Congratulations to Ass.-Prof. Dr. Çağlar Ataman
The ERC awards Synergy Grants to international, interdisciplinary research teams whose project fulfils the criterion of scholarly excellence and may be expected to produce promising results.
The project ‘Zee-Zoom-Zap: A New Paradigm for Cancer Theranostics’ Prof. Ataman is investigating a new theranostic approach – combining therapy and diagnostics – for pancreatic cancer. It involves combining early diagnosis, non-invasive biopsy, and local therapy and performing them optically in a single endoscopic intervention.
One of the main challenges is to enable specific and high-resolution imaging at the cellular level and at a previously unachieved depth. Ataman and his team are responsible for developing multifunctional optical catheters that can be used for fluorescence studies and 3D tomographic microscopy through the entire pancreatic duct. Using the latest 3D micro- and nanoprinting technologies, the researchers aim to create a micro-manufacturing pipeline that enables the monolithic manufacturing of endoscopic microscopes in clinical quality.
‘There has been little progress in the early diagnosis and therapy of aggressive pancreatic cancer for decades’. We’re grateful to the ERC Synergy Programme for giving us the opportunity to hopefully change that.’
Ass. Prof. Çağlar Ataman
Microsystems engineer
Ataman has been a junior professor at the University of Freiburg’s Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) since 2022, where he focuses on biomedical imaging. Since 2024 he is an activ member in the Center BrainLinks-BrainTools. Also collaborating on the ERC-funded project are Prof. Dr. Andreas Kjær from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Dr. Peter Eskil Andersen from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), and Prof. Dr. Miguel A. González Ballester from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain. The ERC is providing the project with a total of ten million euros in funding. The Freiburg share is somewhat more than two million euros.
Official press release of the University of Freiburg is availabe at https://uni-freiburg.de/en/four-erc-synergy-grants-for-university-of-freiburg-researchers/#Theranostics-for-pancreatic-cancer