ZAGREB, 5 Sept (Hina) - A scientific research project led by young scientist Marko Šestan from the Faculty of Medicine in Rijeka has received €2 million in funding through the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant programme.

At a press conference held on Thursday, it was said that Šestan's project, titled "Every smell you take - Smell-induced conditioning of the immune system during infections", will be carried out over the next five years. The funding will support the research itself, the recruitment of four new team members, and the purchase of advanced scientific equipment.

The ERC Starting Grant is known for its highly competitive application and selection process. Over 5,000 proposals were submitted, with only five to six percent receiving funding after a rigorous two-stage evaluation. To date, only a dozen ERC projects have been approved in Croatia across all categories, and this is the third such project awarded to the Faculty of Medicine in Rijeka.

The Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty, Professor Marina Šantić, expressed her satisfaction with the grant approval, noting the significance of expanding the research group thanks to the ability to hire new researchers.

Explaining the project, Marko Šestan noted that it is based on principles similar to those discovered by Russian scientist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, who famously demonstrated that dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, anticipating food.

The brain is capable of forming associations, and we discovered that the same conditioning principle can be applied in the context of vaccination, which is extremely important for humans, he said.

Some vaccines, such as those for COVID-19, require repeated doses, and our main goal is to enhance the effectiveness of vaccination. Research has shown that associating vaccination with a specific scent can lead to a much stronger immune response in the future, simply by reactivating it through the same scent, thus reducing the need for frequent booster vaccinations, he added.