A first ERC Synergy Grant for a TU Hamburg professor
TU Hamburg congratulates Prof Christian Cyron on his ERC Synergy Grant application being selected for funding
06.11.2024
Prof Christian Cyron, Head of the Institute of Continuum and Materials Mechanics at TU Hamburg and Head of the Institute of Material Systems Modeling at Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, has together with Prof Gerhard A. Holzapfel (TU Graz) and Prof Sebastian Kozerke (ETH Zurich) been successful in applying for a prestigious ERC Synergy Grant. The coordinating host institution is Hereon.
Their project – MechVivo - Mechanical characterization of soft tissue in vivo by microstructural imaging and physics-informed neural networks: bridging the gap between biomechanics and clinical practice – aims to develop a completely new operating principle to determine the mechanical properties of tissues in living organisms non-invasively. If the project is successful, it could lead to a breakthrough in making biomechanical computer simulations much more usable in clinical practice.
The research involves establishing substantial methodological advances in MRI sequence simulation and design and data reconstruction to transform the concept into a reliable in-vivo imaging tool. This work will be undertaken by Sebastian Kozerke and his team at the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at ETH Zurich. Gerhard A. Holzapfel's research group at the Institute of Biomechanics, TU Graz will work on gaining a fundamental understanding of the relationship between gene expression, microstructure and the mechanical properties of soft biological tissue.
Christian Cyron’s team at Hereon will develop software that converts the data collected in Zurich and Graz into medically useful knowledge. This will be based on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) designed to unravel the relationship between the microstructural fingerprints collected by MRI on the one hand and the actual mechanical properties of tissues on the other. The aim is to derive mechanical properties of tissues in vivo from the microstructural and compositional information collected by the novel MRI technology developed by the project. Knowledge about the mechanical properties in vivo gained this way can then be used to parametrize computer simulations to support clinical diagnosis and treatment.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Timm-Giel, President of TUHH:
"Hamburg University of Technology congratulates all those involved on this outstanding success! Christian Cyron is co-spokesperson of the research cluster of excellence initiative led by TUHH “BlueMat: Water-Driven Materials” and there are strong synergies between both projects. This demonstrates the strength of networking and collaboration between researchers and research organisations in Hamburg as well as beyond. We look forward to building on these relationships”.
About the funding
European Research Council (ERC) grants are considered to be among the highest distinctions researchers across all disciplines can receive in Europe. Grants are awarded on the basis of scientific excellence alone. Synergy Grants are awarded to two to four lead researchers from different disciplines judged to be capable of performing transformative research with the potential of becoming a benchmark on a global scale. Grants of up to €10 million are awarded for six years. https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/synergy-grant
More Information
Hereon Institute of Material Systems Modeling
Hamburg University of Technology
TUHH Excellence Initiative BlueMat
Institute of Biomechanics - Graz University of Technology
Institute for Biomedical Engineering - ETH Zurich
TUHH - Public Relations Office
Ruediger Bendlin
E-Mail: bendlin@tuhh.de
Phone: +49 40 428 78 3330
