Cédric Blanpain, young research leader at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, proposes a new approach to define the role of stem cells in the onset and developement of skin cancer. He received a Starting Grant in 2007 from the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC is the first European funding body set up to support investigator-driven frontier research in any scientific domain, including social sciences. The ERC provides funding for the very best established researchers or up-and-coming research talents who are working or moving to work in Europe, regardless of their current place of work, nationality and age. http://erc.europa.eu Research Project: Stem cells in skin cancer initiation and growth Stem cells have been hypothesized to be the cells at the origin of cancer as they reside and self-renew in tissues for extended periods of time, increasing their lifetime risk of accumulating the oncogenic mutations required for cancer formation. However, for the vast majority of cancers, the cell at the origin of tumour initiation is still unknown. By using for the first time clonal analysis during cancer development, C. Blanplain has a novel approach to identify the cell process at the origin of the most frequent cancers in humans. Cédric BLANPAIN - ERC Starting Grant 2007 Nationality: Belgian Subject: Health - understanding the origin of cancer Host institution: Université Libre de Bruxelles(ULB), Belgium ERC Funding: € 1,600,000.00 Links: http://blanpainlab.ulb.ac.be/research_main.html Distributed by Tubemogul.