Research project awarded with ERC Proof of Concept Grant

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CeNS member Benedikt Sabaß has been awarded a Proof of Concept Grant (PoC) by the European Research Council (ERC). The grant is aimed at scientists who have already been awarded an ERC grant and serves to transfer ideas from ERC-funded research projects to specific practical applications.


Professor Benedikt Sabaß is head of the Cell Biophysics and Statistical Mechanics research group at LMU (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Faculty of Physics). In May 2025, he was appointed Professor of Experimental Physics and Medical Physics at TU Dortmund. The project BacForClimate will be carried out at both LMU and TU Dortmund and is funded with approximately 150,000 euros.
As the effects of climate change increasingly take hold, new solutions that significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions are urgently needed. One of the most effective strategies is to reduce methane emissions. A significant proportion of this methane is produced by microbes in the rumen of cattle. Feed additives are capable of reducing this production. However, the compounds currently available achieve reductions of only 10-30 percent, which is insufficient.
In an ERC Starting Grant funded project, researchers in the group led by Benedikt Sabaß discovered new compounds that have the potential to be a game changer. “Supplements based on our compounds are expected to reduce the methane emissions from cattle by more than 70 percent,” he notes. “Potent anti-methanogenic compounds can also confer significant metabolic benefits, saving up to 12 percent energy.” Accordingly, the new compounds have the potential to additionally improve feed conversion, which will reduce the environmental footprint of feed production and lower the cost of cattle farming. This would make the use of climate-friendly supplements economically viable for producers.

In the Proof-of-Concept project BacForClimate (A potent, new anti-methanogenic compound for climate-friendly livestock farming), Sabaß will clarify the mode of action of the new compounds, assess their metabolic benefits, and establish a roadmap toward commercialization. Subsequently, he will develop products based on the compounds in cooperation with partners from veterinary medicine and industry. “Overall, the project will lay the foundations for an economic success of our new technology which, we hope, can eventually make a contribution to solving an urgent problem”, concludes Sabaß.