The main aim of our MARBLES coordinator, Gilles van Wezel, is to facilitate the search for new antibiotics. The European Research Council (ERC) have awarded an Advanced Grant for Gilles' COMMUNITY project, which is about understanding the regulatory networks that control growth and specialised metabolism in Streptomyces bacteria during growth in nature. Some more info on the project and especially its links to MARBLES will follow in the next issue of the MARBLES newsletter.
Gilles is Professor of Molecular Biotechnology at the Institute of Biology Leiden (ULEI) and the ERC Advanced Grant was for €2.5 million.