The lab is very excited to be among the 182 researchers winning an ERC-PoC grant this time around. The project (TaRGet 2.0) will develop a method that uses cell encapsulation into tiny semi-permeable capsules to recover the genome of targeted environmental microbes. While this is an exciting general idea for people working with uncultured aquatic microbes, we will here apply it to the recovery of harmful bloom-forming cyanobacteria. We hope that this method will help with a more precise monitoring of harmful algal blooms, a better understanding of the toxins they produce, and ultimately better strategies to manage these algae, which are predicted to become more common in the future due to global warming. This collaborative project includes colleagues from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Malin Olofsson) and from the Technical University of Denmark (Lars Behrendt).
More info here:
https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news/proof-of-concept-grants-2026
https://www.uu.se/en/news/2026/2026-06-30-erc-funding-for-research-on-harmful-algal-blooms
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