Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

But Marie Curie also has some built-in fl exibility, encouragingresearchers to develop in their personal lives as well. Thiswas clearly evident when it came to Dr Cerwenka’s familycircumstances. ‘Thankfully, the Marie Curie programmeallowed us to extend the duration of the project from fourto five years without additional funds’, she says, ‘and thathelped me a great deal to successfully carry out the project.’Her son, now two, goes to a day-care centre supported by theresearch centre and, she says, is very happy there.Progress for families, progress for medicine‘Using biochemical approaches, we have now identifi ed severalnegative and positive regulators of the TREM-1/DAP12 pathway,’explains Dr Cerwenka. ‘This project produced five publicationsin prestigious international journals and several additionalpublications are currently in preparation.’leader at a company in Denmark. Taken together, the projectand the training in my laboratory have enabled all Marie CurieFellows to pursue outstanding international research careers.’An important part of that has been a proper balance betweenwork and family life, a balance that Dr Cerwenka encourageseveryone to respect and maintain.‘For my own part’, she says, ‘the project has enabled me asa group leader to obtain preliminary results for a further grantthat will be submitted soon to a local funding organisation. Inaddition, it has resulted in new networks of working contactsfor myself and my colleagues, including other European groupleaders and former Marie Curie Fellows, a network that, I expect,will persist for many years to come.’She notes that the project has enabled students to obtain PhDsand postdoctoral work to gain additional scientifi c experience,adding that all of the Marie Curie Fellows were very successfulin fi nding their next jobs in Europe.‘One Greek PhD Fellow went back to Greece for postdoctoralstudies,’ continues Dr Cerwenka. ‘One postdoc went back to theNetherlands for a job in publishing and another became a groupProject acronymInnate ImmunityFull project titleFunctional genomics of innate immune pathways inmammalian cellsType of grantExcellence TeamBudgetEUR 1.4 millionDuration of project15-07-2004 –14-07-2009Scientific disciplineLife sciencesLead partnerDr Adelheid CerwenkaGerman Cancer Research CentreIm Neuenheimer Feld 280DE-69120 Heidelberg295