Ensuring a healthy lifespan in an increasingly ageing society represents a priority and a challenge for research and innovation. Particularly, irreversible neurodegenerative conditions are becoming hallmarks in the elderly, imposing a severe socioeconomic burden and ultimately threatening quality of life. Promoting adult neurogenesis has the potential to rejuvenate neural circuits restoring cognitive functions. High-throughput models of adult neurogenesis can expedite the identification of mechanisms and compounds for the development of neuro-regenerative therapies. I have evidence for physiologic and drug-induced adult neurogenesis in the genetically conserved and highly tractable model Drosophila melanogaster. Here, I aim to i) characterize adult neurogenesis across Drosophila’s lifespan; ii) identify drugs promoting neurogenesis in ageing in vivo, using the Drosophila olfactory circuit as an experimental platform; iii) test primary drug hits for their potential to promote neurogenesis on hiPSC-NSC in vitro (Host: UGOE, DE; Secondments: MPI-CE, DE; Weizmann, IL; DZNE, DE). Next, during a Non-academic placement in a translational drug discovery company, I aim to profile prioritized hits promoting neuronal regeneration (LDC, DE). My unique background in chemical engineering and biosciences will be pivotal to successfully complete this project. By leveraging state-of-the-art tools and support from experts in the field, Droscreeneuro represents an innovative, ambitious, and translationally-relevant approach towards the development of regenerative therapies aimed at counteracting age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Dissemination of results between specialized and general audiences will make science open to all. Ultimately, exposure to high-quality training in the academic and non-academic sectors will substantially enhance my skills and career perspectives, to conduct research in academia and industry to promote society's wellbeing.

The last decade has seen remarkable progress in the study of growth in infinite families of groups. The main approach has its roots in additive combinatorics, but has truly given fruit in a non-commutative context. It is becoming clear that the central role is played not by groups in isolation, but by actions of groups. It is from this perspective that my plan addresses, at the same time, questions on growth in groups as such and hard problems in analytic number theory. While this line of research on growth started with the study of matrix groups, it has now given strong results on permutation groups as well. Two outstanding matters are the control of dependence on rank in matrix groups, and the removal of the need for the Classification Theorem in permutation groups. Going beyond these questions on diameter and expansion, there are at least three new directions I propose to follow: towards algorithms, towards geometric group theory, and towards number theory. Some of the main recent results in the area take the form of diameter bounds. Bounding a diameter amounts to showing that one can express any element of a group as a short product of generators. One of the main algorithmic questions consists in actually finding such an expression, and doing so rapidly. Links between geometric group theory (which studies growth in infinite groups) and the new combinatorial techniques ought to become stronger. Sofic and hyperlinear groups -- which arose in part from geometric group theory -- seem to invite a combinatorial approach. Additive combinatorics has already shown its relevance to exponential sums, a key subject in analytic number theory. Can a newer perspective based on actions of groups give more general results? Short Kloosterman sums, which are particularly hard to bound, can be framed as a test case. I also plan to pursue related interests in automorphic forms - which are a classical example of the relevance of group actions to number theory - and model theory.

SoundKnowledge aims to rethink, for the first time, music in terms of the procedural knowledge inherent in and specific to music-making by exploring music-making as knowledge practices in Micronesia, Western Pacific Island world. This knowledge, formed in the performance of musical practice, may prove to be key to survival in the complex postcolonial predicament of Micronesia. I will address the issues of climate change, social alienation and postcolonial trauma in specific parts of Micronesia by fleshing out the nature and dynamics of that knowledge both conceptually and ethnographically. The systematic analysis of music as knowledge will allow me to identify strategies to foster resilience in the face of these urgent crises. At the same time, it will offer a first-of-its-kind theorization of the procedural knowledge inherent in and specific to music-making. The knowledge of music is self-referential and forms multilayered connections and ruptures with pasts, presents and futures and surrounding orders of knowledge. SoundKnowledge asks what Western Pacific musical practices know and how do they know it, how music-making makes this knowledge operable and how humans mobilize upon this knowledge in coping with their life-world through music. The project, therefore, explores how music functions as a distinct epistemic form that is often referred to as the proverbial power of music. Music research has the tools to unlock this power, and SoundKnowledge intends to plough a path here. SoundKnowledge provides insights into the specific knowledge of Western Pacific music in its entanglement with pressing cultural and social issues of the early 21st century. In contributing to the theoretical debate on the knowledge of music, the project probes vital questions of knowledge resources and human futures. SoundKnowledge will also instigate change: In collaboration with local institutions, the research results will be used towards the development of community action strategies.