Funded Projects 2016

(1/2016) Characterization of Rhodopsin-guanylyl-cyclases from Blastocladiomycete fungi for application as novel optogenetic tools

HU PI: Peter Hegemann (Professor, Faculty of Life Sciences, Institute of Biology)
USP PI: Suely L. Gomes (Professor, Department of Biochemistry)

Abstract: Channelrhodopsin, which was discovered and described as a light‐gated ion channel in the Hegemann laboratory, has revolutionized the field of neuroscience over the past decade by enabling researchers to specifically activate selected neurons in a large ensemble of neuronal cells with short light flashes, a technology now called "Optogenetics." However, though highly desirable, the inactivation of specific cells using moderate or low light intensities is not yet possible. The rhodopsin‐guanylyl‐cyclase (BeRhGC) of the fungus Blastocladiella emersonii recently discovered in the laboratory of Suely Gomes offers an elegant solution to this problem. Moreover, RhGC is a totally novel and uncharacterized sensory photoreceptor, and the first member of an enzyme rhodopsin family has been already roughly characterized by the Gomes and Hegemann Laboratories whereas other members or this novel family urgently await in‐depth characterization. Accordingly, the goal 4 of the proposal is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of these novel photoreceptors, and to determine its functionality for broad application in optogenetics and other research fields. The project is subdivided into six objectives. The first objective (USP) is to identify more RhGC homologues in a variety of fungi more or less related to the BeRhGC already characterized in two preliminary studies of the Gomes and the Hegemann group (Avelar et al. 2014; Scheib et al. 2015). This requires growth of the fungi, isolation and sequencing of DNA, DNA‐Sequence analysis and computational comparison of other fungi. As a second approach, we propose to continue the characterization of a CGN K+ channel that we found in B.emersonii, and which is most probably involved in the phototaxis response of the fungus. We intend to use a series of inhibitors of this kind of channel and investigate the phototaxis response of the fungus. In this objective we also intend investigate another probable component of the phototaxis response, which is a putative cGMP‐phosphodiesterase that we are characterizing in B.emersonii. We intend to check its specificity towards cGMP versus cAMP and investigate its effect in the phototaxis response by the use of specific inhibitors. The third approach is the characterization and engineering of RhGC in cell lines and neurons as well as coexpression of RhGC with a cGMP‐gated K+ channel to develop a "Light‐Hypopolarizer" for cell inactivation. The fourth objective is to understand the dynamics of RhGC using a variety of biophysical technologies including time resolved UV‐vis, FTIR, and Raman and EPR spectroscopy. A fifth objective is the generation of crystals for X‐ray crystallography and the development of a three dimensional RhGC model. This objective also includes the production of 3D crystals of the two modules, Rh and GC, separately, and solve at the end the 3D‐structure of the entire protein. The sixth and final objective is the computer‐aided conversion of RhGC into a rhodopsin‐phosphodiesterase (RhPDE) for downregulation of the second messenger cGMP and/or cAMP using light. The ultimate outcome will be a detailed understanding of a novel class of sensory photoreceptors including knowledge of rhodopsin dynamics and the mechanism of cyclase activation. Hence, the MERA project will open new doors for light‐controlled enzymology with broad optogenetic application in cell biology and the neurosciences. The german part of the project will be financed via SPP 1665 and SPP 1926 by the german research foundation (DFG). The brazilian part will be financed by the brazilian research
agencies FAPESP and CNPq.

(2/2016) Construction and operation of the Middle Size Telescope of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory

HU PI: Thomas Lohse (Professor, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Department of Physics)
USP PI: Luiz Vitor de Souza Filho (Professor, São Carlos Institute of Physics)

Abstract: This research project aims to provide the means for the participation of scientists from HU and USP in the efforts to design, construct and test the Medium-Size Telescopes (MST) of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) Observatory. CTA is an international collaboration with more than a thousand members from about 30 countries which intends to construct a new generation of ground gamma ray telescopes to study astroparticle physics among other subjects of astrophysical interest. The main subject of this project is the improvement of the CSS of the MST, which is a sophisticated mechanical structure that holds the sensitive camera in position (see figures 2 and 3 above). Besides that, this project is seen as the seed for future analysis of the CTA data concerning fundamental physics searches such as dark matter and Lorentz Invariance Violation. The first version of the CSS was elaborated, studied and prototyped in Brazil under the coordination of the USP team in this project. The CSS was installed in the MST prototype telescope in Berlin and tested by the HU team. The southern site of the CTA Observatory is planned to have 25 MSTs and the northern site is going to host 15 MSTs. Presently, CTA is entering the per-production phase in which roughly 10% of the telescopes is going to be installed as a last test and validation before the final series production commences. The pre-production phase is starting this year and is planned to last 2 years. Three MST telescopes are going to be built in the the southern site of CTA in Chile and the HU and USP teams are going to participate in all phases: redesign, tests, installation and calibration. This is the scope of this proposal in which the HU and USP collaboration is expected to be very fruitful and important for the accomplishment of the ambitious goals for the MST sub-project for CTA.

(3/2016) Developing novel nanotechnology-based approaches to investigate insect vision: Implications for sustainable pest control

HU PI: Thomas Döring (Doctor, Faculty of Life Sciences, Albrecht Daniel Thaer-Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences)
USP PI: Frank H. Quina (Professor, Department of Fundamental Chemistry)

Abstract: This project brings together groups with a mutual interest in the biological role of plant pigments and colors and integrates knowledge from the disciplines of applied entomology, vision science, photochemistry, spectroscopy and nanoscience in order to create a novel insect trapping approach that will enable us to close a major knowledge gap in the understanding of insect pest behavior and visual perception. Insect pests contribute to substantial losses of agricultural production. Effective control of these pests is therefore a task of rucial significance for global food security. Measures to control pest insects need to be sustainable and to have little negative impact on the environment. One environmentally friendly approach for the control of insect pests is to disturb their host finding behavior by manipulating the visual cues that elicit crop colonization. A second approach uses colored traps to monitor pest populations in order to optimize the timing of pest control measures. Both approaches depend critically on an understanding of the insects’ visual capabilities. In particular, these methods can only be successfully applied if the insects’ behavioral response to defined visual stimuli can be accurately predicted. However, for most plant-eating (herbivorous) insect species, our understanding of their visually-guided foraging is currently limited. A major knowledge gap refers to the question of how pest insects respond to ultraviolet (UV) reflectance. This is due to the technical difficulty of creating, by the use of conventional pigments, visual stimuli for insects in which the UV reflectance (300-400 nm) can be independently varied with respect to the reflectance in the human-visible spectral region (400-700 nm). In this collaborative project, we propose to develop novel prototype insect traps that use the human-visible color of nanomaterials combined with appropriate UV-absorbing materials to produce a range of colors in which the reflectances in the human-visible and UV regions of the electromagnetic spectrum can be varied independently. The traps will be field-tested for durability and constancy of the reflectance spectrum and the trapping efficiencies for aphids (the target insect pest in this project) compared in field tests with those of conventional traps. The results should permit the design and fabrication of traps tailored to the insect’s visual perception system and will contribute to the development of working models for the role of UV reflection in the visual perception of insect pests.

(4/2016) New Consumer Images and the Role of Financial Services Law

HU PI: Stefan Grundmann (Professor, Faculty of Law)
USP PI: Ignacio Maria Poveda Velasco (Professor, Faculty of Law)

Abstract: Today, one of the most active debates of grand concepts in the area of consumer law is that of new and more differentiated consumer images emerging. At the same time, financial services law has often proven over the last decades to develop particular dynamics also for private law more generally speaking, both at the national and supranational level. The question at the centre of the research agenda is therefore whether with respect to ‘new consumer images’, financial services law does not play – again – the role of the prime catalyst for development. Brazil and Germany/EU are a particularly interesting couple for comparison given the high importance of consumer law for the development of contract law in both countries/regions while, conversely, the development is also highly diverse in the main assumptions and institutional choices made in Brazil and in Europe/Germany. The impact of these differences may affect the interplay between the potential of freedom and innovations on the one hand and protection required on the other, which is at the centre of our research agenda. One core question in this respect is whether protecting those who act in a boundedly rational way does not take chances away from those who act in a rational way or does not create costs which are to be carried by all while the added protection is profited from most by the richest and best informed consumers.

(5/2016) Accountability in Law and Sustainable Development

HU PI: Philipp Dann (Professor, Faculty of Law)
USP PI: Diogo Coutinho (Professor, Faculty of Law)

Abstract: Accountability is increasingly considered a key factor in achieving sustainable development and is likely to dominate debates about global governance in the years to come. Our project aims to lay the foundation for a longer-term research collaboration between HU and USP that inquires into the relationship between, law, sustainable development and accountability. It will bring together ten researchers, five from each university, representing three different disciplines, for two intensive workshops in Berlin and in Sao Paulo, resulting in a common publication and funding application for a follow-up project. Thematically, the project is located in the broader law and development scholarship and takes as its point of departure the United Nations “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs), applicable to both Germany and Brazil for the period from 2015 to 2030. The focus will be on two particularly relevant and interdependent policy areas, climate change and global health governance. Conceptually, the project will approach the nexus of law and development through the lens of “accountability”, which has emerged as an interdisciplinary concept that cuts across legal systems, levels of governance and various disciplines. Methodologically, the participants share the ‘law-in-context’ approach to legal studies, combining doctrinal analysis with empirical legal and ethnological studies, economic approaches and political theory. The proposed project can build on a web of previous collaborations among the participants, including a conference on law and development in 2014 and two kick-off meetings in Sao Paulo in 2016 where this application was prepared. To ensure the sustainability of the collaboration in the longer term, the project includes researchers at all career levels and is designed to complement pre-existing plans to further institutionalize interdisciplinary legal research at both universities. The HU-USP funds will be devoted largely to travel expenses for the two workshops in Berlin and Sao Paulo. Given the academic interest and political momentum generated by the SDGs and international initiatives on climate change and global health, the project has significant potential for acquiring additional funding from institutions like the Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento in Sao Paulo or the Volkswagen Foundation and Federal Ministries in Germany.

(6/2016) A cross-linguistic investigation of the role of number and gender in nominal expressions

HU PI: Artemis Alexiadou (Professor, Faculty of Arts and Humanities II, Department of English and American Studies)
USP PI: Marcelo Barra Ferreira (Professor, Department of Linguistics)

Abstract: This project aims to investigate the role of number and gender features in nominal expressions across languages. Number and gender features are important categories of linguistic systems. To this end, we plan to study bare singular and fake mass nouns, nominal expressions in which gender and number interact in intriguing ways. The contribution of these features in bare singular and fake mass nouns is easier to access in comparison to fullfledged nominal expressions as the ball, since there is no overt determiner in the former expressions. We illustrate these categories in turn. Bare singular nouns lack determiners (articles such as a, o, um(a) in Portuguese) and overt number marking. They have received a lot of attention in the literature on Brazilian Portuguese (BP) for several reasons. One of them is that ‘bolsa de couro’ (leather handbag) and ‘mulher’ (woman) qualify as count expressions, since they can potentially refer to individuals, when they are preceded by determiners (the leather handbag, the woman). In this aspect, they contrast with nouns like ‘açúcar’ (sugar) that always refer to a quantity of atoms but not to individuals. In other words, we can never point to some grains of sugar on the floor and say ‘*the sugar is /sugars are on the floor’. Yet, as ‘açúcar’ (sugar), ‘bolsa de couro’ (leather handbag) and ‘mulher’ (woman) can appear without number morphology, as exemplified in (1) and (2), referring to pluralities. In this, they differ from their English, Greek, and German counterparts, which cannot resume such roles.
(1)Bolsa de couro é cara.
Handbag of leather is expensive.
‘Leather handbags are expensive.’
(2)Mulher chora muito.
Woman cry a.lot.
‘Women cry a lot.’
If they are morphologically alike, ‘bolsa de couro’ (leather handbag) and ‘mulher’ (woman) should pattern alike with respect to syntactic tests that reveal their internal structure. However, these two nominal expressions differ in one crucial aspect: bolsa de couro has purely grammatical gender, while mulher has natural gender. While both types of gender 2 specification have reflexes in the syntax across languages (cf. Corbett 1991), natural gender specifies the sex of a referent, while the function of grammatical gender is disputable in some languages (cf. Trudgill 1999). In BP, gender specification distinguishes different types of bare nouns. One difference is the fact that nominal expressions like ‘batata’, when in subject position, cannot be resumed by a pronoun, as in (3) below.  (We illustrate these facts with bare nouns in subject position since the judgments in this case are much more uniform (cf. Duek (2012) and Müller and Oliveira (2004) for some discussion and Cyrinal & Espinal (2015) for an account of bare nouns in object position being resumed by a pronoun).
(3)*Batata doce faz mal. Elas queimam o estômago.
Potato sweet makes bad. They burn the stomach.
‘Sweet potatoes are bad for your healthy. They burn your stomach.’
However, nouns with natural gender can be resumed with a pronoun.
(4) Mulher chora muito. Elas são muito emocionais.
Woman cry a.lot They are very emotional.
‘Women cry a lot. They are very emotional.’
Also, as noted in Duek (2012), natural gendered bare nouns always agree with their predicates, as shown in (5), contrasting with grammatically gendered bare nouns, as in (6).
(5) Professora é vaidosa/*vaidoso.
Teacher.FEM is vain.FEM/*vain.MASC
(6) Maçã é gostoso. /*gostosa.
Apple.FEM is tasty.MASC/*tasty.FEM
We now turn to the second type of nominal expression to be investigated. Fake mass nouns exhibit interesting properties as they behave similarly to mass nouns (nouns like sugar) with respect to some tests but as count nouns with respect to others. For instance, in English, fake mass nouns do not occur with count determiners (*these furnitures), but they license distributive predicates (The furniture in that night club is round), see Alexiadou (to appear/2016) for additional examples and discussion. As the word furnit-ure itself indicates, fake mass nouns are formed with deverbal nominal morphology in English. Yet, in unrelated languages, like Italian and Hebrew, gender affixes are used to form fake mass nouns. Doron & Müller (2013) show that the derivation of fake mass nouns on the basis of feminine gender is productive in Hebrew:
(7) basic noun ale leaf-masc plural al-im leaves fake mass noun alv-a foliage-FEM
Understanding thus how number and gender interact will contribute to our better understanding of nominal classification across languages.

(7/2016) The Quiet Power of City Streets
Marginalization, Everyday Practices and Urban Change in Sao Paulo and Berlin

HU PI: Talja Blokland (Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Social Sciences)
USP PI: Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche (Professor, Department of Political Science)

Abstract: The central first aim of this project is to bring together existing knowledge on Sao Paulo and Berlin on the ways in which ordinary residents who are living under conditions of marginalization make their livelihoods in the city, to what extent they challenge existing dominant practices and norms in doing so and how this quietly advancing in their lives affects the city and induces unplanned, uncoordinated social change that has, we argue, generally be overlooked due to shortcomings of existing conceptual approaches. This first aim will result in the production of a special issue for the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, one of the leading international urban studies journals. The second aim is to produce a research proposal for FAPESP/DFG that will further empirically develop a number of case studies in both cities, linking these to the distinct welfare state regimes in both cities. The goal is to extend empirical work and apply principles of comparative urbanism, producing various monographs and an edited collection. As an additional aim, this proposal seeks to strengthen and expand the connections between the Center of Metropolitan Studies at USP and the Georg Simmel Center at HU Berlin, with the intention to come to long‐term joined research projects, teaching  collaborations and joint PhDs. The background or this project is that urban change has often been studied from above, as when state interventions and capitalist investment choices affect cities. We theorize that the practices of livelihoods can be seen as struggles and gains that draw on spatial imaginaries of the city (what is possible, desirable, expectable? what deals can be made, with whom and where?) and can be categorized as struggles over public space, of creating sanctuaries or ways of being outside the normative eye of the state institutions, and of developing ways of being directly in line with the normative frame of state institutions. Empirically the project will include five preliminary case studies in each city which will be discussed comparatively. We draw on contributions of advanced Master and PhD students, hence including young scholars in the core of the project. The organization of the project consist of three workshops, two in Sao Paulo and one in Berlin, including also public lectures to enhance the visibility of the project and open up the project to the broader public in academia and beyond. The first workshop serves as an orientation for the empirical work and as a meeting to elaborate the conceptual framework. In the second workshop, concrete empirical findings will be presented and discussed and agreement will be reached on the focus of collaborative articles that we will write. We also develop the framework of the research proposal at this workshop. Two external specialists, Prof dr Hentschel, Hamburg University, and Prof Simone, University of Göttingen, will be invited as discussants of the research ideas. A subgroup of four scholars will then use Skype and internet communication to extend this in a full proposal. In the third workshop, a public event in the form of a panel discussion will bring our findings to the public and the meeting will serve to discuss and revise drafts of the papers and finalize the research proposal for FAPESP / DFG.