The European Research Council (ERC) funds researchers capable of carrying out ambitious frontier research projects, selected through a worldwide panel evaluation based on scientific excellence criteria.
In the ERC 2026 Starting Grant call published by the ERC under Horizon Europe, Assoc. Prof. Betül URALCAN KILAVUZ from Sabancı University has been awarded funding of 1.5 million Euros.
We congratulate our esteemed researcher and the university that will host her, and wish her continued success.
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Principal Investigator: Assoc. Prof. Betül URALCAN KILAVUZ Project Acronym: BIOIONICS Tittle: Biologically Inspired Ion Selectivity in Nanopores Project Budget: 1,499,125 Euros Duration: 60 months Panel: PE8 – Products and Processes Engineering Host Institution: Sabancı University |
How do biological ion channels distinguish between ions that are nearly identical in size and charge, while still transporting them at remarkably high rates? This ability lies at the heart of many biological processes, yet how biology reconciles selectivity with efficient transport remains incompletely understood.
With the BIOIONICS Project, Assoc. Prof. Betül URALCAN KILAVUZ and her team will address this fundamental problem by resolving the rare molecular events that govern ion permeation and revealing how kinetics and thermodynamics combine to produce selectivity. Project will then ask whether the underlying physical and chemical principles can be transferred from biological channels to synthetic nanopores.
Rather than reproducing biological channels directly, Dr. URALCAN aims to bridge biological mechanisms and synthetic design, establishing a general mechanistic framework for understanding selective ion transport and guiding the rational design of ion-selective systems. In the longer term, these insights could inform new approaches to selective separations, desalination, electrochemical energy storage, and bioinspired sensing.
Betül URALCAN KILAVUZ, who received the BAGEP Award in 2024, was supported during the application process under TÜBİTAK's ERC Principal Investigator Advancement Program (EBAG).
With this achievement, the number of completed or ongoing ERC projects in Türkiye has reached 45.
In the ERC-2026-StG call, 39 applications were submitted from Türkiye, of which 5 advanced to the second-stage evaluation, and 1 was awarded funding. A record number of 4,807 applications were submitted to this call from all EU Member and Associated Countries, of which 8.8%, i.e. 421 applications, were awarded funding.
