Fellow Ralf Bartenschlager
Anelloviruses are a diverse group of ubiquitous viruses infecting humans and vertebrates. Their contribution to disease development remains elusive. We hypothesize that during lifelong, persistent infection disbalances in the viral community can drive onset and progression of disease, e.g. cancer. We aim at a thorough description of the viral spectrum present in healthy and diseased tissue by high-throughput screening of sequencing data and subsequent identification of viral variants correlated with pathogenesis.
Quantum simulation of strong interactions of light and matter
Valentin Klüsener – Hector Fellow Immanuel Bloch
The central paradigm of quantum optics is the absorption and emission of radiation by quantum emitters. When the coupling between an emitter and its environment becomes strong, intriguing radiative properties can be engineered, such as directional emission patterns or strongly modified emission rates. This project aims at accessing such effects in a system of ultracold atoms in optical lattices where artificial emitters decay by emitting matter waves rather than optical radiation.
Main group heterohelicenes for applications in organic electronics and catalysis
Jan Niedens – Hector RCD Awardee Agnieszka Nowak-Król
This project is focused on the synthesis of novel helically chiral compounds containing diarylborole, arsole and stibole units. The aim of this research is to obtain materials with improved optical and electronic properties by joining helical chromophores via boron as a spiro-atom. Additionally, helicenes containing arsenic and antimony could be used as ligands in asymmetric catalysis due to their higher stability towards oxidation, compared to the common phosphine analogues.
Defining novel resilience pathways in rare monogenic disorders
Daniel Petersheim — Hector Fellow Christoph Klein
In the EU alone, approximately 30 million people are affected by a rare disease, many of them children. Most of the 6,000 to 8,000 rare diseases known to date are caused by the altered function of a single gene (Boycott&Ardigó, 2018). This project under the supervision of Prof. Christoph Klein aims to develop innovative strategies for precision medicine in rare diseases by (i) re-wiring aberrant molecular networks for therapeutic purposes and (ii) identifying novel “druggable” targets using CRISPR-Cas9-mediated genome-wide screens.
Helicity Preserving Cavity for Circular Dichroism Enhancement
Philip Scott – Hector Fellow Martin Wegener
Most modern drugs are made up of one handedness of a chiral molecule (one enantiomer). In many cases, depending on the handedness of the enantiomer, the drug could have either beneficial or harmful effects, thus is it desirable to be able to detect the handedness. Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy can differentiate between the handedness due to differential absorption of circularly polarised light but suffers from weak signals; therefore, a method that can enhance the signal is desired.
Realizing a Quantum Processor based on Strontium Rydberg Atoms
Maximilian Ammenwerth – Hector Fellow Immanuel Bloch
In this project, an innovative quantum gas microscope is developed that makes use of optical tweezers to rearrange neutral strontium atoms into configurable and defect-free patterns. This allows for rapid initialization of the system and serves as a starting point for the analog simulation of quantum many-body systems and as a qubit register for digital quantum computing. Exploiting long-range Rydberg interactions enables the simulation of spin models and the implementation of quantum logic gates.
Mechanisms underlying pathogenesis of SARS-CoV‑2 infections
Yannick Stahl – Hector Fellow Ralf Bartenschlager
SARS-CoV‑2 hat eine Pandemie ausgelöst und ist für mehr als 18 Millionen Infektionen verantwortlich. Es wird vermutet, dass COVID-19 das Ergebnis des Absterbens infizierter Zellen und einer exzessiven Aktivierung des Immunsystems ist. Um Zelltypen und Signalwege zu identifizieren, die zur Pathogenese oder viralen Replikation beitragen, werde ich Transkriptomanalysen und funktionelle Untersuchungen ausgewählter Gene vornehmen. Diese Arbeit könnte zu der Entwicklung neuer Therapien beitragen.
The investigation of the formation- and purpose of black matter in anaerobic methane oxidisers and methanogens
Stian Torset – Hector Fellow Antje Boetius
The project investigates the structure, purpose, and mechanisms of origin for amorphous carbon formed by methanogenic and methane-oxidizing archaea. I will use advanced biophysical, computational, and genetic tools to determine the genes, proteins and structures, including the molecular mechanisms involved in the formation of this carbon. Potential applications will be assessed. The project is supervised by Hector Fellow Antje Boetius.
Alumni projects
Find here an overview of the already completed projects.