Mykhailo Batiuk (Private photo)
Dr. Mykhailo Batiuk, currently at the EPFL (Switzerland) won an ERC starting grant for his project sc-PTSD: Single Cell PTSD: Novel Target Identification to be implemented at the Łukasiewicz Research Network – Polish Center for Technology Development (Sieć Badawcza Łukasiewicz – PORT Polski Ośrodek Rozwoju Technologii). The aim is to identify affected brain cell types and specific epigenetic switches, potentially leading to new PTSD therapies. The project involves the development of a novel, more precise animal model of PTSD and profiling of post-mortem brain samples from human PTSD donors. Furthermore, Mykhailo is establishing collaborations to extend this profiling to samples from Ukrainian donors.
Mykhailo graduated with a BSc degree in Biology (Cum Laude) from the Taras Shevchenko National Uniersity of Kyiv (Ukraine) in 2010 and received a Master’s Degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Cum Laude) from the same university in 2012. He then joined KU Leuven, Belgium for his PhD studies, where he investigated astrocyte heterogeneity using single cell transcriptomics, and where he gained his PhD in 2018. After a post-doc at the BRIC, Copenhagen University where Mykhailo investigated pathology of schizophrenia, he moved to the Laboratory of Neuroepigenetics led by Prof. Johannes Gräff at the EPFL in Switzerland in 2021, where he combines his previous expertise in single cell genomics, psychiatry, and neuron/glia research to decipher epigenetic bases of traumatic memory.
- Research in Poland news
- Grant ERC w Łukasiewicz – PORT – dr Batiuk będzie badał PTSD
- Find all ERC Starting Grants 2025 here
The ERC Starting Grants program provides funding for research projects with a maximum budget of €1.5 million over a period of up to five years. This prestigious award is designed to support exceptional researchers at the beginning of their careers to launch their own projects, build research teams, and pursue their most promising ideas. In this round the success rate was approximately 12,2%.
Some other news on ERC awardees of Ukrainian origin can be found here