XS grant for Danai Riga
Post-doc researcher Danai Riga investigates ways to raise our body’s defends against stress, in order to prevent the development of anxiety. In particular, she aims to understand how built-in anti-stress systems work, and how to harness their therapeutic potential to alleviate anxiety. She received an XS grant (50.000 euro), via the NWO’s Open Competition Domain Science, which supports the fast implementation of curiosity-driven, groundbreaking ideas. Her project, titled “Stamps of resilience: elucidating the molecular diversity of the brain’s anti-stress system”, will examine the unique molecular identity of neuronal cells that mediate stress-relief.
“I am honoured to have received the XS grant, which will help me realise an exciting set of experiments in collaboration with other researchers of the Brain Center. Together, we will provide a detailed molecular map of our brain’s anti-stress system. We hope this will form the basis for uncovering novel targets for the treatment of anxiety”
She will perform the described work at the Translational Neuroscience department together with Frank Meye and colleagues.
Congratulations!! 🎊👏
Surprising and original questions came one after the other. One older woman wondered if we could improve preventive screening for colon cancer by actually studying cases where the screening was not accurate. She had experienced this herself. Some kids were wondering why only people above 12 were able to get a COVID-vaccine. Many raised ethical questions. An entire family was debating whether childhood disorders should receive more funding than age-related diseases. All questions gathered in this project are collected. To some of them, we might already have an answer. Others might actually end up at the Utrecht Science agenda to be studied in the future.
