To cope with an ever changing environment, bacteria often develop a bet-hedging strategy like bi-stable cellular differentiation, resulting in cell populations with different properties. For example, the industrially relevant model bacterium Bacillus subtilis can become motile, genetically competent, secrete degradative enzymes, or sporulate, and these cellular differentiations can occur simultaneously in a single genetically homogenous population. This cellular heterogeneity exhibited by bacterial cells from the same parent with similar genetic properties is a carefully regulated process that prepares the population for unpredictable environmental stress. Unfortunately, this cellular differentiation can pose serious challenges for the production of enzymes via industrial fermentation, since it means that not all cells in the fermentor are actively involved in enzyme production. This Marie Curie BIOSTAB-DIFF project aims at investigating how enzyme expression differs between individual cells of B. subtilis, and how this cellular heterogeneity can be possibly controlled by genetic interventions. B. subtilis has become a universal microbial cell factory for many industrial products such as enzymes and vitamins. Better enzyme yield would be achieved by reducing cellular heterogeneity in this organism, and that would serve as an asset to the biotech industry. The project will be carried out in the Swammerdam Institute of Life Sciences (SILS) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), under the supervision of Prof. Leendert Hamoen, one of the leading experts in heterogenic protein expression in the model organism B. subtilis.

There is now a substantial population of exoplanets with well-determined masses, radii, and orbital parameters in a range of host stellar systems. JWST will bring an increase in exoplanets with atmospheric spectroscopy measurements, moving the field from pure discovery to population synthesis and characterization. Many of the best-studied planetary systems are massive and located within 1AU of their central stars; it is not clear whether all of these planets migrated from farther out in their natal disks to this location or if they could have formed in situ. Both scenarios should produce distinct compositions resulting from multiple strong, time-dependent chemical gradients in their disks due to thermal sublimation and grain processing effects. These effects likely set the bulk chemical composition of the planet’s core and atmosphere, which are accreted from different material in the disk. By determining the physical conditions within 1AU, I will confirm whether they are sufficient to support in situ planet formation. I will also map the distribution of key planetary building blocks in both the solid phase (dust grains) and gas phase. This will be accomplished by interpreting disks’ flux as a function of wavelength with radiative transfer models including detailed sublimation and condensation physics, and comparing observed spectral features in both the solid and gaseous phases in molecular and atomic form to those predicted by models. This project will provide training through research in numerical methods and exoplanet characterization techniques, which are important in the long term for my career goals to lead a research group in planetary formation. Through development courses, I will improve my marketability for senior research positions and in turn transfer my infrared observing skills and US and European network connections to the host. This project increases the visibility of the host and European exoplanetary astronomy on an international scale.

ETHNOSCHISM traces an ambient, diffuse but influential ethnotype, that of a manly, rough-hewn North vs. a frivolous, charming South – the former framed in terms of its ‘Germanic’ ethnolinguistic roots, the latter as ‘Romance’ or Latin. It analyses the widely-ramifying discursive diffusion of this ethnotype in its continuing ‘banal’ presence as a frame for social and political relations. The subject is highly topical, raising the still-burning issue of national intra-European divisions in terms of imputed ‘national characters’ by going it back to the years of their crystallisation (1914-1929) and studying the impact of cultural representations have in the political prejudices and ideologies. ETHNOSCHISM develops a new, interdisciplinary theory of the European North-South-opposition by studying its conceptual history from a radically interdisciplinary basis, combining the latest insights in 3 related specialisms in the culture-historical Humanities: imagology, the history of knowledge production (namely in racial theorizing), the intellectual history of European nationalisms. It studies ethnotypes in a completely new and original way, using them as a common discursive factor in the cultural field of representations and the political history of international relations. The methodological toolbox includes methods and approaches from different disciplines: the transnational and interdisciplinary history of national thought, Discourse Historical Approach, Imagology. The outputs include: two articles, a commented anthology, an edited book; two academic workshops. Measures to communicate the project activities include a website on the project, a temporary exhibition, the creation of an Educational Package for secondary-school students. Research and training activities at the Dept. of European Studies (UvA) will directly benefit my career prospects, equipping me with new skills and knowledge, and placing me at the forefront of the field as an interdisciplinary researcher.