Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet MedLitRefYouth (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

According to Eurostat, 2015 saw 90,000 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers register in the EU. Refugee children pose considerable policy challenges: their integration in Europe is of utmost importance. Studies show that while refugee children have IT competences, they lack the ability to make critical media choices, and make informed decisions regarding their well-being. This project builds on the IT knowledge of young refugees in order to further their integration by developing media literacy pedagogic tools. Media literacy education is essential for empowering citizenship, for gaining skills to become drivers of economic growth, and not least to prevent radicalization. Media literacy, a necessary aspect of lifelong learning, enables young people to participate civically, to overcome disadvantage and to represent marginalized and missing voices. For developing these pedagogic tools, the Fellow will first research how unaccompanied minor refugees use digital technology and social media through fieldwork carried out in 3 EU countries. In the second research phase, the Fellow will conduct participatory action research (PAR) in collaboration with an NGO which specializes in PAR with refugee youth. These results will be used to design teaching materials for youth workers and teachers. The project is unique because it brings together the disciplines of education, media literacy and migration studies for offering solutions to a matter of pressing urgency: the integration of unaccompanied minor refugees. This project will serve to widen the professional horizon of the Fellow. She will acquire specific research skills (digital ethnography, participant action research, educational tools design) and transferable skills (PhD supervision, leadership, editorial skills, managing large-scale events). The project will lay the foundations for the Fellow's long-term career goals, and she will be propelled to the forefront of media literacy research.

Mots clés : media literacy education, civic engagement

Participants :
- Bournemouth University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet GreenSSPA (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

According to WHO report, last updated on 2017, the rate of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Dementia, Alzheimer?s, and Parkinson?s disease) is rapidly increasing in both less and more developed countries. They reported that the number of people with Dementia in worldwide is projected to increase to nearly double and a half from 50 million in 2017 to 135.5 million in 2050 and also global cancer rate could increase by 50% to 15 million by 2020. Such reports are alarming scientists to enhance research domains on the diagnostic methods to identify as early as possible to improve levels of treatments. One of the best diagnostic methods for such diseases is to employ Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner. The PET scan technology has been under-researched and -developed for many years, and it is still ongoing updating. One of the major components of the PET scanner is cyclotron for accelerating particles. A cyclotron is the most sophisticated part of a PET installation. It makes a strong electric field to accelerate particles, results in radioisotopes. The strong electric field is usually made by a Klystron vacuum tube which is an expensive and immobile part. Hence, in hospital without a cyclotron and far away areas, it is a problem to deliver the radioactive material, as it has a short lifetime, half an hour to few hours and it costs quite a lot to ship the radioactive material by helicopter. In this project, we propose to be used solid-state technology instead of vacuum tube. It will make possible to realise a mobile and affordable cyclotron. Hence, more cyclotrons could be deployed even in remote areas, resulting a cheap and fast treatment. A high impact on both the scientific and industrial communities is predicted from the project. The project is naturally a multidisciplinary project while involving communication engineering, mechanic engineering, physics, and medical science. It is well suited with the selected research group of host organization.

Mots clés : radio frequency, power amplifier, solid state material, cyclotron, accelerator

Participants :
- Uppsala University (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203852.16 €
Projet LYMPHVECs (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

According to the WHO there are 8 million persons chronically infected by Chagas disease (CD) resulting in 12.000 reported deaths annually. CD is one of the most significant health problems of Latin America. However, nowadays it has been reported worldwide. Benznidazole (BZ) has been recently approved in US (30/08/2017) as the first option treatment for CD but can only administered for 14 days or less, while it is known that at least 2-3 months of treatment are required for full efficacy. This approval for short-term CD therapy is due to the severe side effects associated with extended use, which severely impacts the applicability of BZ as a universal CD treatment. Importantly, Trypanosoma cruzi (Tc) parasite reservoirs have been localized into the Lymphatic System (LS). Poor compound distribution into the LS could be the reason why extended BZ treatment is required and why reactivation of the parasites in the chronic stage is commonly found. Chagas infected people treated with BZ develop rashes, fever, nausea, headache, allergic dermatitis, digestive intolerance (anorexia), peripheral neuropathy and insomnia. These severe side effects limit its use and foster non-compliance. BZ formulations that reduce compound exposure in system circulation while facilitating distribution into the LS could reduce the efficacious dose (at present 5-7mg/kg/day), reduce side effects, and possibly contribute treatment shortening. This project will develop BZ formulations based on solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) to achieve these three goals.

Mots clés : chagas disease, trypanosoma cruzi, benznidazole, drug delivery, nanoparticles

Participants :
- GlaxoSmithKline (Spain) (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 158121.6 €
Projet ISLET GABA (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

According to the World Health Organisation, diabetes affects 422 million people worldwide, over 8% of the entire adult population. The progression of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes is characterised by a decrease in the number and function of beta-cells within pancreatic islets. It has recently been demonstrated that the neurotransmitter γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is produced and secreted from beta cells, is able to slow and even reverse this loss of beta cell capacity. This finding has caused great excitement as treatments which directly address beta cell degeneration would revolutionise diabetes therapy. In order to realise this potential, it is essential that we understand the biogenesis, storage, and secretion of GABA in addition to its functional effects upon islet cells. I therefore propose to characterise a suggested route of GABA secretion from beta cells, assess its role in signalling between islet cells, and identify pharmacological modulators of GABA secretion. This study will be hosted by Patrik Rorsman (University of Gothenburg) with a secondment to AstraZeneca (Mölndal). This interdisciplinary study will combine my experience of applying cutting edge proteomics and genetic editing techniques to the study of protein trafficking with my host's world-leading expertise in islet cell physiology. Successful completion of the proposed work program will reveal fundamental details of islet GABA signalling and likely identify new therapeutic targets for the treatment of diabetes. Furthermore, during a cross-sectorial secondment to AstraZeneca I will carry out a high-throughput phenotypic screen to directly identify small molecule modulators of beta cell GABA secretion.

Mots clés : gaba, beta cell, secretion, synaptic like microvesicle

Participants :
- University of Gothenburg (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191852.16 €
Projet Personalized-PredInt (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : TERMINATED

Accurate forward prediction of maladaptive behaviors and emotional states involved in various forms of psychopathology offers an intriguing avenue for prevention and intervention science. To date, however, such prediction has been limited by a heterogeneity in factors determining individuals' behaviors and emotions. To address this limitation, the proposed project adopts an idiographic (i.e., person specific) approach while focusing on two exemplar targets that constitute transdiagnostic components in various psychological disorders – namely, behavioral avoidance and maladaptive emotional states. Specifically, the project aims to (a) develop person-specific models for predicting the two targets; and (b) use the models to construct a person-specific just-in-time adaptive intervention (JITAI) system, a novel, accessible, and highly promising means for affecting change. To do so, the project will utilize ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and harness three methodological innovations: (1) an adaptive assessment and personalized item-selection tool which will reduce participant burden; (2) a scalable personalized system that provides accurate forward prediction using brief psychosocial questions and automatically-collected timing/location data; (3) a personalized JITAI app that will inform participants in real time regarding increased likelihood of impending targets, and prompt appropriate interventions based on individual predictors. The project can significantly promote understanding of transdiagnostic maladaptive processes and lead to efficient precision interventions. It builds on the fellow's expertise in EMA and affect research and will develop his statistical and analytic tools for exploring ideographic time-series data, his skills in translating such data into tailored interventions, and his ability to shift back and forth between basic and applied science. The team assembled for this work is ideal in terms of both methodological and theoretical expertise.

Mots clés : person specific methods, dynamic modeling, personalized medicine, behavioral avoidance, affect

Participants :
- University of California System (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- KU Leuven (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 266425.92 €
Projet OTmeetsDFT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Mathematics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Accurately predicting electronic structure from first principles is crucial for many research areas such as chemistry, solid-state physics, biophysics and material sciences. In principle, the electronic structure is determined by the Schrödinger equation, which can only be solved in practice for few electrons. Kohn-Sham (KS) Density functional theory (DFT) has been a real breakthrough for electronic structure calculations. KS DFT uses the one-electron density and a non-interacting wave function as basic variables, much simpler quantities than many-electron wave-functions, allowing to treat realistic large systems. However, present-day KS DFT is not yet able to accurately capture the physics of systems in which electronic correlation plays a prominent role (e.g. transition metals). In recent years, the hosting group has developed a formalism to deal with density functional theory for strongly correlated systems (SCE), based on the exact DFT limit of infinite coupling strength, linking SCE DFT to Optimal Transport Theory with Coulomb costs. This project creates a mathematical framework toward a rigorous SCE DFT theory, proposed by Gori-Giorgi and co-authors, combining the fellow's expertise in optimal transport and the host researcher experience in SCE DFT. This relies to (i) the study of a new instance of optimal transport problem with finitely many marginals and Coulomb cost; (ii) the computation of higher-order terms of the Levy-Lieb (Hohenberg-Kohn) functional around the infinite coupling strength limit. The problems arising in multi-marginal optimal transport and SCE DFT requires novel combinations of ideas from three research communities: chemists, physicists and mathematics. Our goal is to turn numerical results and physical ideas developed by P. Gori-Giorgi's group (host researcher) into theorems. The researcher is a mathematician and the site of research is the Theoretical Chemistry section of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Mots clés : multi marginal optimal transport, gamma convergence, density functional theory for strongly correlated systems, optimal transport with coulomb costs, entropic transport

Participants :
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 177598.8 €
Projet LEVADAPT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Acetylcholine receptor is an essential component of central and peripheral nervous systems which plays a key role in numerous physiological and pathological processes. In particular, acetylcholine receptor is responsible for the coupling between nervous and muscular system at the neuromuscular junction as they are activated following acetylcholine release from neurons to triggers muscle contraction. Despite extensive work to decipher the molecular properties of the receptor itself, how the activity of the receptor and the signal following its activation are modulated is still poorly understood. This is yet an important question to address as impairment in acetylcholine receptor-associated signalling is involved in neuromuscular pathologies such as myasthenia gravis or congenital myasthenic syndrome. Here, we propose to use the genetic animal model Caenorhabditis elegans to study the dynamic regulation of acetylcholine receptors. This nematode is a powerful tool to study acetylcholine receptor as this animal also uses acetylcholine as an excitatory neurotransmitter at the neuromuscular junction. In nematode, acetylcholine receptors are sensitive to levamisole, a specific agonist. Prolonged exposure to levamisole leads to hypercontraction of the worms and finally to their paralysis. However, mutations in genes associated to acetylcholine receptor activity or biosynthesis enable the worms to adapt to levamisole. In this project, using proteomic and genetic approaches based on levamisole adaptation, we will identify several new regulators of acetylcholine receptor and of the associated signalling pathway. Deeper functional characterization will be performed on the new regulators evolutionary conserved that then may be involved in some neuromuscular pathologies. This research will give new insights into functional dynamic of acetylcholine receptor and may then shed a new light on the cause of impaired functioning of acetylcholine receptor in diseases.

Mots clés : acetylcholine receptor, neuromuscular junction, c  elegans, levamisole

Participants :
- Université Claude Bernard - Lyon 1 (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 185076.0 €
Projet LUCCA (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Across the globe, species are shifting their distributions to track the warming temperatures, and habitat conversion is reducing species diversity. However, while both climate and land use change are recognized as top threats to biodiversity, studies on their synergistic effects are very rare. This is at least partly due to 1) a lack of consistent definitions and measures of land use change that can be directly related to biodiversity responses, and 2) difficulties in attributing change to either driver because of correlations, scale-dependencies, and interaction effects between the two. This project will develop a framework for separating the effects of land use and climate change on biodiversity using a range of methodologies such as meta-analysis, fieldwork, and modeling. The project will assess the land use definition and driver attribution challenges in the past literature, explore the potential of high-resolution remote sensing products and Google Street View to measure land use changes, and use unprecedented long-term monitoring citizen science programs to disentangle impacts of land use and climate change on bird populations as a case study. The Fellowship is a timely answer to recent calls to account for multiple environmental change drivers and improve our predictive ability of future biodiversity changes. The outputs will be of relevance for conservation management and policymaking in the EU and beyond. The host institute (CMEC) is at the forefront of macroecology and climate change research, and will give me access to worldwide experts in areas directly relevant to the project. The research and training opportunities offered by CMEC will broaden my field of study and strengthen my analytical and teaching skills – crucial for helping me establish an independent research career and become a leading figure within the field of integrative global change ecology in Europe.

Mots clés : climate change, species distributions, land use change, environmental change attribution, range shifts

Participants :
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212194.8 €
Projet RNA Transport and Control (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Active mRNA transport and localisation are crucial for spatiotemporal control of gene expression. In neurons, dendritic mRNA transport and local translational control are required for synaptic plasticity and memory formation. Misregulation has been linked to severe diseases. RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), kinesin motor proteins, mRNAs and noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) are involved in dendritic mRNA transport and translational regulation. Still it is not known which essential set of factors is required to enable kinesin-dependent mRNA transport. Further, many RBPs required for mRNA transport simultaneously act as regulators of translation. How these crucial activities are mechanistically linked is unsolved. To anwswer these questions, this project aims to reveal essential mechanisms by two independent biochemical in vitro reconstitution approaches: (1) I will reconstitute kinesin-dependent transport of a dendritically localised mRNA and noncoding RNA using candidate proteins and RNAs from literature and an unpublished result of the host laboratory. (2) I will analyse the dual function of RBPs in mRNA transport and translational regulation. To this end, a microfluidics-coupled in vitro translation imaging assay (TIA) will be developed to study the effect of RBPs and ncRNAs on translation in real-time. Finally, the in vitro motility assay will be combined with the TIA to investigate the impact of translational regulation on mRNA transport. Using these techniques I will address key questions: (i) Which are the essential components required for kinesin-dependent mRNA transport? (ii) How are mRNA transport and translational regulation mechanistically connected? This project aims to unravel fundamental principles, improving our knowledge of neuronal mRNA transport and gene expression on a mechanistic level. Additionally, the experimental framework developed herein will enable the field to answer further important questions relating to the growing field of localised translation.

Mots clés : kinesin, rna transport, in vitro reconstitution

Participants :
- Centre for Genomic Regulation (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 158121.6 €
Projet SEAFLOWER (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Actively taking part to the debate on the future energy supply in Europe, SEAFLOWER proposes strategies to exploit anchor foundations for floating offshore wind turbines. Effective solutions can be drawn from the offshore oil and gas industry, where they have been made available over the last three decades. Offshore wind energy developments have distinct requirements on anchoring systems, and a systematic study to aid with a rational transfer of technology between the two energy sectors has not yet been undertaken. SEAFLOWER focuses on this, through a Finite Element (FE) study built on a rich database of consistent experimental evidences. To account for the uncertainties intrinsic to any offshore foundation problems and any technology transfers, an innovative probabilistic framework is used, using meta-modelling techniques. The objective is to define a numerical procedure that can store past experience on anchor foundations and make it available to the needs of the floating offshore wind market. SEAFLOWER addresses the actual phase of FOWT pre-commercial development and the procedure overall contributes towards overcoming the actual technical barriers to the deployment of offshore wind in deep waters. The research builds on the collaboration of internationally renowned institutions: the Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems, University of Western Australia (COFS, outgoing, Supervisor Christophe Gaudin), the National Institute for Environmental Science and Research, Université Grenoble Alpes (IRSTEA, secondment, supervisor Franck Bourrier) and the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering, University of Bologna (DICAM, return, supervisor Laura Govoni). With SEAFLOWER, through continuous research and training, the experience researcher also challenges his ambitious plan to forge a career in academia, building new knowledge on his competences and skills, while tackling one to the most important societal issues of our century.

Mots clés : offshore geotechnical engineering

Participants :
- University of Bologna (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 257209.92 €
- University of Western Australia (Australie) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €