In her ERC funded project “Heritability of stress receptor signatures in the germline Father-Son-Talks“, Katharina Gapp aims to investigate mechanisms how stress or trauma can affect not only directly exposed individuals but also their descendants. The ETH scientist plans to investigate and describe this mechanism in mice in detail. This could lead to a better understanding of the inheritance of stress-induced neuropsychiatric diseases and, in the longer term, to new therapeutic approaches.
Even though Switzerland is excluded from the Horizon Europe research programme due to the failed framework agreement, the researchers will still receive the funding, as the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) has decided to replace the ERC Starting Grants financially.