Rifka Vlijm and Felix Hol, who both recently obtained their PhD degree at Delft/BN Cees Dekker lab, won a NWO-Rubicon grant. They can use their Rubicon grants to do up to 24 months of research. Rifka will move to Heidelberg, Germany, to film how microtubules become attached to DNA at the molecular level in living cells using super-resolution techniques in order to study the crucial DNA–microtubule interface. Felix is going to unmask dengue fever and malaria mosquitoes with microfluidic chips. He will conduct his research at Stanford. 

Rubicon grants
Each year, NWO can provide about 60 young researchers with funding from the Rubicon programme (in total seven million euros, spread over three rounds). The Rubicon is the river that Julius Caesar crossed in 49 BC before embarking on a series of victories that led him to famously proclaim ‘veni, vidi, vici’. NWO chose the name Rubicon in 2005 for its programme promoting individual research to keep talented researchers with PhDs in the scientific community.

In this first round of 2015, 97 researchers applied for a Rubicon grant. NWO has awarded 21 of these applicants a grant. 11 Rubicon laureates will go to the United States, 6 to Germany, 1 to Australia, 2 to the United Kingdom and 1 to Switzerland. For many scientists, experience abroad is an important step in their career.