ERC Advanced Grant REDQUEEN: infection sensing in the arms race between bacteria and phages (TU Delft)

REDQUEEN, an ERC Advanced Grant project coordinated by Delft University of Technology, runs from 1 December 2026 to 30 November 2031 with an EU contribution of €2,500,000. It asks how bacteria sense phage invasion and activate antiviral responses and how phages counter that sensing, and plans AI-designed proteins that inhibit phage-defence systems to create engineered phages able to overcome host defences.