ERC Starting Grant to Prof. J. Kneipp

The European Research Council, ERC, has distinguished Prof. Janina Kneipp with an ERC Starting Grant. This prize has been awarded to internationally outstanding young scientists since 2007. Janina Kneipp has succeeded in a two-stage procedure competing with the new-generation European elite and will obtain a 1.39-million-euro grant over a period of five years. She and her group will develop new micro-spectroscopic methods for analytical applications within the MULTIBIOPHOT project.

"Based on the combination of multi-photon processes and favourable optical properties of metal nano-structures, new spectroscopic strategies will be researched and their application investigated in this project. This will provide completely new methods in bioanalytics and for imaging and investigating biological processes", says Janina Kneipp.

Out of 2503 project proposals filed in the second round, only 244 were selected. The total amount of funds for the Starting Grant 2009 was 325 million euros. Starting Grants enable outstanding scientists at the start of their independent career to establish a research group of their own to perform a research project.

Janina Kneipp has been Junior (S) Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing since 2008.

Source: Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM)