EMBL Heidelberg Group Leader receives €3.1 million to research how chromosomes are folded during cell division.
Jan Ellenberg’s group at EMBL Heidelberg studies cell division and nuclear organisation. A particular focus lies on mitotic chromosome structure, formation and segregation, the causes of early embryonic division failures, as well as nuclear pore complex structure and assembly.
The Senior Scientist, Head of the Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit and Head of the EMBL Imaging Centre is among the 255 recipients of European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants announced in April 2024. His project titled MITOFOLD aims to resolve the folding principles of chromosomes during mitotic compaction and decompaction in situ, in single human cells. To achieve this, Ellenberg and his group will combine newly developed nanoscale DNA tracing technology with quantitative single protein imaging approaches to achieve a systematic structural analysis of mitotic chromosome folding throughout mitosis.
For Ellenberg, this is the second ERC Advanced Grant, after his previous project COREMA, which focused on the study of cell division in early mouse embryos and ran from 2016 to 2022.
