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Following the FNR Science Image Competition, first organised in 2019 on the occasion of the FNR’s 20th anniversary, the awarded photos can now be discovered at an exhibition in Luxembourg City! The campaign has multiple aims: to show the growing role of images in scientific research, to reveal how scientific work is conducted, to give a face to the researchers conducting it and to present various ways to engage the public with science.
We understand that researchers and research teams may go through a difficult period triggered by the COVID-19 lockdown. Research projects may currently be suspended and key parts of projects may have to be postponed for a significant amount of time, FNR wishes to offer flexibility in the handling of grants and grant proposals.
The FNR is pleased to communicate that 25 of 105 eligible PhD projects have been selected for funding in the 2020 AFR Call. This represents an FNR commitment of 4.5 MEUR. 6 additional projects are on the reserve list. *Update October 2020: the six projects on the reserve list have been funded, bringing the total funded PhD projects to 31 and the total FNR commitment to 5.4 MEUR.*
Following a pilot phase that started in 2019, the FNR has consolidated its INITIATE funding instrument. The INITIATE instrument is designed to support the initiation and development of strategic research and innovation project ideas that will help make Luxembourg internationally competitive in priority domains.
Countless microorganisms live peacefully in our body, but they also can be involved in many diseases. To find out exactly what role they play, a biologist has given himself a Herculean task: survey all the biomolecules produced by the microbes residing in our guts.
It is Nobel Prize season. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine has been awarded to three scientists who discovered that the majority of blood-borne liver inflammations (hepatitis) are caused by the Hepatitis C virus. Their work made possible blood tests and new medicines that have saved millions of lives. Interview with two scientists, who – either in the past or present – worked on Hepatitis C in Luxembourg or in collaboration with Luxembourg. One of them even did his doctoral thesis in the laboratory of Charles Rice, one of this year’s Nobel laureates.
Machine learning algorithms seem all-powerful, but still function passively: they merely analyse the data they are fed with. Björn Ottersten makes them smarter by letting them actively probe their environment. His work aims to improve sensors of self-driving cars, sharing of mobile bandwidth and Internet traffic.
Together with an international team of scientists, Luxembourg researchers led by FNR PEARL Chair Prof. Rejko Krüger, have clarified the cause for certain genetic forms of Parkinson’s disease. The seven-year interdisciplinary research effort also identified potential pharmacological treatments.
