Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ICICLES (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Glaciers have been conventionally viewed as lifeless bodies that have little impact on biogeochemical cycles. It is now known that liquid water is present under all large ice masses. In Antarctica, subglacial lakes and rivers have been discovered. One of these subglacial lakes, Subglacial Lake Whillans, was accessed in 2013, and supports a diverse and metabolically active microbial ecosystem. This raises questions about biogeochemical cycling within these ecosystems. Specifically, the sources, concentrations, flows, modifications and interactions between life essential nutrients. The nutrients sourced from these environments might have an impact on downstream ecosystem productivity. This is of particular importance as the Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, is the world’s largest high nutrient low chlorophyll region, where iron is the primary limiting element for life. Organic matter is thought to play a major role in regulating the flux and bioavailability of iron, and may also be an important source of bioavailable carbon. The main objective of ICICLES is to investigate the cycling and interactions between iron and carbon (as organic matter) in these unique environments. Iron and organic matter in waters and sediment samples from three sites at the bottom of the Antarctic Ice Sheet will be characterised using state-of-the-art spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. Diatom culturing using these samples will be used to determine potential iron bioavailability to downstream marine organisms, and the effects of organic matter complexation. A new budget of iron and organic matter export, and associated bioavailability, from the Antarctic Ice Sheet will be constructed and utilised with a global ocean model to postulate the impact of subglacial meltwaters on marine productivity. This combination of techniques will provide unprecedented insight into nutrient cycling in unique subglacial ecosystems, and the potential of ice sheets to fertilise surrounding oceans.

Mots clés : subglacial biogeochemistry, iron, carbon, organic matter, elemental cycles, ft icr ms, mc icp ms, xanes, diatoms, antarctic ice sheet, southern ocean, spectroscopy, microscopy, mineralogy

Participants :
- Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 239860.8 €
- State University System of Florida (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Autres, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet BRAINHIB (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and aggressive cancer that begins within the brain. Without treatment the average survival following diagnosis is merely 3 months. Although clinically-approved kinase inhibitors present promising features to treat GBM, most of them do not cross the blood brain barrier (BBB), impeding their clinical use in GBM patients. We propose an agile approach that combines ligand-based drug design of highly-focused compound libraries and first-in-class phenotypic assay for simultaneous screening of BBB penetration, unspecific toxicity and anticancer properties, in an iterative manner. This approach will allow a one-step selection of hit / lead compounds from in-house generated compound libraries that cross the BBB to accelerate the design of CNS-active anticancer drugs. Furthermore, the use of chemical proteomics and the state-of-the-art proteomics techniques will facilitate the identification of the kinases and / or pathways that are involved in the observed phenotype, which could result in the discovery of novel GBM oncotargets and unknown modes of action. This highly innovative integrated approach has the potential to speed up preclinical drug discovery efforts in CNS diseases, and in doing so, promote European Scientific Excellence. As a developer and provider of such tools, the applicant will be positioned in a privileged position for starting cross-disciplinary collaborations with academics and Pharma across Europe and for establishing herself as an independent researcher.

Mots clés : glioblastoma multiforme, kinase inhibitors, phenotypic screening, brain penetrant drugs, ligand based drug design

Participants :
- University of Edinburgh (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet HyGlio (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most frequent brain tumor in adults and is characterized by invariably fatal prognosis. Although the incidence of GBM is less than 10 to 100,000, the median survival of approximate 1 year from diagnosis makes it a considerable socio-economic burden. The presence of biological barriers for effective drug transport to the brain, the strong migrating-ability of the tumor and its rapid evolution into more aggressive and treatment-resistant variants, make GBM extremely hard to treat with traditional systemic chemotherapy. The HyGlio project proposes an ambitious bottom-up approach to build a multifunctional tool for long-term imaging and treatment of GBM, combining multiple treatment strategies, patient-specificity, and BBB bypassing in an all-in-one system. The system combines the advantages of: (i) Intracranial treatment, which maximizes efficacy while minimizing side effects; (ii) mild gelling conditions of the hydrogel, which reduce potential damages to the healthy tissue; (iii) increased drug penetration and selectivity due to the use of targeted polymer nanoparticles; (iv) Inhibition of molecular mechanisms involved in GBM spreading and aggressiveness; (iv) theranostic potential, due to the presence of magnetic resonance imaging, agents for rapid therapy adjustment according to patient’s needs. The HyGlio project is expected to introduce innovative concepts and methodologies for the treatment of GBM, by providing advanced and promising tools for more efficient therapy and increased patient outcome.

Mots clés : nanoparticles, polyurethanes, cancer treatment, hydrogels

Participants :
- Polytechnic University of Turin (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 244269.0 €
- Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Autres, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet FFSize (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Global agricultural systems fail to meet food security objectives, are a major cause of global environmental degradation, and are currently undergoing a rapid scale transition. This transition mainly affects small-scale farmers, who are key to attaining food security as they constitute more than 80% of all farms and disproportionately contribute to food production and nutrition. Guiding the agricultural transition onto sustainable pathways that safeguard food security is thus important. Therefore, a sound understanding of the operational realities of farms and fields with respect to size, productivity, location factors, and socio-economic and environmental impacts is needed to develop targeted actions and policies, but is currently lacking especially for large spatial scales. FFSize will address this knowledge gap based on four work packages focussing on South America. WP1 will overlay novel data sets on farm and field size to quantify and map their relationship and use advanced statistical methods to identify determinants of their spatial patterns. WP2 will assess size-related differences in agricultural land-use intensity of farms and fields based on input, output, and system metrics and map intensity archetypes. WP3 will evaluate size-related environmental and socio-economic impacts of farms and fields by linking them to metrics such as land-cover change and nutritional value. WP4 will synthesise this action by mapping socio-ecological systems states to analyse trade-offs at the food security-sustainability nexus and outline potential pathways into preferred future states. FFSize will contribute substantially to the fields of land-system, sustainability, and food security science. It will have major policy relevance for current discussions on land reform, large-scale land acquisitions, and smallholder vulnerability to food security and climate change (cf. EC’s Horizon 2020 strategy and 2013 CAP reform) and has the potential to be transferred to other regions.

Mots clés : farm size, field, size, food security, sustainable agriculture, land systems, south america

Participants :
- University of British Columbia (Canada) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 225352.8 €
Projet CCPaMe (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Global change is a complex phenomenon that involves several factors such as climate change, the alteration of the nitrogen cycle, biological invasions or changes in land use. Although each of these factors has been individually studied in detail in the last years, it is still poorly known how they could interact to affect biotic communities and the ecosystem processes that they control. The general objective of this proposal is to advance in the understanding of the direct and indirect effects of climate change on biotic communities and invasive pathogens interactions in forest systems. This interaction has been largely ignored so far, but its consideration is crucial to understand how abiotic and biotic stress factors together determine forest health and stability. Specifically, CCPaMe aims to: 1) Determine the direct effects of climate change on the exotic pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi. It will be identified potential non-additive effects of rainfall exclusion and warming on its abundance and infected capacity by field and growth chamber experiments. 2) Determine the indirect effects of climate change on soil microorganisms and P. cinnamomi ecology. It will be determined the effects of climate change on the hosts susceptibility to P. cinnamomi and on the abundance, diversity and composition of soil organisms community (bacteria, fungi, archaea and actinomycete) and their implications for P. cinnamomi functionality: modification of its infective capacity and the alteration of pathogen interactions with other soil microbes. CCPaMe results will provide key insights to address current challenges regarding climate change effects and exotic pathogen control on forest systems and the conservation and protection of forest resources. Moreover, they will allow an improvement of our predictive capacity of the socio-economic consequences of future P. cinnamomi outbreaks, serving as a guide for the design of up-to-date management and mitigation policies.

Mots clés : forest pathology, quercus, mediterranean ecosystems, ecosystems dynamic, phytophthora cinnamomi

Participants :
- Spanish National Research Council (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 170121.6 €
Projet MSCCC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Global climate change is forced by the balance of the warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases and the cooling due to anthropogenic aerosol pollution particles. Among these, the cloud-mediated aerosol radiative forcing is by far the main component of the uncertainty. Marine stratocumulus clouds in particular play a decisive role due to their very large net effect on the Earth's radiative energy budget. Stratocumulus clouds occur in the two main regimes of open and closed cells that differ significantly by their cloud cover, and thus by their radiative effect. The main hypothesis of this proposal is that anthropogenic aerosols exert a substantial radiative forcing via their potential to impede or delay the transition from closed to open cells marine stratocumulus, and that this presumably un-buffered effect is not accounted for in forcing estimates by current climate models. The Marine Stratocumulus Cloud Cover and Climate (MSCCC) project aims to improve the quantification, at a global, multi-year scale, of the radiative forcing on climate that anthropogenic aerosols exert by affecting stratocumulus cloud cover. To achieve this goal an inter-disciplinary approach that involves both observations and climate modelling is required. I will develop novel satellite observation methodologies in order to retrieve an in-depth understanding of the processes relevant for the transitions between closed and open stratocumulus regimes, and based on these I will evaluate and improve the relevant climate model parameterizations to realistically represent the forcing by aerosols due to stratocumulus transitions in climate models. This will allow to significantly reduce the uncertainty in simulated aerosol-cloud radiative forcing, and subsequently also in simulated climate sensitivity and projections of future climate change. Achieving these goals will be performed in synergy with my training to acquire complementary knowledge and skills in climate modelling.

Mots clés : cloud radiative forcing, aerosol cloud interactions, marine stratocumulus clouds, anthropogenic aerosols effect on cloud cover, climate change, global climate modeling, satellite observations

Participants :
- Leipzig University (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159460.8 €
Projet StoiCa (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Global warming can trigger enormous releases of carbon (C) from soils, with positive feedbacks to climate change. Northern high latitude soils can constitute a major contributor to this positive feedback loop. Climate change predictions are however still largely uncertain, partly due the lack of accurate representation of vegetation and soil microbial feedbacks and C and nitrogen (N) interactions. Warming enhances microbial mineralization of soil organic matter (SOM) (i.e. soil C outputs) to a higher degree than vegetation productivity (i.e. soil C inputs), resulting in large C losses from northern soils. Pioneer results point to proportional N losses in response to warming, which may be the key to this phenomenon. This project will combine the expertise of a multidisciplinary group of leading researchers on ecosystem stoichiometry, stable N isotopic methods and applied biotechnology with the existence of unique and established research sites in geothermal systems in Iceland to reveal the fate of N lost in response to warming, and uncover the mechanisms behind observed soil C losses. StoiCa will elucidate, for first time, three key knowledge gaps: (1) the rates, forms and mechanisms of N losses from arctic soils under warming; (2) the transient- and persistent responses and the warming-induced transitions from a closed to a leaky, open N cycle; (3) the shifts towards a more symbiotic N cycle and role of thermo-adapted mycorrhiza in stimulating plant growth. This proposal directly addresses two cross-cutting priorities of sustainable development and climate action from the H2020 Work Programme. It also represents an exceptional opportunity for the candidate to acquire the essential skills that she lacks and that will convert her into a highly competitive European researcher in climate change biogeochemistry, while obtaining intersectorial capacities that will open new career avenues.

Mots clés : global warming, climate change, nitrogen cycle, soil carbon, carbon cycle, vegetation allocation, biomass productivity, plant soil interactions

Participants :
- CERCA Institution (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 170121.6 €
Projet TPOINT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Global warming constitutes an urgent challenge to humanity, and predicting the far-reaching impacts on ecosystems remains a major scientific task. Blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) are a dominant species along European coastlines, where they play central ecological roles and are of high economic importance. Increases in ocean temperature will not only affect mussels directly but also increase transmission dynamics of their parasites. Together, the effects of a rise in temperature and parasitism will result in increased pressure on M. edulis and their ability to perform vital ecosystem services. How this will impact mussel populations, and ultimately the whole ecosystem, is currently unexplored and impossible to predict due to our lack of experimental data and predictive models. In a worst-case scenario, these combined stressors could lead to a tipping point for mussel populations and the presently balanced coastal ecosystem. In the project TPOINT, I will analyse the synergetic effects of temperature and trematode infections on blue mussels, ranging from individual effects to impacts on population and community structure at the ecosystem level. I will do this through a set of specifically designed mesocosm and field experiments under projected warming scenarios that will provide data for a novel predictive model of the combined parasite and climate change pressure on mussel populations. This project is the first to test these combined effects on blue mussel populations and their role as ecosystem engineers, and will provide novel insights into the ways global changes will influence species interactions and impact sensitive and complex ecological systems. The data gained from TPOINT will significantly advance our understanding of how host-parasite systems will respond to climate change and will help us predict the associated ecological impacts of such changes. This practical knowledge can support the sustainable management of ecosystems in the future.


Participants :
- Aarhus University (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 207312.0 €
Projet TyphiNET (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Globally there are ~20 million typhoid fever cases per year, resulting in ~200,000 deaths from infection with the causative agent, Salmonella Typhi. Antimicrobial therapy is the mainstay of typhoid fever control, and genomic epidemiology studies have revealed that drug resistance emerging in one country can rapidly spread to other neighbouring countries and intercontinentally. Genomic and phenotypic surveillance for typhoid and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is therefore very important for disease control. TyphiNET aims to develop innovative approaches to bring the benefits of typhoid genomic surveillance to LMICs where the disease is endemic through three main goals: (1) to unlock data from travel-associated typhoid cases in high income countries that are adopting genomics for routine Salmonella surveillance (2) to unlock data from project-based genomic surveillance in endemic areas (beginning with five key collaborative projects across Asia and Africa) and (3) develop an open access publicly available platform for synergising, visualising, and disseminating large scale genomic data sourced from sentinel and endemic area surveillance. Research questions will include inferring genomic epidemiology parameters (prevalence of strain types, resistance to specific antimicrobials, and regional transmission patterns) for different countries/regions using data from sentinel surveillance and from endemic area surveillance; comparison of these to demonstrate the utility of sentinel traveller surveillance for predicting endemic area disease patterns; and comparison of disease dynamics between regions. Outcomes will inform management of both endemic disease in LMICs and travel-associated cases elsewhere, including providing region- and country-specific data to inform empirical antimicrobial choice; and will reveal coverage gaps in endemic area surveillance to be targeted in future studies.

Mots clés : typhoid fever, genomic epidemiology, antimicrobial resistance, travel associated infection, bacterial pathogens, public health, infectious disease, global health, salmonella

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet MeRGeR (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Glucocorticoids, such as cortisol, play an essential role in our stress response. Cortisol signals through two receptors, the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), and it has profound effects on the immune system. To date, much of the research on cortisol action has focused on the function of GR, but almost no work has been done on the function of MR. My main aim is to unravel the role of MR in mediating the effects of cortisol on the immune response, and I would like to answer two questions: 1) How does MR activation modulate the inflammatory response? 2) How do MR and GR functionally interact to alter gene transcription? I will use an interdisciplinary approach. The first question will be answered using the zebrafish animal model, and I will determine the role of MR in wounding-induced leukocyte migration in zebrafish larvae and study the mechanism of action of MR in activated macrophages. The second question will be answered using cultured macrophages, and I will determine the occurrence of MR/GR heterodimers using biophysical approaches, and establish a functional role of the heterodimers. The outcome of this project will have a considerable impact on the current paradigm of glucocorticoid action in the immune system, and extend our understanding of the molecular actions of immune-modulating glucocorticoid drugs. My training objectives are: 1) Broadening my expertise in endocrine research using the zebrafish model system. 2) Expanding my toolbox using cell culture-based approaches and biophysics. 3) Developing complementary skills required for the management and organization of an academic research group. Furthermore, I will strengthen my scientific track record and network. The project will be performed at the Institute of Biology of Leiden University, and implementation of the project in that environment will ensure a unique position for me to run this project successfully, receive appropriate training and advance my career.

Mots clés : cortisol, stress, mineralocorticoid receptor, glucocorticoid receptor, zebrafish, leukocytes

Participants :
- Leiden University (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175572.48 €