On Friday Aug 30, the Dutch Research Council (NWO) announced which consortia receive a ~ 20 million Euro Gravitation Award. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science provides this type of funding for long-term (10 year) multidisciplinary projects, with the ambition to stimulate world-leading Dutch research that could potentially lead to international breakthroughs. The research is to be carried out by consortia of various Dutch universities, academic hospitals and research institutes.

One of the recipients of such a grant is Danielle Posthuma, with her peergroup including Guus Smit and Huibert Mansvelder, from the Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research (CNCR) and all affiliated with Amsterdam Neuroscience. Rector Magnificus Vinod Subramaniam is delighted with the news: "That we are coordinating this Gravitation consortium is a fantastic recognition of the strength of our researchers and the consortia. I’m incredibly proud of all the awardees and participating team members."

Danielle Posthuma coordinates BRAINSCAPES: A Roadmap from Neurogenetics to Neurobiology

Professor of Complex Trait Genetics Danielle Posthuma (VU Amsterdam & Amsterdam UMC) coordinates the research project BRAINSCAPES. The aim of BRAINSCAPES is to map in detail the biological mechanisms underlying brain diseases ('brainscaping'). The scientists involved in this research want to build an innovative bridge between genetics and neurobiology by making smart use of the wealth of results from the current genetic revolution, the availability of large biological datasets at the single cell level and the application of the very latest techniques from neurobiology. Posthuma works with a team of researchers from VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam UMC, LUMC, TU Delft, UMCU and Hubrecht Institute.