Interspecies interactions between fungi and bacteria are highly prevalent in nature and play critical roles in agriculture, biotechnology, and medicine. Studying such bacterial-fungal interactions offers crucial insights into fungal pathogenesis that can be leveraged in understanding and treating serious fungal diseases. The Rhizopus-Mycetohabitans endosymbiosis offers a unique model to study how endosymbionts contribute to fungal pathogenicity. Notably, the fungal host's sporulation depends entirely on the bacterial endosymbionts, which are translocated into the spores. However, the molecular details of how R. microsporus mediates endosymbiont-dependent sporulation, and subsequent symbiosis maintenance, remain unknown. HITCHHIKE aims to close this knowledge gap by utilizing a combination of genetic, biochemical, and infection biology technologies. We will focus on elucidating: (i) the means of intra-hyphal transport of non-motile endosymbionts; (ii) the molecular mechanisms of endosymbiont-dependent sporulation; and (iii) how endosymbionts contribute to fungal pathogenicity. This will not only elucidate the nature of host control in this clinically relevant bacterial-fungal alliance but also has the potential to serve as a roadmap to understanding how prokaryotic pathogens and symbionts interact with more complex eukaryotic hosts. In addition, HITCHHIKE will provide a foundation to better understand how asexual sporulation is regulated in the greater Mucoromycota phylum. These ecologically diverse fungi are utilized in biotechnology and industry, with applications spanning from food production to drug development. Dr Richter, an expert in bacterial endosymbionts of fungi, will conduct HITCHHIKE under the supervision of Prof Victoriano Garre, a pioneer in the molecular biology of Mucoromycota. The MSCA fellowship will qualify her as a leading expert in fungal-bacterial-host interactions, thus laying the foundation for establishing her independent research group.

The Jean Monnet Chair on the Transformative European Union Law Power (TEULP) aims at promoting the study of EU Law among students, academics and practitioners by underlining, and explaining, the significant impact that this legal order holds in the domestic legal systems of the EU Member States and beyond the EU’s territory, affecting directly the daily lives of millions of individuals worldwide.TEULP will analyse how and under what conditions EU Law functions as a catalyst for the transformation of legal systems, both internally and externally. To this extent, TEULP will organise a wide range of activities such as official courses, lectures, public events, interviews, participation in EU Law moot courts, research projects and research supervision, to examine how EU Law has set in motion a transformative process capable of strengthening European integration and promoting change in legal systems ad intra and ad extra of the Union. In particular, over the three years of the project, TEULP will carry out many academic activities, including 3 official Bachelor courses, 3 additional courses for a wider audience, 3 clinical workshops, 3 conferences, 2 research projects, 2 special issues in open access specialized journals and 1 edited monograph. These activities will generate knowledge on significant EU Law matters and foster dialogue between the academic world and society, including local and state level policy-makers, civil servants, civil society actors and the media.TEULP will hold a remarkable impact on academics and students (over 400 students will benefit each year from the planned courses and other project activities) by, inter alia, improving the official Law Degree curriculum through broadening the study of EU Law, including through teaching in English. It will also influence society at large and, potentially, EU policy-making by focusing on momentous EU Law topics concerning the impact of the EU legal system on other legal orders.

This action supports physical and blended mobility of higher education students and staff from EU Member States and third countries associated to Erasmus+ to any country in the world. Students in all study fields and cycles can take part in a study period or traineeship abroad. Higher education teaching and administrative staff can take part in professional development activities abroad, as well as staff from the field of work in order to teach and train students or staff at higher education institutions.