Synthetic biology aims at re-engineering organisms for practical applications by designing novel biomolecular components, networks, and pathways. The field is expected to lead to cheaper drugs, sustainable fuel production, efficient diagnosis and targeted therapies for diseases. However, a major obstacle to achieve these goals is our limited ability to rationally design biomolecular structure and function. By contrast, the field of DNA nanotechnology has so far demonstrated an unprecedented ability to design and self-assemble well-defined molecular shapes, although the production method of thermal annealing is not compatible with cells. We have recently demonstrated a breakthrough method, called RNA origami, which allows the design of RNA molecules that fold into well-defined nanoscale shapes during their synthesis by an RNA polymerase. In this proposal I aim at extending this technology to produce RNA-protein nanostructures and at demonstrating their application in synthetic biology. My primary scientific hypothesis is that understanding the folding process during synthesis will help us to design nanostructures that can be produced in cells. I will design a general RNA-protein architecture that is compatible with folding during synthesis. I will investigate folding kinetics to be able to design and program the dynamical folding process. Based on this, RNA-protein nanostructures will be designed, expressed in cells, and verified, for the formation of the desired shapes. We will develop new functionalities by both rational design and selection approaches with the aim of obtaining multivalent-binding and switching properties. Finally, the functional RNA-protein nanostructures will be applied in proof-of-concept experiments to demonstrate efficient, multivalent targeting of subcellular structures, biosensing of a variety of intracellular analytes, metabolic channeling of biosynthesis pathways, and complex control of transcriptional networks.

Election pledges are supposedly a vital part of representative democracy. Yet we do not in fact know whether and how pledges matter for vote choice and accountability. This project thus asks: Do election pledges matter for voters’ democratic behavior and beliefs? The role of pledges in citizens’ democratic behavior and beliefs is, surprisingly, virtually unexplored. This project’s ambition is therefore to create a new research agenda that redefines how political scientists think about the link between parties and voters. The project not only advances the research frontier by introducing a new, crucial phenomenon for political scientists to study; it also breaks new ground because it provides original theoretical and methodological tools for this new research agenda. The key empirical contribution of this project is to collect two path-breaking datasets in the United States, France, and Norway that produce an unbiased estimate of voters’ awareness and use of pledges. The first consists of a set of innovative panel surveys with embedded conjoint experiments conducted both before and after national elections. The second dataset codes all pledges; whether or not they are broken; and how the mass media report on them. This project is unique in its scientific ambition: It studies the core mechanism of representative democracy as it happens in real time, and does so in several countries. If successful, we will have much firmer knowledge about how voters select parties that best represent them and sanction those that betray their trust – and what this all implies for people’s trust in democracy.

The goal of this project is to develop a formal framework for reasoning about processes, as a contribution to modal-temporal logic, process ontology, formal semantics, and AI. The core metaphysical idea is this: the world is constantly changing – it is full of happenings and doings –, and the future is open. Even though this idea meshes very well with our common-sense reasoning about the world, an entirely static – pointillistic – picture of reality has established itself as the standard theoretical account. On that picture, the world is but a sequence of static states, and change is nothing over and above an object having different properties at different times. While the static idea fits well with our mathematical description of the world, it does not square with our intuitions about time, change, and agency. The last decades have thus witnessed a growing interest in a dynamic world view, and theories building on genuine dynamic entities, such as processes, dispositions, or powers, are on the rise. Despite the increasing interest in a dynamic conception of reality, the formal foundations of such views are notoriously under-investigated. The present project aims to fill in this lacuna: building on previous work by the ER, the project will propose a formal account of processes as genuinely dynamic entities and implement that account in a branching time logic. In developing a dynamic account of processes and their modal-temporal properties, the project will draw on discussions in the metaphysics of time and modality in order to arrive at a formal framework that is philosophically well-informed. Vice versa, making the ideas formally precise will help to clarify fundamental metaphysical questions. But the prospects of the project go far beyond philosophy: a rigorous formal account of processes will also prove fruitful in the study of tense and aspect in linguistics, and it opens up the possibility for implementation in AI and social robotics.

Through synergies between archaeology and physics, JOINTIME proposes to provide the first reliable radiocarbon-driven grid synchronising critical parts of Europe, from Scandinavia over the Carpathian Basin to the Aegean, between 1700 and 1500 BCE. Building on mathematically advanced software pioneered by AU Astronomy & Physics (AMS unit), this time-geography will be used as a springboard to pursue answers to the main project question: when and where the Bronze Age was first consolidated as a geographical and culturally interweaving process. This will further prompt comparisons with prevalent macro-models and involves testing an alternative frame recently proposed by AU Dept of Archaeology: here the Bronze Age is conceptualised as an interconnecting web-like process, which unfolded decisively c. 1700-1500 BCE when large tracts of Afro-Eurasia became knit by bronze and by many other transactions. Jointime aims to pinpoint the mode, direction and intensity of sociocultural interactions in the decisive period of Bronze Age consolidation. The anticipated results will be ground-breaking in Bronze Age studies as well as beyond. The project is timely since advanced modelling methods are now available and rich data are merely awaiting targeted, systematic and explorative analyses. The training of Tibor-Tamás Daróczi as experienced researcher at AU will ensue along these interdisciplinary lines in tune with the objectives of the planned research. The training will follow a detailed scheme of supervision and courses, with a full integration into the hosting department of archaeology and with a transfer to the AMS unit twice a week: embracing elements from scientific statistics to culture theory. His academic network will complement the ones of the host and guarantee mutually beneficial success. Passion, stamina and curiosity will ensure completion of the fellowship and results of excellence. The obtained skills crossing natural sciences and SSH will ensure high employability