Jan Kornfeld receives prestigious ERC Starting Grant

February 01, 2016

Max Planck Researcher Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld receives prestigious ERC Starting Grant

European Research Council (ERC) starting grants help young talented scientists to become an independent investigator. The grant allows them to start their own group and work on their own research ideas. “When I first read the e-mail that I got the grant I couldn’t actually believe it”, says Dr. Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Metabolism Research and the Cologne Cluster of Excellence (CECAD). “This grant allows me to perform the research I am interested in.”

Candidates for ERC grants are solely selected on the basis of scientific excellence and particularly their research idea. Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld focuses his research on the question how detrimental lifestyle conditions like obesity or food restriction can be transmitted from father to offspring via non-genetic, so called epigenetic, signals in sperm. Scientists showed that the offspring can suffer from the detrimental lifestyle of the father without ever being exposed to it itself.

“Jan-Wilhelm’s research adds a new dimension to metabolism research”, explains Prof. Dr. Jens Brüning, director of the MPI for Metabolism Research. “Our society suffers from increasing burdens such as Type-2 diabetes mellitus and obesity. These metabolic syndromes affect large populations globally and are on an epidemic rise in industrialized societies.”

Learn more about research activities in the Kornfeld lab.

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