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

What is the role of our microbial partners in our evolution? Does the microbiome evolution reflect major events of human history? Despite increasing evidence that the gut microbiome plays an essential role in multiple core aspects of human biology, little is known about how the human-gut community co-evolved. The role of the microbiome in human evolution and speciation has been historically overlooked, in part due to the challenge of obtaining microbiome data from ancient material. However, understanding the co-evolution of the human-gut ecosystem requires a time-series approach associated with the major defining moments in human evolution such as migrations, admixture, domestication, industrialization and globalisation. Under favourable conditions some archaeological substrates such mummified tissues, coprolites and dental calculus have potential to shed some light on ancient microbiomes. To do so, MIND THE GUT (MtG) will develop new markers of specific bacterial action applying lipidomic and proteomic tools to explore the diagenesis of microbiome substrates. MtG will analyze the mummified microbiomes of the aboriginal Canary islanders. The Canary mummies represent a unique model system to study the impact of diet and lifestyle in populations that evolved isolated but shared their microbiome during the peuplement of the islands. MtG will compare them with a group of naturally mummified bodies from Nubia that span a similar time period, and with modern microbiome samples from 3 african populations with different lifestyles. MtG results will provide a framework for future studies on fossil material and contribute to illuminate the role of the microbiome in overcoming the challenges of diet, environment and lifestyle changes that took place during human history and prehistory. MtG represents a stepping stone to the integration of the ancient microbiomes in the study of human evolution.

Mots clés : microbiome, lipids, proteins, diet, lifestyle, mummies, isolated populations, diagenesis

Participants :
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 278227.8 €
Projet SandMan (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

What were the communication systems of ancient societies without writing? Is it possible to use the decorations and symbols painted on the vases like a new Rosetta Stone? Is it possible to reconstruct the language of archaic communities that have disappeared? Objects convey ideas, memories and messages, and the ceramic decorations are certainly one of these vectors, of conservation but also dissemination of identity and cultural messages. Although it has all the potential to represent a privileged means of knowledge, most of its meanings still elude us. The objective of project SandMan (Shapes and Meaning) is to understand the ways of communication between the archaic communities of southern Italy, free of conventional forms of writing, between the end of Iron Age and the Archaic Period (mid-7th/mid-5th cent. BC). To achieve this goal, the project will use three different approaches: semiotic, archaeometric, and typological. The research aims to conduct a holistic, thus innovative, study of the symbols of ceramics in order to understand the meanings of this symbolic "lexicon", better understand how they were important for gender identification/distinction, how they were used as a way to communicate and how that knowledge was passed on to others. SandMan also proposes a systematic study of the matt-painted vases of southern Italy (to create a precise and reliable typology) and a chemical-physical analyzes, will investigate the fabric of vases with matt-painted decorations for to create a reference database of local workshops. In general, the studies have always focused on Greek (or Greek-colonial) objects present in the indigenous contexts, relegating the discovery of indigenous ceramics to a secondary position. This research, instead, using a post-colonial approach, will shift the perspective onto the indigenous material culture, for the understanding of certain bidirectional dynamics of exchange and acculturation between Locals and the "Others".

Mots clés : archaeology, anthropology, gender, north lucanian area, matt painted ware, peuketiantes, post colonial, interdisciplinarity, cultural identity, symbols meaning, material culture, holistic study

Participants :
- Université Rennes 2 (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 184707.84 €
Projet TackTDEs (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

When a star gets too close to a supermassive black hole, it gets disrupted by the strong tidal forces of the compact object. A few dozen of these tidal disruption events (TDEs) have been discovered to date and a much larger number is expected from current and near-future missions. The observed signal contains rich information about the mechanisms and conditions at play around black holes in otherwise quiescent galaxies. A full exploitation of the huge predictive power of TDEs urgently requires to improve our understanding of their dynamics and the associated emission. Through a combination of analytical and numerical tools, the proposed research aims at studying the different phases of these events considering crucial physical processes missing from previous investigations. After the star has been disrupted, the debris evolves into an elongated gas stream that partially falls back towards the black hole. The researcher will determine how the geometry of this matter evolves under the influence of stellar magnetic field and rotation. As this stream comes back to pericentre, general-relativistic effects cause it to self-cross, which initiates the formation of an accretion disc and could participate to the emission of TDEs in the optical and UV bands. The researcher will determine the influence of the black hole spin on this process, focusing on the delay of stream-stream collision induced by Lense-Thirring precession. He will also investigate photon diffusion during disc formation to determine the evolution of the emerging shock-powered lightcurve. After the gas has settled, viscous torques drive the accretion of the stellar matter onto the black hole, producing X-ray radiation. The researcher will study this ultimate phase to evaluate the energy output and the origin of angular momentum transport in TDEs. This work will result in great advances in this research field on the theoretical side that will be used to better exploit observational data.

Mots clés : tidal disruption events, transient astrophysics

Participants :
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 207312.0 €
Projet Stress Granules (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

When cells experience stress, most protein synthesis pauses and so-called stress granules (SGs) form which store and protect mRNAs. SGs are crucial for stress adaptation and prevention of cell death. However, SGs are also implicated in age-related neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. In these diseases, SGs persist longer than normal and turn into harmful aggregates which cells cannot dissolve. Despite the importance for human health, we only know very little about how normal SGs convert into disease-causing aggregates. Ground breaking work from the Hyman and Alberti labs could recently demonstrate that SGs behave like liquid droplets which solidify over time. Importantly, this transition is promoted by disease-associated mutations in SG components. SGs form through protein-protein interactions which critically depends on the Ras GTPase-activating protein-binding protein 1 (G3BP1). The Hyman and Alberti labs could recently generate G3BP1 droplets in vitro and could show that droplet formation is promoted by mRNAs. For the first time, we have a minimal SG system that can be used as a tool to mechanistically dissect SG formation and disease association. I propose harnessing this system to generate complex droplets that resemble physiological SGs. Ultimately, my objective is to elucidate how proteins with disease-causing mutations influence SG properties and dynamics, thus allowing me to identify the molecular changes that underlie neurodegenerative diseases. The proposed work is to take place in the teams of A Hyman and S Alberti, world leaders in the field of liquid droplets. Both groups are uniquely situated in the same institute which offers cutting-edge facilities and extensive training opportunities. The fellowship would crucially assist me in my future career objective: positioning myself as an expert in the field of granule biology and developing into an independent researcher in academia.

Mots clés : stress granules, neurodegenerative diseases, cellular stress response, als and ftld, rnp granlues

Participants :
- Max Planck Society (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 159460.8 €
Projet FADSEVOL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

When invading nutritionally-poor environments, species can expand their functional metabolic niche, by evolving the capacity to synthesize essential compounds, and/or their dietary niche, by evolving new behavioral or morphological traits that enable them to use either novel or rare resources. The relative value of behavioral versus metabolic means for resolving mismatches remains unresolved because these have not been examined concurrently. Omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LCPUFA) are important for consumers, but are scarce in freshwaters compared to marine ecosystems, presenting a challenge for species invading freshwaters. The proposed study will be the first to examine both metabolic and behavioral means for regulating nutritional composition and fitness when invading freshwaters from marine ecosystems. We will examine the dietary niche of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in terms of diet variation and foraging preferences, and the metabolic functional niche in terms of genotypes and n-3 LCPUFA synthesis ability. FADSEVOL will be especially innovative by building upon the recently-identified genetic basis of variation in stickleback fatty acid metabolism: FADS2 copy number variation. We will characterize the fatty-acid composition of prey and tissues of lineages that vary widely in their FADS2 copy numbers and history of adaption to freshwater (WP1). Next, we will examine foraging preferences of common garden fish for prey that vary in nutritional composition (WP2). Finally, we will evaluate n-3 LCPUFA synthesis ability, FADS2 expression, and life history traits of lineages in common-garden conditions with high or low dietary n-3 LCPUFA availability (WP3). These approaches will allow us to understand variation in both the functional metabolic niche and the dietary niche, providing insights into how foraging behavior and metabolic evolution can enable consumers to invade nutritionally-challenging ecosystems.

Mots clés : fatty acids, fish

Participants :
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 203149.44 €
Projet BiominAB-3D (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

When it is inhaled, asbestos triggers a chain of events that can lead to mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer of the lung lining, and to lung cancer. After prolonged stay in the lungs the asbestos fibers develop an iron coating that is thought to be responsible for the cytotoxic response, and which nature is still unclear. The fibres with their coating, developed after prolonged stay in human lungs, are known as asbestos bodies. Despite the large and increasing incidence of respiratory/pulmonary diseases among the general population due to asbestos and other toxic fibers, the carcinogenic mechanism is not yet fully understood. A deeper knowledge of the interaction between the fibers and the biological tissue can help scientists to develop more efficient medical treatments and to improve prevention strategies. The proposed research project aims to reveal the composition and formation mechanism of asbestos bodies combining cutting-edge synchrotron radiation fluorescence and imaging microtomography and microdiffraction with transmission electron microscopy. Synchrotron radiation techniques will allow revealing the elemental distribution and morphology of unaltered lung tissue samples with unprecedented level of detail, preserving their tridimensional structure. Microdiffraction and transmission electron microscopy will reveal possible degradation of the embedded asbestos fibres, which is a long standing question. The project will exploit an innovative collaboration between physicists, chemists, doctors, and biologists. In particular, physics techniques usually employed in the field of fundamental research or in material science will be combined with laboratory methodologies, creating an environment favourable for breaking-through results. The methodologies developed during the project can be extended to the study of other toxic particulate, such as vehicular or industrial particulate matter and man-made nanoparticles, which are of increasing concern for human health.

Mots clés : asbestos, mesothelioma, lung cancer, synchrotron radiation, computed tomography, microdiffraction, transmission electron microscopy

Participants :
- National Research Council (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 180277.2 €
Projet PLEVOCON (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

When organisms adapt to new environments, are the genetic mechanisms that underlie evolutionary trajectories predictable or stochastic? Recently, genomic studies have provided tantalizing clues that the genetic mechanisms that underlie evolutionary trajectories may be more constrained and deterministic than previously thought. Theoretical work has suggested that pleiotropy, or the influence of a single gene on multiple traits, might be an important deterministic factor during adaptive evolution. Specifically, high levels of pleiotropy are predicted to decrease the frequency with which a locus is used over the course of evolution because it is much more likely that mutations in that locus will have negative fitness consequences. Despite these theoretical predictions, however, we lack explicit tests of how pleiotropy contributes to evolutionary predictability. The objective of the PLEVOCON project is to test whether pleiotropy is a source of evolutionary constraint that underlies the predictability of evolutionary responses. The threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) is an ideal system in which to test whether pleiotropy is a source of evolutionary constraint. Crucially, these small fish have independently and repeatedly adapted to diverse freshwater habitats in the northern hemisphere since the retreat of the glaciers 12,000 years ago. Stickleback living in similar habitats have evolved similar phenotypes, providing an opportunity to ask whether the same genes underlie adaptation to these habitats, and whether genes that are repeatedly used for adaptation have lower levels of pleiotropy. I will utilize the existing wealth of genetic and genomic resources in this system and develop innovative statistical approaches to carry out the first genome-wide test of whether pleiotropy is a source of constraint in evolutionary responses.

Mots clés : adaptive evolution, natural selection, population genomics

Participants :
- University of Bern (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187419.6 €
Projet SyGaST (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

When trying to find errors in programs, or to show that none remain, when trying to automatically produce protocol adapters that guarantee that systems seamlessly work together, and when checking if a specifications can be implemented, algorithm that solve infinite-duration games on graphs do the lion's share of the work. These are games with winning condition that range from parity through mean- or discounted payoff to simple stochastic reachability. These games are connected by a chain of reductions, so that the latter can be considered as a generalisation of the further, in the sense that there exists a polynomial time reduction to simple stochastic games. When a new result that improves the complexity status of one of these games appears in the literature, it is very interesting, not only from a theoretical point of view, to study whether the improvement can be transferred to another type of game. This specific goal can be achieved in two ways: by building a new optimal reduction or by transferring the algorithmic advancements into a new solver for a game with a different winning condition. This is particularly interesting for practical advancements, like exploiting dominions, and theoretical advancements, such as the introduction of quasi-polynomial time algorithms. As these recent advances are currently only available for parity games, we will answer the question of whether these advances translate to the more general classes and investigate the more fundamental question of whether these games are inter reducible: are there backwards translations that justify to consider these games as representatives of an individual complexity class, or is there evidence that back-translations are not possible? This will allow us to uncover connections and differences between the types of infinite-duration games that can lead to the proof of equivalence or inequality of the complexity of the classes of games and to the discovery of tighter reductions and faster algorithms.

Mots clés : mean payoff games, discounted payoff games, simple stochastic games, parity games

Participants :
- University of Liverpool (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet PmNC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Whereas comparative analyses of the history of nature conservation usually review either the inter-war period or the 1970s, this research action considers the period between 1930 and 1960 as an era in its own right. These decades are of particular interest for the development of ecological ideas and the establishment of long-term institutional arrangements between politics, science, and civil society concerning nature conservation. Another prominent aspect for this comparative analysis is the influence of right extremist political positions. The understanding of conservationist policies as the result of a process of political agenda-setting, discursive backgrounds, and active involvement of experts and civil society organisations, was a successful basis of analysis for the last decades of the 20th century. Here, this approach will be applied to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in the ‘missing’ decades between 1930 and 1960. For each country, a civil society organisation, a state agency and a scientific society and their respective roles in the political agenda-setting process will be scrutinised. The purpose of the project is to identify political and discursive continuities in the policy-making process of early nature conservation. The comparative design of the project, its focus on European countries beyond Germany, and its emphasis on institutional continuity through the Second World War will be important assets for the scientific debate about the early conservationist movement and the reconciliation of ‘green’ politics with its ‘brown’ past.

Mots clés : nature conservation, governance, civil society, ecology, netherlands, united kingdom, environmentalism, environmental history

Participants :
- Radboud University Nijmegen (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175572.48 €
Projet GLU-IMAGE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

While clinical experience confirmed ketamine, a glutamate (Glu) N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist, as a potent therapy of treatment-resistant major depressive disorder (TRD), the exact mechanism of ketamine’s action in the brain is unclear. Thus, a method to reliably and reproducibly monitor minute changes in Glu metabolism in the human brain is urgently needed to understand ketamine dynamics in vivo. So far, the pioneering work at the Medical University Vienna (MUW) showed ketamine-induced increase of vascular and metabolic responses measured as blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signals in healthy subjects in thalamus, insula and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), while others observed elevated glucose uptake using positron emission tomography, suggesting higher energetic demands and Glu response after ketamine infusion. Yet, a reliable and non-invasive method for direct monitoring of pharmacologically-induced dynamic Glu changes is still missing. Our group at MUW has recently developed a novel ground-breaking accelerated method for ultra-short echo time MRS imaging (UTE-MRSI) providing optimal Glu measures with critical sensitivity improvements compared to conventional proton single-voxel MRS (SV-MRS) and previously utilized MRSI approaches. Our method allows monitoring of Glu responses selectively in activated voxels and overcomes low spatial resolution, and limited coverage of SV-MRS that is the current gold standard for measurement of Glu concentrations and its dynamic changes in vivo (functional SV-MRS). The further improvement of UTE-MRSI by the implementation of the novel real-time motion correction will boost its applicability in clinical human studies. Thus, our UTE-MRSI will offer image-based multi-slice measurements of baseline Glu concentrations and its responses to ketamine administration with the potential to clarify ketamine’s mechanism of action in patients with TRD, and will allow monitoring of other novel glutamatergic therapies.

Mots clés : ultrahigh field neuroimaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, glutamate, functional spectroscopy, visual stimulation, ketamine, depression

Participants :
- Medical University of Vienna (Autriche) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 186167.04 €