Research Units with participation of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
FOR 2518: Functional dynamics of ion channels and transporters (Dynlon)
The DFG-Research Unit initiative Functional dynamics of ion channels and transporters combines experimental and computational strategies to study ion channels and transporters. We will focus on ligand activation of ion channels, including ion channels that require ligand binding for channel opening (ionotropic glutamate receptors), ion channels that are modulated by ligands (K2P channels, voltage-gated K+ channels, cyclic nucleotide modulated ion channels) and transporters that can also adopt channel-like conformations (EAAT glutamate transporters and CLC anion channels/anion-proton exchangers). A variety of experimental approaches, ranging from electrophysiology, biochemistry and fluorometry to structural biology, will be integrated with computational techniques including all-atom molecular dynamics (MD), hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanics simulations, as well as free energy calculations and Markov state modeling. Our strategy will foster and exploit an otherwise unattainable synergy between computer simulations and experiments. We expect that our research program will advance theoretical and experimental approaches in ion channel research in general and will provide novel insights into selected ion channels and transporters specifically.
Host university:
Universitätsklinikum Jena
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Klaus Benndorf
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Biology
Duration: 2017-
FOR 2841: Beyond the Exome - Identifying, Analyzing, and Predicting the Disease Potential of Non-Coding DNA Variants
Though the introduction of whole exome sequencing (WES) has enabled the molecular diagnosis rate for patients with rare genetic disorders to rise considerably, it has leveled at a maximum of 50%. WES is limited to the coding regions, meaning that it misses disease-causing variants in the non-coding and regulatory sequences of the genome. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is the logical next step as sequencing the entire genome should theoretically solve the remaining cases. Despite the inherent promise of WGS, the numerous obstacles that impede the interpretation of the multitudinous variants identified by WGS clearly demonstrate that WGS is not yet ready for routine clinical use.Beyond the Exome has assembled a unique constellation of leading specialists and researchers from clinical medicine, basic sciences, and bioinformatics who will collaborate to improve the interpretation of variants affecting structural and regulatory regions in the non-coding genome.Beyond the Exome researchers aim to (i) improve the processing of whole genome raw data, (ii) evaluate the impact of 3D genome structure on transcription factor binding and on gene regulation, (iii) collect widely dispersed genome regulation information in a central database, (iv) explore the oscillatory expression of transcription factors as a novel mode of gene regulation, and (v) investigate the epigenetic landscape during human thyroid, bone, and muscle development.The required data is unavailable for the human genome and will have to be generated by our research unit (RU). Such data comprise high resolution transcription factor footprints, histone modifications, chromatin contacts, regulatory networks, physical properties of transcription factor: DNA interactions, as well as the effects of larger structural variants on the 3D structure of the genome. We have access to patients from three well-characterized cohorts with developmental disorders of thyroid, bone, and muscle where WES has failed to provide a molecular diagnosis. Data from these patients will be used to develop and test the derived analysis algorithms. Beyond the Exome bioinformaticians will use the experimental data to develop and improve algorithms that will enable the RU’s public domain software to accurately and reliably interpret the non-coding genome. All of the RU’s aims depend on the integrated expertise of multiple group leaders, and no aim is attainable by a single group working in isolation. The overarching goal of this translational RU goes beyond simply improving the understanding of gene regulation and transcription; resulting in free, online, user friendly WGS analysis software aimed at geneticists, physicians, and non-bioinformaticians. Beyond the Exome’s ultimate goal is to bring WGS closer to routine clinical application, enabling the remaining half of undiagnosed rare genetic disease patients to receive a molecular diagnosis.
Host university:
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Markus Schülke-Gerstenfeld
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Department of Computer Science;
Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Biology
Duration: 2019-
FOR 2898: Military Cultures of Violence - Illegitimate Military Violence from the Early Modern Period to the Second World War
The requested DFG Research Group ‘Military Cultures of Violence’ aims to fill an important gap in both scholarship on military history and research on violence: the introduction of the concept of ‘military cultures of violence’ is designed to allow for the systematic descriptionand explanation of sometimes very divergent acts of violence on thepart of regular European armed forces that were viewed incontemporary assessments as illegitimate. Such acts are already documented in numerous individual studies, though as yet neither onthis chronological and geographical scale nor as part of a widercollaborative and comparative project. ‘Military cultures of violence’ are defined as the violent practices proceeding from members of acollective military agent of violence belonging to a state or a state-likeentity, and the associated interpretative ascriptions and discourses. The research group investigates in which ways and to what extentspecific military cultures of violence developed in the regular armies ofthe European great powers from the early modern period to the end ofthe Second World War. In the framework of the sub-projects, an attempt will be made to identify in synchronous and diachronic studies the military cultures of violence subjected to continual transformation, map out their determining factors, and classify their significance and their explanatory value for military acts of violence on the part of there spective regular agents of violence. The focus of scholarly interest here is physical violence regarded by contemporaries as illegitimate in times of both war and peace, for which reason the question of the changing yardsticks of legitimacy and illegitimacy of violence and conditions for their transformation will be repeatedly posed.
Host university:
University Potsdam
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Sönke Neitzel
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of History
Duration: 2021-
FOR 2936: Climate Change and Health in Sub-Saharan-Africa
The proposed Research Unit (RU) addresses the growing public health concern of accelerated disease burden as a consequence of climate change. So far, there have been very limited concerted efforts by public health scientists, climate change researchers, and social scientists to quantify the climate change impacts on human health. Even more so, the vulnerable populations in sub-Saharan Africa have been under-researched for this matter, despite the facts that rural populations in Africa are strongly affected by climate change and exhibit the lowest adaptive capacity. Indeed, this sub-continent faces an unfinished agenda of combatting undernutrition and infectious diseases with all the negative societal and economic consequences. At the same time, non-communicable conditions have been rapidly emerging in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decades, and their management now competes with the limited resources of the local health systems. To date, the additional impacts of climate change on three of these major health problems in the region, namely childhood undernutrition, malaria and cardio-vascular dysfunction from heat have been insufficiently defined. Therefore, this RU aims at i) establishing the causal pathways from weather changes through hydrological, agricultural and economic factors to undernutrition, malaria and heat stress among defined rural populations in Burkina Faso and Kenya, ii) projecting future developments along these pathways, iii) quantifying the effectiveness, the socio-economic costs, and the changes in projections of promising climate-specific adaptation strategies, iv) upscaling the historic and projected scenarios from the local to the national level, and finally, v) identifying broader societal impacts related to long-term health consequences of climate change. For the success of this RU, two German centers of scientific excellence in population health science and in climate change research have joined forces and partnered with expert academic institutions: The Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and their long-standing partners from Burkina Faso and Kenya offer the wide range of expert scientists needed from public health, nutrition, physiology, climate research, economics, and political science. This North-South network will meet the conceptual and technical challenges for better understanding the complex interplay between climate change, intermediate bio-physical factors and human health. Thereby, the proposed RU will provide essential knowledge for developing effective and efficient climate-specific adaptation strategies for sub-Saharan Africa. In a globalized world, such informed adaptation efforts will contribute to population health, societal wealth and political stability.
Host university:
Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Rainer Sauerborn
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Life Sciences, Albrecht Daniel Thaer-Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences
Duration: 2019-
FOR 2973: Being Catholic in the German Federal Republic, Semantics, Practices, and Emotions in Western Germany´s Society 1965-1989/90
The research group analyses the renewal of religious faith formation and practice in the context of German social history from the mid 1960s (Vatican Council II, hinge year 1968) to 1989 (the change to German reunification). Those years were characterised by an enormous development dynamic. Even contemporaries were sensitive to these fundamental changes. This is where the research group starts: What specific contribution did "being Catholic" make to shaping post-modernity since the 1960s/70s?
Host university:
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Andreas Holzem
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of History
Duration: 2020-
FOR 3031: in#sane: The contemporary history of an eroding difference
The history of psychiatry is a history of the difference between normality and madness. However, this difference is progressively eroding. On the one hand, with the opening of psychiatric institutions and the social integration of inmates, madness is becoming everyday normality; on the other hand, reaction patterns and behaviours such as intoxication, stress or attention deficit are pathologised. The collapse of this basic dichotomy calls the interpretative power of extant historical narratives of psychiatry back into question.This is the starting point and basic assumption of the proposed research group: It does not attempt to track changes in concepts of insanity, but focuses on the erosion of the difference between normal and pathological in dealing with psychic alterity. The overarching goal of the projects participating in the FOR is to mobilize hitherto underexplored tendencies in psychia-try as a resource for contemporary history.This goal will be achieved by a decentralisation of the previous topography of the history of psychiatry. Phenomena cutting through established themes shall come into focus: 1. Actorconstellations involving other professional groups than psychiatrists; 2. Logics and spaces that, besides the conventional institutions and their traditional alternatives, include economical and participatory rationalities, thus revealing other ecologies and artistic interventions; 3. Methodical approaches to practices and techniques of interaction and negotiation in the psychiatric field, including the use of media, strategies of communication and of appropriation. Through this de-centring of the history of psychiatry, the FOR aims not merely at cataloguing the conspicuous erosion of traditional categories, but especially at outlining a history of change in the relations with alterity, which challenges the extant historiography. The final aim is to sketch a contemporary history of psychiatry on the model of an anthropology of the present, capable of making the present interpretative schemes of normality/madness amenable to historical analysis.In order to include ethnological/ethnographic, historical/sociological, cultural and literary approaches, the research group consists of scholars from different disciplines. At the same time, it keeps a focus on medical history in order to include the reference disciplines of psychiatry, psychology and social work in the research.
Host university:
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Heiner Fangerau
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Ethnology
Duration: 2021-
FOR 5022: Medicine and the temporal structure of the good life
The interdisciplinary research unit (FOR) focuses on ethical questions regarding the temporal structure of the good life in the context of modern medicine. It examines (1.) interrelations between medical concepts, technologies and practices on one hand and practical orientations and normative conceptions of temporal structures of life on the other; (2.) how this connection between medicine and lifetime is represented and negotiated in scientific debates, (popular) cultural narrations and everyday lives; (3.) how the pertinent aspects of the good life can be ethically understood, evaluated, and deployed in practice.The investigation of these innovative research questions focuses on three medical fields of application that highlight different phases of life: (a) shifts of biographical time frames in the context of reproductive medicine; (b) the problematisation of biographical phases and transitions in the treatment of chronically ill patients in early and middle adulthood, and (c) the (re-)consideration of aging in medicine and healthcare for the elderly. The relevant moral experiences, attitudes and convictions are analysed in close interdisciplinary cooperation between seven sub-projects from practical philosophy, medical ethics, medicine, culture and media studies, as well as sociology. The results will be integrated from the perspective of an empirically-hermeneutically informed ethics that takes into account the sociocultural framework conditions and fields of application of ethical considerations. The overarching aim is to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the temporal conditions of a good life in the context of medical possibilities. The first funding period (years 1-4) involves the analysis of the aforementioned interrelations between medicine and lifetime by means of qualitative-empirical research in the different fields of application as well as their theoretical conceptualization from the perspective of an ethics of the good life. In the course of research, we will develop interdisciplinary conceptual, theoretical and methodological approaches to describe, explain and ethically evaluate the interactions between medical possibilities and temporal structures of the good life. In the second period (years 5-8), the devised hypotheses will be investigated systematically and the design of a comprehensive theoretical frame of reference advanced. To this end, the main research foci will be expanded in three respects: a) thematically by including additional medical applications, b) theoretically by focussing more on the collective dimension of human life (e.g. generations), and c) methodologically by including a quantitative research perspective.
Host university:
Universität Göttingen
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Claudia Wiesemann
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Language, Literature and Humanities, Department of German Literature
Duration: 2021-
FOR 5177: The Dynamics of the Spine: Mechanics, Morphology and Motion towards a comprehensive Diagnosis of Low Back Pain
Low back pain (LBP) is an overwhelming social and economic burden with a constantly increasing number of patients requiring surgical or non-surgical treatment. The success rates of current clinical treatments for LBP vary considerably, indicating the lack of a basic mechanistic understanding of the underlying causes of disease onset and progression. Only a more mechanistic understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of LBP will give rise to qualified patient stratification and form the basis for personalized therapy. Currently, the decision of whether to prescribe a surgical or non-surgical intervention is based on back/spine curvature (mal-)formations observed in static images (X-ray, CT, MRI) and during short-term physical examinations. These snapshot analyses rarely represent the natural posture of patients during daily life, completely neglecting the dynamics of spinal movements and loading, and thus do not allow a characterization of the underlying causes of pain. Recent technological developments, which were made possible in part by the members of our consortium, allow for the first time (1) dynamic assessment of spinal shape and mobility, (2) measurements of the in vivo forces that act during daily activities and (3) understanding of the mechano-adaptation of associated spinal structures. These technical possibilities pave the way to perform an in-depth characterization of the pathophysiology of LBP and unravel the interlinkage of spinal shape, mobility and mechanical tissue straining, all three of which may causes of pain. This Research Unit will reveal how spinal shape and geometry (MORPHOLOGY), spinal and spino-pelvic kinematics (MOTION) and lumbar spinal loading (MECHANICS) are interlinked and jointly result in LBP. We hypothesize that understanding the interrelations between these 3Ms will open new avenues to develop strategies for functionalized patient stratification, which will provide the basis for more personalized and successful treatment of LBP patients. We will characterize these interrelations in two cohorts, one comprising patients with non-specific LBP undergoing multimodal pain management and one comprising patients with specific LBP who are prescribed a surgical treatment (spinal fusion as an exemplary surgical intervention). Both cohorts and the asymptomatic controls will comprise different age groups and both sexes to address the diversity of patients. In vivo studies of large and small animal models and mathematical modeling will complement these studies to gain a more mechanistic understanding of LBP and to identify and verify its possible causes. In the long term, we aim to translate the functional understanding we will obtain during the period of this Research Unit into better prognostic approaches that will enable more specific patient stratification into risk categories for personalized treatment strategies and thus lay the foundation for more successful treatment outcomes in patients.
Host university:
Charité
Spokesperson:
Professor Dr. Hendrik Schmidt
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Sport Sciences
Duration: 2021-
FOR 5208 Model-based determination of nonlinear properties of piezoceramics for high-power ultrasound applications (NEPTUN )
Ultrasonic sensors and actuators are used in a wide range of applications in science and technology. In the design and optimization of these components, computer technology is increasingly used. One of the problems in this procedure is the insufficient knowledge of the acoustic or electromechanical material properties of the piezoelectric materials or the manufactured piezoelectric components. According to the current state of the art, these material properties are determined using several differently processed material samples, with the result that the material parameter set is inconsistent. This applies in particular to the characterization of piezoceramic materials applied in the higher power range, for example in high-power ultrasonic applications where the nonlinear properties of the materials must be taken into account. The dissipative properties of piezoelectric materials due to damping must also be considered. The following are the main objectives for this research project: Measurement methods and measurement systems for the characterization of the thermal and piezoelectric material behaviour of piezoceramic materials are to be developed. Aided by tailored optimization methods, complete and consistent material parameter sets are determined. Measurement methods and measurement systems are developed to enable the determination of the material parameters based on a single piezoceramic sample of a geometry that is typical for high-power applications. To this end, it is necessary to develop suitable material models to describe the nonlinear material behaviour mathematically. In addition, these material models must be suitable to be efficiently implemented in a simulation environment based on the transient discontinuous Galerkin method, which is to be developed within the scope of this project. It should be pointed out that the planed characterization method is based on continuum physical considerations of the behaviour of piezoelectric ceramics. Atomistic, micro-scale effects are considered implicitly via their effective influence on the material behaviour. Since a ban on the use of piezoceramics that contain lead is expected in the future, the provision of a new characterization methodology for piezoceramic materials and the creation of a high-performance simulation environment will support the substitution by lead-free piezoelectric materials, from which small and medium-sized companies in particular will benefit. In addition, it is to be expected that this characterization method will indirectly also have a positive influence on the development of new, highly efficient piezoelectric materials and on the improvement of the manufacturing processes.
Host university:
University Paderborn
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernd Henning
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Mathematics
Duration: 2021-
FOR 5215 Bioinspired oxidation catalysis with iron complexes
The decarbonization of the production of energy and an efficient and sustainable usage of non-renewable hydrocarbon resources from natural oil, gas, and coal is essential to achieve the global climate goals and has also been demanded in a politically-induced recent public dis¬cussion. In this respect, the selective functionalization of organic molecules by catalytic oxidation and oxygenation reactions is a key technology for the preparation of basic and fine chemicals from natural oil and gas resources, as well as for the synthesis of complex active ingredients, e. g. for pharmaceutical products. This defines an urgent need to establish new sustainable concepts for utilizing environmentally benign and abundant oxidants, such as O2 and H2O2 under mild con¬ditions for the synthesis of value-added products. Nature frequently uses enzymes with iron ions in the active sites for the selective oxidation of organic substrates. Such enzymes are capable of realizing a variety of challenging reactions during the course of O2 activation. The catalytic cycles of these enzymes have been established in interdisciplinary efforts combining expertise and methodologies from different fields including bioinorganic chemistry. They have strongly contributed to the elucidation of the molecular and electronic structures of the active sites and intermediates in the enzymes by providing a plethora of structural and spectroscopic modelsTransferring this knowledge gained from studies of the enzymatic systems to the development of new homogeneous catalysts (functional models) is presently of great interest worldwide and is the focus of this Research Unit. The development of bioinspired homogenous catalysts for the oxidation and oxygenation of hydrocarbons and more complex organic substrates with better catalytic performances has a high potential for academic and industrial applications.Thus, it is the ultimate goal of this Research Unit to provide improved bioinspired homogenous catalysts for oxidation reactions using environmentally benign oxidants such as O2 and H2O2 that results in oxygen-atom transfer, hydrogen atom abstraction, and C-H bond activation. This will be achieved by gathering the wide expertise of the applicants in bioinorganic model chemistry, trapping and spectroscopic analysis of reactive intermediates, kinetic analysis, catalysis, and theoretical modeling to obtain a detailed insight into the reactive intermediates and mechanisms of six already existing systems for bioinspired oxidation catalysis. This mechanistic insight in the bioinspired model systems and the comparison to the corresponding metalloenzymes should allow in the first step i) to identify the limitations in the reactivities of the model systems, which will finally allow ii) to rationally improve their catalytic performances.
Host university:
University Bielefeld
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Thorsten Glaser
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Chemistry
Duration: 2022-
FOR 5228: Membrane trafficking processes underlying presynaptic proteostasis
Neurons are polarized cells with a complex cytoarchitecture. Typically, the number of synapses is huge, their molecular makeup extraordinarily complex, and their distance from the cell body, where most protein synthesis occurs, can be enormous. Because neurons are both postmitotic and long-lived, maintaining the integrity of their proteome is of particular importance. Several hundred different proteins can be found in forebrain synapses and this complex proteome creates a unique situation with respect to the molecular dynamics of protein exchange, in particular at the presynapse. Due to synaptic transmission, local membrane exchange is exceptionally high at axonal terminals and accordingly the presynapse represents a region of high energy demand and highly active membrane dynamics. How protein turnover is regulated in axons and axon terminals, and whether this occurs locally (i.e. at the synapse) or in the soma is a key cell biological question. Currently there is a surprising paucity of data on necessities for, and mechanisms of protein replacement at presynapses. Gaps in our knowledge concern: which degradative pathways are involved, how proteins are sorted for certain degradative mechanisms, how sorting itself is accomplished, how different pathways contribute to the presynaptic proteome, which signals direct proteins into a given pathway, how synaptic activity affects degradation, how cross-talk is regulated, and which presynaptic sensor mechanisms identify protein 'damage'. We also lack a thorough understanding on how the different modes of protein degradation interconnect with the need for protein replenishment, i.e. protein translation. It is thus timely to address this long list of unresolved issues and open questions. To accomplish this goal, we assembled a team of expert synaptic biologists who will contribute different methodologies and competences to the problem of presynaptic proteo¬stasis. The Team includes researchers from Berlin, Magdeburg and the Technion in Haifa that (i) cover a broad range of techniques, (ii) are at the technological forefront in molecular neuroscience research, and (iii) display synergistic potential to mark for a super-additive team. In a joint effort our mission will be to break new ground by addressing the following questions: What are the specific contributions of autophagy, proteasome-mediated and endolysomal degradation to presynaptic proteostasis? How are presynaptic function and, importantly, plasticity regulated by autophagy? How is autophagy regulated locally? and, finally, how do non-canonical functions of autophagosomes (e.g. signalling) impact presynaptic development, maintenance and function?
Host university:
Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology
Spokesperson:
Dr. Michael R. Kreutz
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Biology
Duration: 2021-
FOR 5234: Multiple Competition in the Higher Education System: Constitution of Protagonists, Coordination of Action and Consequences
The overall objective of this research group is to develop a comprehensive understanding of multiple competition in the field of higher education, based on contributions from sociology, economics and business administration. Multiple competition in higher education means that individual and collective actors are simultaneously embedded in and nested within several interconnected competitions. The relationship between these individual competitions leads to a complex netting of requirements, which actors have to face. This interdisciplinary research group, therefore, attempts to answer the following questions: How do actors position themselves when facing multiple competition? What dynamics unfold and what consequences result from multiple competition? To answer these questions, each subproject within the research group aims at analyzing a specific set of characteristics of multiple competition as well as the interrelations between these different competitions. By linking together the results from different subprojects, the research group as a whole will be able to draw a comprehensive picture and develop a theory of multiple competition in higher education. Given the broad usage of competition as a governance mechanism, such a theoretical understanding will be of high importance not only for higher education as a field, but also for the analysis of other areas of society, where no overall evaluation and price system exists. In addition, we expect relevant results for higher education policy and funding.
Host university:
Universität Kassel
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Georg Krücken
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Education Studies
Duration: 2021-
FOR 5289 From Imprecision to Robustness in Neural Circuit Assembly
Why imprecision and robustness? The specificity of innumerable synaptic contacts is of central importance to the study of brain development and function. In contrast, terms like 'imprecision' and 'noise' are more commonly used in association with faulty development and reduced function. In most studies of neuronal development and function, imprecision only features as error bars and in the hope for significance between control and experimental averages. Yet, the development of neural circuits is in many aspects imprecise, and mature circuitry is often highly flexible and error-tolerant, i.e. robust. The core hypothesis of RobustCircuit is that imprecisions of distinct processes at lower scales (from molecules to cells) enable robustness of circuit assembly and function at higher scales (from cells to behavior). While numerous examples support this notion, we are not aware of any concerted effort akin to RobustCircuit, with a focus on the importance of imprecise development for robust neural circuit connectivity and function. In the proposed Research Unit, we intend to explore the different types of imprecision most commonly observed in neural circuit assembly and to interrogate their nature, ranging from unavoidable noise to necessary contributors in development and function. Neural circuit assembly must deal with imprecision of different varieties: molecular noise, subcellular random dynamics, variability in axonal and dendritic shape, cellular heterogeneity, the imprecise encoding of a developmental event, e.g. synaptic partner choice, to name but a few. To ensure comparable and integrative insight from these different types of imprecision, we propose to harness the momentum in the study of selected neural circuits in a single model organism, Drosophila melanogaster. In the fly, neural circuit connectivity has been documented in great detail, and individual neurons can reproducibly be manipulated and their development and activity observed with live imaging of whole brain explants as well as in behaving animals. The goal of RobustCircuit is to understand the roles of developmental imprecisions for robust outcomes by comparing and integrating examples across neuron types and scales from molecules to behavior. Our integrative approach is devised to provide both quantitative comparisons as well as analyses of shared computational models at the end of a first funding period. Our long-term perspective is expansion to other model systems.
Host university:
Freie Universität Berlin
Spokesperson:
Professor Dr. Peter Robin Hiesinger
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Biology
Duration: 2022-
FOR 5323 Aetiologies: Founding Narratives in Literary, Scholarly, and Scientific Discourses
The research group ‘Aetiologies’ examines the fascination of beginnings and the search for origins by approaching them as retrospective narratives constructed for the needs of the present. Stories of beginnings, when viewed through the heuristic lens of aetiology (the narration of origins, foundations, and causes), contain the imprint of the very present which they seek to establish and explain, and blueprints for its politics, aesthetics, religion, and life sciences. This project studies the rhetorics of temporality employed by cosmologies, creation myths, political foundation stories, and literary and scientific origin narratives. The fundamentally argumentative nature of aetiologies draws attention to their position on the interface between literature and science, i.e. to both discourses of knowledge in literature and to the fictivity of scientific hypotheses. A central question of the project is whether (and how) literature imbues origins with ideological and metaphysical power, or undermines this power by questioning linearity and causality. Finally, the project’s focus on beginnings connects our research programme to the current interest in the ends of geological periods and their aetiologies in both aesthetic and political contexts.
Host university:
Freie Universität Berlin
Spokesperson:
Professorin Dr. Susanne Gödde
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Theology
Duration: 2023-
FOR 5389 Contextual influences on dynamic belief updating in volatile environments: Basic mechanisms and clinical implications
Being able to extract regularities from noisy input, recognize when they change and update beliefs accordingly is crucial to mental health. Optimal learning in volatile environments requires dynamic up- and down-regulation of the learning rate depending both on the stochasticity within a state and on the probability of a state change having occurred. If the updating process goes awry this will result in biased internal representations of the state of the world that eventually give rise to maladaptive behaviour. In mental disorders, biased internal representations become apparent when patients either hold on to beliefs about themselves, others or the world that no longer match the observable experiences or fail to form sufficiently stable representations of their environment. However, the assumption that psychopathology could arise from difficulties in dynamic belief updating (DynBU) has not been systematically tested. Also, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying DynBU are only just beginning to be unravelled. We assume that fundamental changes in the environmental state trigger a cascade of higher-level surprise, boosts of arousal and a cortical network reset. Identifying aberrancies of this cascade that affect the learning rate will inform our understanding of the origins of aberrant belief updating. We also assume that the ability to learn from new outcome contingencies will vary throughout ontogeny and in response to environmental input. Being able to pinpoint clinically relevant contextual influences on DynBU will provide a better understanding of basic adaptive processes and will help to understand the development of emerging psychopathology. In nine innovative projects, this Research Unit aims to 1) unravel underlying neurocognitive mechanisms of DynBU in volatile environments, 2) identify clinically relevant developmental and environmental contextual influences on DynBU, and 3) use this knowledge to specify problems in DynBU related to psychopathology. To enable direct cross-project comparisons, every project will use a common change-point task, employ a shared clinical assessment and take a behavioural, computational, and neuroscientific approach. Data will be integrated by advanced computational modelling via shared data-analysis. To realize the ambitious aims, the interdisciplinary and internationally oriented Research Unit includes thirteen established researchers and a Mercator fellow with the required expertise in behavioural modelling, development, learning mechanisms, neural processes, and psychopathology. The fundamental insight into mechanisms that underlie DynBU and the developmental and environmental contexts that shape it, will significantly advance our understanding of how people learn and adapt. This will enable us to identify aberrancies that give rise to psychopathology and it can open up new avenues for mechanism-based and developmentally informed intervention built on a new understanding of uncertainty processing.
Host university:
Universität Hamburg
Spokesperson:
Professorin Dr. Tania Lincoln
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Psychology
Duration: 2023-
FOR 5425 Urban expansion in times of re-urbanization - new suburbanism?
The proposed research group analyzes current urban expansion strategies comprehensively for the first time against the background of the currently changing social and planning ideals, economic requirements and individual housing preferences in interaction with the spatial-material realities. The overarching question is how "in times of reurbanization", by which actors and at which locations urban expansion is being promoted in Germany, how the tension between current models, housing desires and practical planning constraints is being dealt with, and which demands can be implemented and why. To this end, the perspectives of urban and regional planning, open space and landscape planning, and spatial social sciences are linked in an innovative way, and all spatial levels from the plot or household to the urban region are considered. The focus is on the future of housing and small-scale coexistence, which is considered in interaction with working, recreation and transport.
Host university:
Universität Kassel
Spokesperson:
Professor Dr.-Ing. Uwe Altrock
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Geography
Duration: 2023-
FOR 5434 Information Abstraction During Sleep
Sleep is not an idle state. Instead, the organism continues to process information that has been encoded during prior wakefulness. During waking, the organism takes up huge amounts of information, much more than can be kept for the long term. We assume that information processing in the “off-line” condition of sleep serves to reduce this information load by abstracting “gist” information, with only this gist information becoming stored in long-term memory. Gist might represent invariant information repeating across experiences or salient information, e.g., a danger signal, that is unique to a specific experience. The main goals of the planned Research Unit are to characterize what the gist is that is stored for the long-term, and how it is abstracted during sleep. We address these questions in the framework of the “active systems consolidation” concept of sleep-dependent memory processing, assuming that consolidation processes during sleep specifically pertain to the hippocampus-dependent episodic memory system. In this concept, information abstraction during sleep is considered a consequence of the gradual redistribution of representations from hippocampal to primarily neocortical networks serving as long-term stores. Mechanisms underlying active systems consolidation shall be investigated, together with behavioral indicators of memory, at the level of large-scale network activity and oscillations (by fMRI, EEG, local field potential recordings, wide-field fluorescence microscopy) as well as at the level of microcircuits and single cells (by single unit recordings and two-photon imaging). For our ultimate aim to establish active systems consolidation of abstracted gist memory as a fundamental function of sleep, we will characterize the consolidation process in the sleeping brain for widely different (social and non-social) stimulus domains, and identify ontogenetic and phylogenetic regularities in this process. Understanding the memory function of sleep shall pave the way for translational approaches to ameliorate diseases in clinical settings and to enhance cognitive capabilities in educational settings.
Host university:
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Spokesperson:
Professor Dr. Jan Born
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Psychology
Duration: 2023-
FOR 5495 SOURCED – Process Mining on Distributed Event Sources
The discipline concerned with automatic process analysis techniques based on event data of complex systems is called process mining. Classical process mining has by and large assumed that event data is processed in a single, central data file on a device with sufficient computing power. In plenty of use cases event data originates from distributed, sensor-based systems that do not satisfy the assumptions of (classical) process mining in the general case. Here, events can be any kind of observations (e.g., a sensor value changed), no matter if explicitly linked to a specific activities or cases. Events occur as unbounded streams of sensed event data; they are subject to noise, inaccurate measurements and ambiguous information; and they bear the potential of correlation with background knowledge and corresponding threats to privacy by means of re-identification. As of today, the application of process mining to distributed scenarios suffers from technical and conceptual research challenges spanning the three dimensions (1) Infrastructure-awareness: The distribution and physical properties of sensor-based systems imposes specific research challenges for efficient event data processing. (2) Data-awareness: The granularity and quality characteristics of sensor data imposes specific research challenges for meaningful and privacy-sensitive event data abstraction. (3) User-awareness: The detail and complexity of sensor data imposes specific research challenges for traceable presentation and representation of distributed process mining results. The proposed research unit SOURCED – Process Mining on Distributed Event Sources will develop the methodological foundations for novel process mining techniques for distributed event data. An overarching challenge of sources process mining is the fact that the infrastructure, data, and user view can hardly be fully separated. This gives rise to benefits of collaboration. The data analysis will be enforced in the light of the data’s utility, preserving the accuracy and completeness of process mining results as much as possible by embedding the uncertainty of data in the entire process mining pipeline, making data quality issues explicit in the analysis and protecting the data through provable guarantees. The analysis focus on isolated cases will be extended and replaced by multi-dimensional event networks that can be interactively explored by user along different dimensions and corresponding visual representations. The research unit brings together expertise from the fields of process management, data and software engineering, distributed systems, and privacy mechanisms. The seven projects in SOURCED address scientific challenges at their intersections and provide a substantial research impact by developing the foundation for the next generation of process mining techniques.
Host university:
Universität Bayreuth
Spokesperson:
Professorin Dr. Agnes Koschmider
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Duration: 2023-
FOR 5501 A social-ecological systems approach to inform ecosystem restoration in rural Africa
Motivated by widespread and accelerating land degradation, biodiversity loss and human-induced climate change, ecosystem restoration has become a global priority. Yet, despite a surge in international attention, the ecological, social, and interlinked social-ecological consequences of major restoration initiatives remain poorly understood. The proposed research unit will approach ecosystem restoration from a social-ecological systems perspective to better understand the mechanisms involved in generating different restoration outcomes. We will follow a place-based approach to social-ecological systems research that allows for an in-depth understanding of a particular landscape by integrating different disciplines while also generating valuable transferable knowledge for restoration of degraded ecosystems worldwide. Our work will focus on western Rwanda because of Rwanda’s role as a global restoration leader. The overarching goal of the proposed research unit is to develop a social-ecological systems approach to ecosystem restoration. To this end, the research unit is structured in eight interconnected sub-projects that are organised in an ecological, a social, a social-ecological, and an integration cluster consisting of two sub-projects each. The ecological cluster will quantify the ecological consequences of ecosystem restoration in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem structure and function at both the site and landscape level. The social cluster aims to understand the social context, mechanisms and outcomes of ecosystem restoration for individual people and communities with a particular focus on governance, environmental justice and social cohesion. In the social-ecological cluster, we will analyse how ecosystem restoration changes people’s interactions with the natural environment by examining livelihoods, food security and nature’s contributions to people. Finally, the integration cluster will establish a living lab where we will conduct ecological and socioeconomic experiments with local stakeholders to identify new ways to improve ecosystem restoration. Additionally, we will integrate all findings of the research unit on an ongoing basis as part of the integration cluster using social-ecological system approaches and scenario planning. Together, the interdisciplinary post-hoc assessment of mechanisms and outcomes of restoration, in combination with participatory real-world experiments and future-oriented scenario planning, provide a comprehensive understanding of the past, present and future of ecosystem restoration in the study area. In addition, we expect to gain general insights into ecological, social and social-ecological mechanisms underpinning restoration that can also be applied to other restoration settings. This way, the proposed research unit contributes to restoration science and social-ecological systems research, directly benefits restoration activities in Rwanda and offers insights to advance restoration practice globally.
Host university:
Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Spokesperson:
Professor Dr. Jörn Fischer
Participating Faculty/Participating Department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin:
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Department of Geography
Duration: 2023-