Emerging Fields: Highly Innovative Research Projects with Revolutionary Potential

Crises such as wars, pandemics, and climate extremes destabilize global supply chains. But how do they affect resource use, sustainability, inequality, and social well-being? REMASS addresses these questions with the help of new approaches to researching society’s metabolism, i.e. resource flows and stocks (for example in buildings and infrastructures) and what they contribute to society. REMASS will generate a social metabolism database with unprecedented granularity, allowing researchers to quantify the resilience of the metabolism to supply chain disruptions using big data approaches in complexity research. REMASS will be analyzing the malleability of resource use in three important supply systems (food, housing, and mobility) and identifying key actors, decision-making processes, and power relations.

“The increasing use of natural resources is driving global warming, while at the same time current crises are threatening global supply chains. In our research, we analyze the resilience of resource use and options for making it more sustainable – perhaps we will even find tipping points towards more sustainability and justice,” says Helmut Haberl, coordinator, about the goals of the Emerging Field project.

Gravity is the curvature of space-time: This is the central message of Einstein’s theory of Relativity, expressed in the mathematical language of Lorentzian differential geometry. However, the latter can only deal with the curvature of smooth surfaces (without edges or vertices), which is often insufficient in physics. Based on the mathematical theories of Metric Geometry and Optimal Transport, in recent decades a concept of curvature has been developed for non-smooth geometries. Our research group has built a bridge from this curvature concept to Lorentzian geometry. The vision is to now address open problems in fundamental physics with this new geometry: singularities in General Relativity and a unifying language for discrete approaches to quantum gravity.

“Einstein's great insight is that gravity is nothing other than the curvature of space-time. Our Emerging Field is developing a completely new approach to spacetime curvature that promises applications in relativity and quantum gravity,” says Roland Steinbauer, coordinator, about the goals of the Emerging Field.

The mammalian brain is formed by highly complex developmental processes that are controlled by thousands of genes and their interaction with the prenatal environment. Mutations in the underlying genes can cause a predisposition to various neurodevelopmental disorders. However, many people with a genetic predisposition to neurodevelopmental disorders live a healthy life. This project aims to unravel the molecular processes by which a favorable prenatal environment can reverse a genetic predisposition to neurodevelopmental disorders and enable the development of a healthy brain by strengthening brain resilience.

“The approach in this project is completely novel, as we want to explore the natural mechanisms of brain resilience in order to positively influence the expression of genetically determined changes in brain function and behavior,” says Igor Igorevich Adameyko, coordinator, about the goals of the Emerging Field.

Where do we come from? How multicellular life forms like plants and animals evolved from single-celled microorganisms, such as bacteria and archaea, is one of the most fundamental and least understood questions in biology. It leaves the mystery of our origins unanswered.

One clue to this question lies in the emergence of a group of proteins that assemble with DNA to form what is called “chromatin.” Chromatin controls gene expression to differentiate the many cell types of complex life forms. We know that chromatin proteins diversified before the origin of multicellular life forms and it is likely that the evolution of chromatin enabled the appearance of complex life forms and enabled them to adapt to the various environmental settings on planet Earth.

The EvoChromo project brings together three experts with interdisciplinary expertise to form a new laboratory across the Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology of the University of Vienna, the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA). Together, this team aims to uncover when and how chromatin evolved to give rise to complex life forms.

Lokiarchaeum ossiferum, or “Loki” for short, a recently cultured single-celled microorganism, will be in the focus of our explorations. Loki is part of the Asgard archaea that merged with bacteria two billion years ago, producing the ancestor of complex organisms including humans, animals and plants. The new EvoChromo team will find and characterize chromatin proteins in Loki to reveal how the innovation of chromatin protein in Asgards enabled the diversification of cell types, eventually leading to the evolution of complex multicellular life forms. Revealing such a unique event will change our understanding of the evolution of life on Earth and our own origins.

“Our EvoChromo project will identify the origins of proteins that interact with the genome and have enabled the evolution of all complex life forms on Earth. The research in EvoChromo is based on new experimental strategies and organisms that are integrated in an interdisciplinary research unit,” says Frédéric Berger, coordinator, about the goals of the Emerging Field.

Osteosarcoma is an aggressive form of bone cancer that affects over 1,000 children in the EU every year and carries complex genetic mutations. This has hampered the development of targeted drugs, with the result that there has been no progress in clinical therapy for 40 years. The “DART²OS” research project aims to break this deadlock with a new type of cancer therapy that harnesses the power of the human immune system. The team will use state-of-the-art molecular biological methods to characterize mutations that are visible to the immune system. This information is used to develop patient-specific immune cells (so-called TCR-T cells) that can recognize and kill cancer cells. In addition to osteosarcoma, the aim is also to lay the foundations for the development of personalized TCR-T cell therapies for other types of cancer.

“Our team unites experts from different research areas behind a common goal: to make the promising concept of personalized TCR-T cell therapies viable for the treatment of pediatric cancer,” says Johannes Zuber, coordinator, about the goals of the Emerging Field project.