Objective
"We live in a ""24 hour"" culture, with transatlantic air travel and shift-work being part of normal life for many people. These types of desynchronisations (e.g. “jet-lag”) disrupt our daily physiology and are increasingly being linked to diseases such as diabetes, obesity and cancer. Daily rhythms are also impaired in the elderly, and in patients with common neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer-type and fronto-temporal dementias, meaning that clock disruption is widespread in modern society. We know that every cell in the body has its own molecular clock, allowing it to coordinate its daily activities accurately, just as we would use a clock in our daily lives. Our work has uncovered novel mechanisms about how this works and how this fundamental timing system may have evolved in primitive single-celled organisms. By understanding these basic cellular mechanisms in greater detail, we anticipate that we will gain insights into how metabolic oscillations in each cell contribute to normal physiology and therefore disease."
Fields of science
Call for proposal
ERC-2011-StG_20101109
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Funding Scheme
ERC-SG - ERC Starting GrantHost institution
CB2 1TN Cambridge
United Kingdom