Number of Momentum research teams surpasses 100

In 2009 the President of MTA launched a program for excellence called Momentum for young researchers with outstanding achievements. The objective of the Momentum Funds was to offer an alternative to the brain drain and to ensure that the next generation of young Hungarian talents in science can make a living as well as a career, while also increasing the competitiveness of MTA's network of research institutes and universities. By the end of 2014 a total of 97 research teams were formed within the MTA research network and universities.

2015: 13 awardees from among 96 applicants

Researchers with academic degrees were invited in two categories subject to their age and scientific achievements to apply for funding.

Self-starters with independent research plans under age 38 and promising young scientists with outstanding and continuously improving achievements had the option to apply for funds from Momentum I to continue their investigations. On performing and/or completing their work under the program for excellence, those funded by Momentum I will be committed to apply for funds in the „Starting" or „Consolidator" Grant categories of ERC.

The MTA Momentum funds will be made available to those involved in applied research, too

Momentum II Funds were available to proven and leading scientists between 35 and 45, to those who have been conducting independent research and who are recognised internationally for their outstanding and continuously increasing performance. Winners in this category had to promise to apply for ERC funds in the „Consolidator" or „Advanced" grade during or after their Momentum research grant tenure.

There have been 96 applicants for Momentum Funds this year. Of the research projects submitted 44 percent are from Life Sciences, 42 percent from Mathematics and Natural Sciences, and 14 percent from Humanities and Social Sciences. What the numbers indicate is that the job is not done yet: one of Momentum's envisaged reforms is set to increase the rate of successful applications in the Humanities and Social Sciences areas. Currently, MTA is engaged in devising some customised solutions to help attain that objective.

MTA's leadership has plans to update Momentum in another area, while the program continues to be a program for excellence. So far mainly researchers involved in basic research have joined Momentum while there are a lot of talented young researchers in applied research, too. It is contemplated that Momentum will be upgraded to include that option by cooperating industrial companies with significant innovation portfolios in Hungary.

MTA is to provide HUF 400 million for five years to finance the research projects of the winners

Four of the thirteen current winners will work in Momentum I, nine in Momentum II towards their scientific aims; five of them are active in Mathematics and Natural Sciences, five in Life Sciences, and three in Humanities and Social Sciences. Six recipients may set up their teams in MTA research centres or institutes, and seven at universities. Four researchers return home from abroad.

Short description of research topics of the recipients

Linguist Béla Adamik is engaged in working out a more precise definition and understanding of a process that has determined the linguistic, ethnic and even cultural character of Medieval and Modern Europe. In the MTA Research Institute for Linguistics he is going to set up a research team in Latin dialectology in order to continue and complete his earlier research project financed by OTKA called „A computerised database of Latin inscriptions from the Age of the Caesars, a case study in linguistic history". He would like to set up an online database of digitalised historical linguistic data which would be based on a firm theoretical background. This would be a unique and unparalleled work at the international level allowing for answering the basic issues of Latin dialectology. The data base will allow for the familiarisation, description and visual presentation of the geographical distribution of the Latin language together with its changes over time. Researchers will then have a better understanding of the processes that have led to the formation of the neo-Latin languages.

Molecular biologist Csaba Bödör is to continue his examinations started earlier at Barts Cancer Institute in London by creating now his work team at the Institute for Pathology and Experimental Cancer Research No. 1 of Semmelweis University in Budapest. His main research area is the examination at genome level of B cell lymphomas, one kind of tumour diseases in haematology. By using modern genomic procedures he and his team are going to study the enzymes that play a role in gene expression that show how the mutants of the so called epigenetic regulatory molecules influence the responses given by patients to therapy by traditional and new, experimental medications. In addition to getting a better understanding of the formation of the diseases, the outcome of the research program may lead to the elaboration of diagnostic procedures that allow for the appropriate therapy to be applied to each patient identified in terms of his/her genetic profiling. Also, those observations may also contribute to the discovery of new therapeutic targets, which may, in turn, serve as a basis for the further development of pharmaceuticals in the future.

Medical researcher Balázs Hangya has results that may be utilised fighting Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease. As an expert on neurodegenerative diseases he is returning home from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA to join the operations at MTA's Institute of Experimental Medicine. Neurodegenerative diseases are a serious liability to the families affected as well as to the health care system and society as a whole. An important shared feature in those diseases is that the gradual degradation of the so-called cholinergic neurons of the basal frontal cortex is found in the background. Balázs Hangya uses experiments to study how those neurons participate in learning processes and how they differ from another important kind of cells of the frontal cortex, the basal GABAerg inhibiting neurons. The electric stimulation of the basal frontal cortex seems to be a promising research trend in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. The assessment of the normal activity of the cholinergic neurons may enable us to apply stimulation in a form close to normal activity levels, which would be a breakthrough in the treatment of Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases in the future.

Archaeologist Viktória Kiss is well placed to provide a better understanding of the Bronze period of the history of Europe by following up on her research started at the Institute of Archaeology of MTA's Research Centre for Humanities and by making use of the Momentum Funds. Lacking any written sources on the contemporaries in the Carpathian basin of the Greek warriors sung in Homer's eposes you have only the tombs, settlements and artefacts unearthed by archaeologists to visualise that epoch. Thanks to the extensive trade in objects made of bronze (an alloy of copper and zinc) that the era has been named after, some distant locations got connected and for the first time in human history the social groups of chieftains, warriors and artisans (potters and blacksmiths, etc.) entered the stage of human society, or to put it differently, institutionalised inequality appeared on the scene. Earlier, those social changes were explained by archaeologists by various levels of migration and the settlings of newcomer tribes to be followed later by environmental, economic, religious and political causes. Viktória Kiss has a team complete with the collaborators of European and US scientific workshops that has a program using new archaeological and physical scientific analysis to respond to the open questions of the system of connections in the Bronze Age in Central Europe and its migration patterns.

Biologist Lajos Mátés has results that may open up new horizons to curing and preventing cancer. The scientist is to resume work started at the Institute of genetics of MTA's Szeged Research Centre for Biology earlier. One of the leading causes of death in the developed countries is cancer. Cancer formation is regarded as a process of evolution taking place in the organism in which the genetic instability typical of cancerous cells provides for genetic diversity, while the medium inside the organism exerts a pressure to make the selection required for the process to progress, something like what is described in the Darwinian evolution model. Recent scientific results show, however, that environmental factors play a more marked role in the formation of cancer patterns than any genetic phenotypes inherited. Lajos Mátés and his team seek to resolve the conflict of views by examining a mechanism that is present in the human body too and which is capable of translating the impact of various environmental factors into the language of our genomes and which induce genetic instability. Their achievements may radically transform what we think of our genes and our biome or ecosystem, contributing thereby to more efficient prevention and the development of new therapeutic methods for this much feared disease.

Physicist Gabriella Pásztor comes home from the CERN laboratory in Switzerland where she had been hired by Carleton University to take part in the eminent international research program in the subject of high energy physics at the LHC. She is now to set up a team on experimental particle and nuclear physics at the Institute of Physics of Eötvös Loránd (ELTE) University. With her colleagues she is to join the LHC CMS-experiments. Their aim is to study the standard model of particle physics and the underlying more fundamental theory, and the characterisation of the hot and dense material, the quark gluon plasma that was produced after the Big Bang. The data generated by the LHC at its first stage of operation yielded ground-breaking results. The discovery of the Higgs-boson came as a bonus to the efforts made in order to broaden the Standard Model and the explanation of the mass of the particles. Gabriella Pásztor and her team are going to study the secrets of particles and quark materials in the data to be collected from the LHC facility working to produce higher collision energy.

Mathematician Miklós Rásonyi is likely to produce methods that may be used to design financial systems with better reliability than what we have today. The scientist to be positioned at MTA's Rényi Institute of Mathematics is seeking an answer to the best use of data on past events in order to support current decisions whenever the future is uncertain, or when the events are expected to turn up randomly. The issue has special relevance to making financial investment decisions. Today trading in stock at the SE is mainly done on computers allowing only fractions of a second to make (good) decisions. The purpose of the scientific query to be done with the help of Momentum Funds is to work out a mathematical model or theory that provides efficient algorithms for the assessment and attenuation of risks. The scientist hopes that through his work mathematics applied in finances may get an impetus in Hungary.

Physicist Ferenc Simon now at the Department of Physics of the Institute of Physics of the School of Natural Sciences of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics is going to resume his scientific work making use of a generous amount provided by the EU and the Momentum Funds to maintain an existing research team and utilising the research lab available. His results are expected to lead to the creation of new IT infrastructures or the design of more efficient solar cells. The objective of Ferenc Simon is the development of a time resolution, an optically detected magnetic resonance spectrometer unique in Hungary in addition to a number of small dedicated equipment (multi frequency ESR and multi frequency measuring ac bridge) by making use of the funds. The devices will be used to do basic research into carbon nanotubes, graphene and spintronics with a view to any application significant for the society.

Biologist Lóránt Székvölgyi is to make an attempt to provide a scientific answer the old question „Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" through his examinations at the Research Centre for Molecular Medicine at Debrecen University. He believes the question may be phrased by a biologist like this: is it the structure of a macro molecule (such as a DNA) that determines operations, or inversely: is it the function of the inheritance material that creates the spatial chromosome system that operates the cellular processes? Accompanied by his team he is going to examine the kind of molecules and epigenetic factors that determine the spatial structure of the chromosomes when the cells of the spores in fungi differentiate meiotically, in other words, when they specialise to tie up to some specific function. In the course of their work they will pay special attention to the role of an enzyme complex called COMPASS which modifies histone, in the creation and inheritance of the so- called gene loop patterns. Their experiments may disclose the chromatin structural bases of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, in addition to solving the structure-and-function puzzle.

Chemist Róbert Károly Szilágyi arrives home from Montana State University, United States. His main ambition is to uncover connections with practical importance between the structure of molecules and chemical reactivity in terms of biochemical, homogenous and heterogeneous reactivity. By applying a systematic theoretical, chemical, spectroscopic and experimental approach he intends to provide an opportunity for current practical knowledge to be placed on scientific foundation so that chemical processes may be planned. He believes that excellent facilities are provided for his type of work by the School of Natural Sciences of ELTE University, especially its Institute of Chemistry. With the members of an MTA-ELTE Momentum research team he is seeking broad cooperation with domestic and foreign partners so that the XANES and EXAFS synchrotron-spectroscopy technology of measurement and the associated experimental and theoretical knowledge may be popularised in Hungary. For the project he is going to extend the synchrotron measurement technology, which has been in use in the USA and Japan, to the laboratories in Europe too, by involving PhD and post-doctoral students to be recruited from Hungary and internationally. The measurement facilities extended to three continents will be used to solve the research agenda outlined above.

Physician Kálmán Tory is a researcher of the so-called monogenic diseases caused by the mutation of a single gene. The significance of his work lies in the fact that a considerable portion of childhood illnesses are such monogenic diseases. One of the main aims of the researcher returning from INSERM U1163 laboratory in France to join the Paediatric Clinic No. 1 of Semmelweis University is the identification of new genes in diseases with unknown diagnosis and origin by sequencing all the genes of the affected children at the same time. After identifying a gene responsible for a particular disease the next step is to understand the function of the coded mutant protein by examining cells and animal models. A further aim of the research program that Kálmán Tory has designed is the identification of mutation pairs in recessively inherited clinical aspects which behave unexpectedly in terms of their pathogenic impact due to their mutual interaction. Besides, the researcher is also involved in the study of the origin of some neural symptoms, which, in the case of a minority of the children affected, would be coupled with renal diseases. All the three research objectives are important for understanding the pathogenic process of illnesses, for treating the patients, and for genetic counselling.

IT engineer Dániel Varró has set out to increase the reliability and efficiency of complex systems composed by the combination of the so-called smart devices and embedded systems. The objective of the research group called Cyber-physical systems to be formed at the School of Electric Engineering and Information Technology of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics is to develop precision methods and algorithms that can help design, control, and operate such systems. The significance of Dániel Varró's research lies in the fact that according to industrial forecasts the number of smart devices will grow to 50 billion by 2020, which will form a complex system by communicating with each other and with us on the Internet. There is a basically unlimited cloud computing capacity which in addition to simple sensors and cellular phones may also include the critical embedded systems (such as cars, aeroplanes, and medical devices) that are vital from a human life point of view. Those cyber physical systems create radically new opportunities: cars communicating with one another may avoid accidents; energy consumption of intelligent buildings may consume less energy. Among other things the researcher is seeking an answer to the question whether such systems may have guaranteed reliability, and stability for their control, in a constantly changing open environment.

Historian Boglárka Weisz aims at the disclosure of so far unknown elements of the economic history of medieval Hungary and proving that the Kingdom of Hungary was not just a part of the medieval Europe, but one of its engines. She is engaged in the study of the factors playing a part in the operation and changes of economic life in Hungary by using interdisciplinary methods together with her team working at the Institute of History of MTA's Research Centre for the Humanities. The scholars study the revenues, the mint, and the leading organs of fiscal control as well as the measures taken by the rulers that were significant form an economy point of view in the Kingdom of Hungary among other things, so that a comprehensive picture may be formed of the economic policies of the Hungarian kings. The Kingdom of Hungary was part of the economic circulation in Europe primarily through its towns therefore the second main subject of the research will be urban economy management in Hungary.