Two ERC Starting Grants for Max Planck in Freiburg

The European Research Council funds projects of Juliane Glaser and Valentin Flury with a total of 3 Million Euro each

Two junior scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg (MPI-IE) have achieved remarkable recognition in the 2025 awarding round by the European Research Council (ERC). The group leaders Valentin Flury and Juliane Glaser have each secured an ERC Starting Grant, with their projects receiving substantial funding of approximately EUR 1.5 million, respectively, over the next five years

On the point

• Each project receive substantial funding by the European Research Council with ERC Starting Grants that provide up to 1.5 million EUR over the next five years.
• Juliane Glaser’s successful project aims to uncover how epigenetic mechanisms regulate transposable elements, and their potential impacts on health and disease.
• Valentin Flury’s awarded research investigates the role of epigenetic memory during cell division, specifically exploring how differences between sister chromatids impact cell function and identity.

“ERC funding underscores the high quality of research conducted at Max Planck Institute in Freiburg. Our newest faculty members, Valentin Flury and Juliane Glaser, have successfully secured these grants with their strong proposals. I am delighted to see their outstanding work recognized with the prestigious ERC Starting Grants,” says Ibrahim Cissé, Managing Director of the MPI-IE.

Valentin Flury: Epigenome maintenance on Sister Chromatids

Valentin Flury, who became a group leader at the MPI-IE in 2024, studies how cells remember their function and identity across the numerous cell divisions during an organism’s life. He focuses on how epigenetic mechanisms, especially during DNA replication, influence this cellular memory and affect cell identity during health and disease. When cells divide this “epigenetic memory” needs to be propagated to instruct the arising daughter cells on how to function. Interestingly, the epigenetic information as encoded in histone modifications and histone variants, is temporarily detached from genetic information, distributed to both newly formed daughter strands and must be accurately restored in both daughter cells.

During his postdoctoral stay at Prof. Anja Groth’s lab in Copenhagen, Flury identified specific mechanisms that regulate the faithful transmission of epigenetic information to these daughter strands. The exact impact of these mechanisms on cell function homeostasis remains unclear, forming the basis of Valentin Flury’s research at the MPI-IE, now as an independent research group leader.

Now Flury has received one of the prestigious ERC Starting Grants to further investigate the role of epigenetic memory in cell function across cell division. His awarded project on “Epigenome Maintenance on Sister Chromatids” aims to discover differences between sister chromatids before cell division and test their effect on cell function and identity of daughter cells.

“With the ERC Starting Grant, our goal is to examine the composition and function of the two daughter strands formed after the cell replicates their DNA and prior to each cell division. This is a challenging task since daughter strands share the identical DNA sequence, making them difficult to distinguish. We will develop new technologies to distinguish between the strands more easily and analyse their function. Since each daughter strand from the mother cell will eventually end up in separate daughter cells, any undiscovered differences might significantly affect the function and heterogeneity of the daughter cells – a phenomenon commonly observed in development and disease progression,” says Valentin Flury.

Project: Epigenome Maintenance on Sister Chromatids (EpiMoSis)

Juliane Glaser: Transposable elements as architects shaping embryonic development 

The second ERC Starting Grant for Max Planck Freiburg has been awarded to Juliane Glaser, who established her lab in June 2025. The French group leader investigates the role of epigenetic mechanisms, specifically the control of transposable elements, in mammalian embryonic development. Transposable elements are DNA segments that are, or were, able to mobilise in the genome. They are present in nearly all eukaryotic genomes, and many include sequences inherited from ancient retroviral infections. Epigenetic mechanisms control the expression of these elements, which can be associated with pathologies such as cancer and ageing. During mammalian development, transposable element activation is integral to the early phase of embryo formation. Yet, their role later on during cellular differentiation and organogenesis remains largely unclear. 

Now, the ERC funding enables Juliane Glaser to investigate the interplay between transposable elements and mouse embryonic development more deeply. Her awarded project aims to reveal how these segments of the genome contribute to congenital malformation, but also to proper embryogenesis. “My lab will explore the mechanisms by which transposable element insertion influences mammalian post-implantation development. We will generate tailored stem cell and in vivo mouse models targeting specific transposable elements and combine this with omics and imaging technologies. In the long term, our findings could not only impact the understanding of embryo formation but also open a new area in the genomic diagnosis of patients with congenital birth defects”, says Juliane Glaser.

The groundwork for her research and the new ERC project on “Transposable elements as architects shaping embryonic development” lays in her successful postdoctoral work at Prof. Stefan Mundlos’ lab in Berlin. During this time, Juliane Glaser discovered how the altered epigenetic regulation of a transposable element causes congenital malformations in mice. Her research showed that this element produces toxic viral-like particles during limb development, causing premature cell death and resulting in malformed digits. This discovery offers insights into how transposable elements can shape organ formation. However, it remains unclear whether other organs are similarly affected or if such mechanisms are essential for normal embryo development. Addressing these questions is central to Juliane Glaser’s work at the MPI-IE, that now got boosted by the ERC.

Project: Transposable Elements as Architects Shaping Embryonic development (TEASEr)

CV Valentin Flury

Valentin Flury studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Bern (Switzerland). He completed his Ph.D. at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel (Switzerland) under the supervision of Marc Bühler. There he uncovered new mechanisms that revealed how active chromatin is protected from being silenced.

Following his Ph.D., Valentin Flury conducted postdoctoral research as an EMBO Longterm and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research (CPR), University of Copenhagen (Denmark) in the laboratory of Anja Groth. His research centered on deciphering the mechanisms of how epigenetic information is propagated and maintained across cell divisions with a focus on histone recycling during DNA replication and subsequent restoration of the chromatin landscape.

In May 2024, Valentin Flury was appointed as an Independent Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg, Germany.

CV Juliane Glaser

Juliane Glaser studied Molecular Biology and Genetics at Paris-Cité University in France. She completed a Ph.D. at the Institut Curie in Paris, where she investigated the epigenetic regulation and physiological impact of genomic imprinting under the supervision of Deborah Bourc’his.

Juliane Glaser then secured independent postdoctoral funding from the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) and joined the lab of Stefan Mundlos at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. There, she focused her research on understanding the role of the non-coding genome in developmental disorders. She investigated how structural genomic variations, including inversions, duplications, and the insertion of transposable elements, impact gene regulation during development and contribute to disease.

In 2024, Juliane Glaser was appointed as a Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg, and officially launched her lab in June 2025.

About the ERC Starting Grants

The ERC Starting Grants are highly competitive awards conferred annually by the European Research Council (ERC) to recognize and support outstanding early-career researchers who have already demonstrated scientific excellence. Open to researchers of any nationality who carry out their work at a European host institution and are typically two to seven years post-PhD, these grants provide up to €1.5 million over five years to establish an independent research program. In the 2025 call, 3,928 proposals were submitted and 478 projects of early-career researchers were funded across Europe (12,2% success rate). Starting Grants enable talented scientists to build their own teams and pursue ambitious, high-risk, high-gain research. The Max Planck Society (MPG) was amongst the most successful institutions in Germany and Europe in this year’s funding round. 16 ERC Grants went to scientists in the MPG. 

The ERC funding for Juliane Glaser and Valentin Flury confirms the status of the MPI-IE Freiburg as a location for European top-level epigenetics and chromatin research. Since the start of the ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, Max Planck researchers form Freiburg have obtained 16 grants in all areas of the funding scheme including recently two ERC Consolidator Grants for Valérie Hilgers and Nina Cabezas-Wallscheid (2024).