Making science relevant to society - that is the goal of marine scientist Teresa Catalá from Spain. Thanks to a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship from the EU, she is now researching active substances from the sea at the University of Oldenburg.
Her research is like the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack: Dr Teresa Catalá wants to find out whether certain substances from the sea, known as dissolved organic matter (DOM), are suitable for medical or cosmetic purposes. "Blue biotechnology" is the buzzword. After all, every litre of seawater contains hundreds of thousands of these molecules. So far, scientists know very little about what exactly they look like and what effects they can have.
The special thing: The dissolved organic material accumulates in the depths of the oceans over thousands of years. These old molecules differ significantly from those in other water masses, explains Catalá. It was precisely this diversity that fascinated the young scientist during her doctoral thesis, in which she was actually investigating the role of the DOM in the global carbon cycle: "I wanted to know why the molecules differ; there must be something there," says Catalá.
This is precisely the reason why she came to Oldenburg to join Prof Thorsten Dittmar's ICBM-MPI bridge group. "He is an expert in the molecular diversity of dissolved organic material," explains Catalá. She had already got to know Dittmar as a reviewer for her doctoral thesis. Here in Oldenburg, she wants to learn new methods and broaden her horizons - combining basic research with work that could also benefit society in the future.
In order to be able to conduct research in Oldenburg, the young Spaniard applied a good year ago for an individual grant from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, which promote the mobility and career opportunities of excellent young researchers as part of the European research programme Horizon 2020.
Promising university graduates with a doctorate or at least four years of full-time research experience worldwide can apply for individual fellowships. Grantees are free to choose their research topic and host institution. In addition to their salary, they also receive research and travel allowances; the partner institutions also receive funding, for example for management and infrastructure. However, mobility is a basic requirement: the host institution must not be in the country where the young researchers have previously spent most of their time.
For Catalá, this was no obstacle to taking part in the competition for the scholarships - on the contrary. The young researcher had already spent short periods abroad during her doctoral thesis. "I find it exciting to get to know new people and new cultures," she says. Learning German is a challenge that she gladly accepts.
Writing the proposal for the scholarship itself was also a challenge: Catalá worked on it with Dittmar for almost four months. She also carried out preparatory tests at the University of Malaga, one of the partner institutions. The young researcher also took part in a special training course to optimally prepare for the application procedure. Here she received helpful tips, such as how to include co-operation with a company in the proposal and how to choose an interdisciplinary approach. "I also learnt how to present the proposal in a clear, precise and well-summarised way," she says.
Obviously, both content and form convinced the European reviewers: Catalá was awarded the scholarship in February 2017. Since May of this year, she has been researching in Oldenburg for two years and is learning, for example, how to use the high-resolution mass spectrometer here to analyse the molecular structure of dissolved organic material more precisely. With co-operation partners in Bremen, she will also separate the substances according to certain chemical properties, such as pH value or polarity.
Only then will she be able to tackle the next step of her major project: To investigate whether the substances found are also bioactive, i.e. whether they stimulate the immune system, inhibit the growth of tumours or whether they have antioxidant properties, for example. To do this, the marine researcher also has to work with cell cultures. "This is completely new for me," she says. Her research is pioneering work in general, as scientists have not previously studied dissolved organic substances from the sea in such detail. "We are opening up the ocean's molecular treasure chest," says Catalá. "And it would be great to find natural substances that can improve people's lives."
