The outcome of the 1st EvoMG Seed Grants Call was announced today. The main goal of these grants is to boost high-quality research on Evolutionary Medical Genomics. Given their nature as seed grants, their purpose is to provide funding to kick start projects and generate foundational data, with the aim of facilitating the development of larger and competitive applications in the near future.

This call is dedicated to support proposals for multidisciplinary biomedical research that integrate evolutionary and genomic approaches to understanding and/or tackling human disease (see "Research Areas").  The suggested project should involve at least one faculty member of the CRG, UPF-MELIS or IBE. In addition, other research groups, clinical/translational groups or companies are encouraged to join as collaborators.  

Nine proposals were submitted. They were assessed by an ad hoc Evaluation Committee: Jorge Ferrer (co-chair, CRG and EvoMG Program), Elena Bosch (UPF, IBE and EvoMG Program), Rosa Fernández (IBE-CSIC and EvoMG Program) and Paco Real (CNIO).

The top ranked projects, which will receive 30,000 EUR, were:

1) "Microbiome signatures of relapse in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and their evolution within and across hosts (IBD-MicroEvo)", led by Mireia Valles-Colomer. The project involves recruiting a cohort of patients with inflammatory bowel disease along with their healthy household members to characterize the within- and between-host evolution of the disease’s microbial signatures. This project will provide proof-of-concept data to seek additional funding with the goal of validating the results in a larger cohort.

2) "Molecular adaptations in pancreatic islets associated to diet specialization: using bats to understand human diabetes (BastlSLE)", led by Jonas Juan-Mateu. A single-cell transcriptomic study of pancreatic islets from several bat species with different diets to test evolutionary hypotheses about the origin of diabetes. It is also expected to identify new candidate genes for this disease in humans.

3) "Deciphering synaptic alternative splicing in intellectual disability: from models to human (DisSynAS)", led by Andres Ozaita. The project will elucidate the molecular consequences of Fragile X syndrome at the synaptic level, with a special emphasis on alternative splicing across various Fmr1 knockout models and pharmacological interventions. The expected outcomes include identifying conserved molecular features arising from Fmr1 gene inactivation across species that may respond to treatments for intellectual disability and autism.