NWO has awarded two Vidi grants to dr. Bas E. Dutilh and dr. Kirsten ten Tusscher. They both received € 800,000 to develop their own research line and set up a research group over the next five years.
Dr. Bas E. Dutilh will discover new human gut-associated bacteriophages and investigate their role in structuring the gut microbiome. He has recently discovered a phage that occurs in half of all people worldwide, and may be important for the biodiversity of gut flora. Bas uses a variety of bioinformatic methods and computational models to answer his questions.
Dr. Kirsten ten Tusscher uses computational models to unravel the underlying logical of plant developmental processes. In her recent Nature publication she demonstrated how a single plant hormone can control both short and long term developmental processes. In the new project she hopes to elucidate how plants pattern their overall root architecture.
Vidi is geared towards excellent researchers who have several years of conducting successful research after earning their PhD. These scientists are among the best 10 to 20% in their field. In total, 509 researchers in the Netherlands submitted applications, but the NWO only honoured 87 of them with grants. Of these, 15 went to researchers affiliated with Utrecht University or UMC Utrecht.