New ERC Starting Grant project at CiMUS led by Ismael González

CiMUS, the research centre affiliated with the University of Santiago de Compostela and a member of the CIGUS Network — a Galician government initiative that brings together research centres with accredited scientific excellence — is celebrating a new milestone: a prestigious ERC Starting Grant has been awarded to its principal investigator, Ismael González.

His project, HypoPause, has been selected in the latest round of Starting Grants from the European Research Council (ERC). With a total of €1.5 million in funding over five years, the project will explore the molecular and cellular changes that occur in the hypothalamus during menopause, aiming to understand their role in the physiological mechanisms driving metabolic disturbances.

The ERC Starting Grant programme supports high-impact, frontier research by early-career scientists with two to seven years of postdoctoral experience, with scientific excellence as the sole evaluation criterion. This year, 3,928 proposals were submitted, with only 478 selected for funding.

González’s research will delve into how the hypothalamic region of the brain contributes to the metabolic shifts typically observed during menopause. The team will use a combination of RNA sequencing, histological analysis in preclinical models, and in vivo genetic editing to investigate whether changes in hypothalamic regulation of metabolism are behind alterations in body fat, glucose homeostasis, and bone metabolism during this stage of life.

This work could have a far-reaching impact, offering new insights into a physiological transition that affects millions of women over an increasingly extended phase of life.

This latest ERC award comes alongside two other grants secured within Galicia’s university system. Saray Busto, a researcher at the University of Santiago and member of CITMAga, will lead a project focused on the development of advanced numerical methods for hyperbolic models in continuum mechanics. Meanwhile, Guillermo Lorenzo, from the University of A Coruña and affiliated with the collaborative research centre CITEEC, will develop digital twins of cancer patients to enable personalised predictions of tumour progression and early-stage detection.

With these new grants, Galicia now counts 38 ERC grant holders and a total of 47 funded projects, of which 35 are being carried out within CIGUS research centres — a clear reflection of the region’s growing role in European cutting-edge science.