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Exact sciences
Light into bacteria. Grant for innovative research
Dr Dorota Chełminiak-Dudkiewicz from the NCU Faculty of Chemistry received a grant as part of the Weave-UNISONO Call for Proposals The project, dedicated to the development of a new, safe method of combating bacterial infections using light, will be carried out in collaboration with scientists from the Charles University in Prague.
The Weave-UNISONO Call for Proposals helps fund research projects in all scientific disciplines involving researchers from two or three European countries. Thanks to multilateral cooperation between institutions affiliated with Science Europe, the process of applying for international research grants is simpler. The selection of winners is based on a lead agency procedure, whereby only one of the partner institutions is responsible for the full substantive evaluation of the application, and the other partners accept the results of this evaluation.
On 16 December, the National Science Centre announced the results of the latest call for proposals, in which four projects carried out jointly by scientists from Poland and the Czech Republic were selected for funding. The applications were evaluated by the GAČR (Grantová agentura České republiky) agency, and the NCN accepted the results of this evaluation as part of its cooperation in the Weave programme. The total budget on the Polish side amounts to over PLN 3.5 million.
Among the projects that received grants was research by Dr Dorota Chełminiak-Dudkiewicz from the Department of Biomedical Chemistry and Polymers at the NCU Faculty of Chemistry. The researcher from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and RNDr. Miloslav Macháček Ph.D. from the Charles University in Prague, together with their teams, will undertake the development of photoactive, supramolecular and biocompatible materials suitable for antibacterial photodynamic therapy. Over PLN 700,000 has been allocated to finance the Polish part of the research. Due to the fact that the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics makes the treatment of infections one of the most serious challenges of modern medicine, the project focuses on the development of a new, safe method of combating bacterial infections using light, i.e. antimicrobial photodynamic therapy, which is particularly useful in the treatment of wounds and skin infections. The aim of the research is to develop modern, photoactive biomaterials in the form of dressings, gels or nanoparticles, in which light-activated substances will be permanently bound to biopolymers, which will increase the effectiveness of the therapy and reduce the risk of damage to healthy tissues. Such personalised materials not only effectively eliminate even resistant microorganisms, but also promote wound healing and protect wounds from further infection. The project may contribute to the creation of an innovative, patient- and environment-friendly alternative to traditional methods of treating infections.
The Weave-UNISONO Call for Proposals is open on a rolling basis. Teams of Polish researchers collaborating with partners from Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium-Flanders are eligible to participate.
