Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet DYNAMET (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

DNA methylation patterns in natural population are influenced by environmental factors and may be involved in selection of complex traits. Accordingly, there is growing interest to exploit epigenetic variation for crop improvement, a goal of utmost social importance considering the rapidly expanding world population and agricultural challenges from climate change. To better assess the use of epigenetic variation for crop improvement, it is crucial to know more about the dynamics of DNA methylation and the involved mechanisms. DNA methylation is stably maintained during DNA replication to faithfully silence transposable elements and thereby ensure genome integrity. However, recent studies indicate that DNA methylation changes in plants that have been caused by environmental factors, including pathogens, heat, and drought may contribute to resistance against recurring stress. The aim of this proposal is to further elucidate the regulatory mechanisms of dynamic DNA methylation and their effects on plant fitness under environmental stress. We will address this aim by studying the interaction of one-carbon (C1) metabolism, redox homeostasis, and epigenetic regulation. C1 metabolism provides the methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine required for DNA methylation. Accordingly, perturbations in C1 metabolism can drastically affect genome-wide DNA methylation patterns and transcriptional gene silencing. C1 metabolism is tightly connected to redox homeostasis and key enzymes in C1 metabolism are regulated by redox-dependent post-translational modifications. Notably, redox changes are hallmarks of stress responses. Therefore, our objective is to investigate how stress-induced redox changes are linked to alterations in C1 metabolism and epigenetic regulation in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and in barley. The interdisciplinary approach will facilitate the discovery of new regulatory mechanisms involved in plant acclimation and reveal their potential in crop improvement.

Mots clés : dna methylation, nitric oxide signaling, one carbon metabolism, redox, plants, stress, arabidopsis, barley

Participants :
- Helmholtz Zentrum München (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 171460.8 €
Projet DUEL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Statut du projet : CLOSED

DUEL is the first comparative study of poetic duelling across the Mediterranean. It focuses on six islands found in six Mediterranean European countries, moving from East to West: Cyprus, Crete (Greece), Malta, Sardinia (Italy), Corsica (France), and Majorca (Spain). At the heart of DUEL are two central questions: How are poetic duels performed, and what do they mean for both the producers (the performers) and the consumers (the audience) of this practice in the six chosen islands? Rather than looking at poetry or music in isolation, DUEL brings the poetic, musical, ethnographic, gender and performative aspects of this practice together in a ‘bottom-up’ study that puts the people involved in poetic duelling centre stage. Using an interdisciplinary approach and combining methods from ethnomusicology, life writing, visual anthropology, oral and cultural history, DUEL aims to bring performers from the six islands together on the page (in a book), on the screen (in an ethnographic documentary), and on the stage (in a festival). While the project is informed by theory, it is not side-tracked by it. The emphasis is on creating a vivid portrait of this performance practice (written, visual, and aural) that can have the greatest possible impact on academic and non-academic audiences alike. This is in line with the EU’s policy for making culture ‘accessible and inclusive’. There is a sense of urgency attached to this project, as it concerns a dying tradition practised among groups of performers across Europe who are also fast disappearing. In addition to interviewing performers through extended periods of fieldwork and recording poetic duelling performances in their particular social and cultural contexts, this project will also contribute to the understanding and preservation of European intangible heritage, against an increasing trend of homogenisation of both the production and the consumption of culture.

Mots clés : oral poetry, poetic duelling, ethnography, gender in poetic duelling, mediterranean, island studies

Participants :
- University of Cyprus (Chypre) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 157941.12 €
Projet Multispeciesbiofilm (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Dairy industry is one of the largest food manufacturing sectors of Europe. Stainless steel is extensively used throughout the milk processing chain and is subjected to fouling leading to biofilm formation. Biofilms in the dairy industry pose a serious threat to the quality and safety of food products. Most studies on bacterial biofilms of the food industry have focused on single or dual species biofilms, negating the role of multispecies bacterial interaction, which is now considered to be a fundamental approach in studying biofilm community structure, spatial organization and factors underlying the biofilm formation on surfaces. Results of a recent project show that the food contact surfaces in the dairy industry in Belgium are contaminated with many different bacterial species, including several spoilers and spore-forming bacteria, which remain largely unaffected even after cleaning-in-place (CIP). Biofilm forming capacity of many of these species and their interaction, particularly the interaction between sporeformers and other non spore-forming bacteria such as Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas and Staphylococcus will be investigated. The objective is to model multispecies biofilms in different species combinations and monitor their behaviour and influence on each other from initial adherence to biofilm formation on a steel surface under conditions simulating real manufacturing operations. We plan to study the influence of simulated cleaning and disinfection techniques on the integrity of single and multispecies biofilms on stainless steel in a bioreactor based biofilm model. This project is multidisciplinary involving meta-transcriptomics, confocal laser scanning microscopy and a biosensor. This proposal includes a strong linkage opportunity between the host and two secondment partners. Successful completion of this project will lead to more fundamental understanding of the formation of biofilms in food industrial practice.

Mots clés : biofilms, food industry, biosensor, bioreactor, confocal laser scanning microscopy, metatranscriptomics

Participants :
- Instituut voor Landbouw en Visserijonderzoek (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 178320.0 €
Projet LxDP (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Danish is generally believed to be an especially difficult language to acquire for non-native learners. Since research shows that language proficiency plays an important role in both socio-cultural integration and employability of immigrants, the recent influx of immigrants from non-Western countries to Denmark call for more knowledge on the linguistic problems facing non-native learners of Danish. Nevertheless, Danish as a non-native language is hugely understudied. The problems are generally believed to lie primarily in the intricacy of the sound system, especially in the complex phonological processes. Phonologists have argued that Danish phonology is relatively unnatural due to the amount of discrepancy between the underlying abstract representation and the realised surface form of a sound as well as the many-to-many mappings between these two layers of representation. This analysis has led to theoretical predictions regarding the origins of difficulty, which currently have not been tested. The proposed project aims to test these theoretical predictions by investigating the effect of the different types of theoretically predicted difficulty on non-native speech learning. The effect of the different types of difficulty will be tested both in the comprehension direction and the production direction in order to get a thorough understanding of how unnatural aspects of Danish phonology affect non-native speech learning. The project will be the first to approach non-native speech learning of Danish from a laboratory perspective, thereby extending the scientific domain of the field. The outcome of the project provides a stepping stone to improve language teaching materials for non-native learners and better prepare language teachers, which is clearly called for as research shows that language school students find pronunciation the most difficult aspect of the Danish language and report that pronunciation receives the least attention in their Danish classes.

Mots clés : phonology, danish as a non native language, speech comprehension, speech production

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

Dark matter constitutes approximately 85 % of our Milky Way galaxy. Relic axions and Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are two of the most promising candidates for dark matter. Axions were proposed to explain the invariance of the two discrete symmetries P and CP, in strong interactions while the rest of the Standard Model (SM) violates them. While relic axions were produced in abundance during the big bang, axion-like-particles are produced in stars due to Compton-like and bremsstrahlung processes. The axion-like-particles produced in Sun are called the solar axions. Because the solar axions are relativistic, they are a candidate for hot dark matter. This project aims at detecting the solar axion interaction and the diurnal and annual modulation of light dark matter particles in the silicon of the state-of-the-art Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) sensor array of the DarkSide-20k experiment. The proposed search would be first of its kind. This project involves training in new and advanced research techniques which will pave the way towards a successful career in astroparticle physics for the applicant and the transfer of knowledge to the host institution.

Mots clés : solar axions, silicon photomultipliers, sipm module

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet Finch Evo-Devo (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Darwin’s finches display an extremely high beak shape diversity associated with occupation of various ecological niches. They are the classic textbook example of adaptive radiation under natural selection. The supervisor of this proposal – Dr. Arkhat Abzhanov and colleagues previously used a combination of morphometrics, comparative developmental genetic and functional tests to reveal basic principles underlying beak shape morphogenesis. They showed that the enormous beak diversity in Darwin’s finches could be reduced to three “group shapes” (A, B, and C) and revealed molecular mechanisms causing the scaling–based variation within group “A”, but not yet the processes underlying the more complex shear-based saltational transformation that produced variation between groups. The main objective of this project is to identify the developmental programs underlying the leaps of beak shape diversification during Darwin’s finches’ adaptive radiation – the variation between “group shapes”. I will employ an extensive whole-transcriptome sequencing (RNAseq) screen to search for novel transcripts whose gene expression is associated with the group shape-specific beak curvatures. This will be complemented with genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify upstream regulators of the actual effector molecules that cause the phenotype. I will validate the best candidates by gain- and loss-of-function tests using retroviral vectors on developing chicken and zebrafinch embryos to reveal their roles in beak morphogenesis. This project will provide novel insights on intrinsic mechanisms that facilitate adaptive morphological diversity, will offer an opportunity for interdisciplinary research interactions and will generate resources valuable to the entire biological community.

Mots clés : evolutionary developmental biology, evolutionary developmental genetics, evo devo, rnaseq, gwas, darwin s finches, morphogenesis, craniofacial development, evolvability, aves

Participants :
- Imperial College London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet DEDS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Doctoral Networks - Joint Doctorates
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Data is a key asset in modern society. Data Science, which focuses on deriving valuable insight and knowledge from raw data, is indispensable for any economic, governmental, and scientific activity. Data Engineering provides the data ecosystem (i.e., data management pipelines, tools and services) that makes Data Science possible. The European Joint Doctorate in Data Engineering for Data Science (DEDS) will develop education, research, and innovation at the intersection of Data Science and Data Engineering. The objective is to provide holistic support for the end-to-end management of the full lifecycle of data, from capture to exploitation by data scientists. DEDS is the only doctoral programme worldwide with this focus, which is crucial for realizing the next generation of Data Science breakthroughs. DEDS is jointly organised by Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain), Aalborg Universitet (Denmark), and the Athena Research and Innovation Institute (Greece). Partner organisations from research, industry and the public sector prominently contribute to the programme by training students and providing secondments in a wide range of domains including Energy, Finance, Health, Transport, and Customer Relationship and Support. DEDS is a 3-year doctoral programme based on a co-tutelle model. A complementary set of joint doctoral projects focus on the main aspects of holistic management of the full data lifecycle. Each doctoral project is co-supervised by two beneficiaries and includes a secondment in a partner organisation, which grounds the research in practice and validate the proposed solutions. DEDS delivers innovative training comprising technical and transversal courses, four jointly organized summer and winter schools, as well as dissemination activities including open science events and a final conference. Upon graduation, a joint degree from the universities of the co-tutelle will be awarded.

Mots clés : data science, data engineering, data magement, data anlytics

Participants :
- Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 1025280.0 €
- Athena Research and Innovation Center In Information Communication & Knowledge Technologies (Grèce) — Partner, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 729052.92 €
- Aalborg University (Danemark) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 1190088.0 €
- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Espagne) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 1003619.52 €
Projet BetMon (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Fitness is a key concept in basic and applied ecology, and its traits are used to assess habitat quality and derive scientific knowledge used to design and implement management and conservation measures. Assessing fitness requires considering several traits and trade-offs, and long-term data sets with individual identification that are rarely available. As a result fitness proxies such as offspring production are often used as substitute but these do not consider variation in offspring survival and lifespan, which accounts for most variation in fitness is in long-lived species, like many endangered vertebrates. Many studies, and decisions supported by them, involve unknown biases as consequence of the knowledge gap in the relationship between fitness and: the reliability of each proxy; trade-offs among different proxies; and among proxy/monitoring-effort combinations. This fellowship has secured access to several high-quality, long-term wildlife monitoring data sets to gain insights in: the trade-offs and factors affecting individual fitness; the reliability of commonly used fitness proxies; and the assessment of bias and accuracy of short- medium-term monitoring programs focusing on different proxies. While working in leading European research groups and gaining excellent training ecological concepts and theory and up-to-date analytical frameworks and methods, the fellow will : (1) provide high quality ecological knowledge on factors determinant of individual fitness and their trade-offs, and on factors explaining offspring recruitment; (2) assess of the reliability of commonly used fitness proxies; and (3) develop best practice and improvements for short-term monitoring protocols used in research, and management and conservation science.


Participants :
- University of Aberdeen (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet LIsTEN (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Flaviviral infections already represent a threat to 2.5 billion people living in tropical and sub-tropical regions. As a consequence of climate change and global warming in the near future these infections are expected to spread to areas with moderate climate and the possibility of disease outbreak will exist in Europe, especially around the Mediterranean and Adriatic coast, as well as in the United States of America and large parts of Asia. At the moment no medical treatment against flaviviral diseases is available. Recently, peptide-based compounds which act as flaviviral NS3 protease inhibitors, emerged as potent agents against dengue virus (DENV), Zika virus (ZIKV) and West Nile virus (WNV). These compounds consist of two to four natural or unnatural amino acids and act by binding to the active site of the protease. Accordingly, the incorporation of an electrophilic warhead, a moiety which would facilitate the covalent binding of the inhibitor to the catalytic serine residue, into the peptide inhibitor represents a valuable strategy for the improvement of potency of such inhibitors. The goal of the proposed project is to investigate the potential of β-lactams as electrophilic warheads in DENV, ZIKV and WNV protease inhibitors. For that purpose, new β-lactam derivatives will be synthesized, coupled to peptide inhibitors previously developed by the host group and their affinity to the target will be evaluated by biochemical assays. The most potent compounds will be characterized in more detail and their activity against dengue virus replication in cell culture, off-target binding, membrane permeability and metabolic stability will be studied. We expect the formation of a covalent bond between inhibitor and active site of the enzyme to significantly improve inhibitory activity by increasing binding affinity, as well as to ameliorate selectivity and reduce off-target binding.

Mots clés : lactam, flavivirus, protease, covalent inhibition

Participants :
- Heidelberg University (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 171460.8 €
Projet DIPHORES (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Flow containing suspended colloidal particles is found in a multitude of situations. Unexpected particle dynamics occur in the presence of local solute concentration gradients, due to cooperating and competing effects of particle migration driven by the solute gradients and advection. This particle migration, referred to as diffusiophoresis, is often accompanied by diffusioosmosis in which the solute gradients impose slip flows over solid surfaces. Recent investigations have shown that it is possible to achieve rapid particle focusing in micro-geometries by manipulating the properties of the solute, particle and flow, as well as the surface chemistry and configuration. This can be exploited for a plethora of applications. Most potential applications involve flow through porous media. Approaches for modelling flow through porous media at the Darcy scale are well established today, but their extension to introduce diffusiophoretic and diffusioosmotic net effects is not straight-forward, owing to their dependence on local effects at the pore scale. The combined study of diffusiophoresis and pore-scale flow dynamics has not been attempted to date. DIPHORES aims to carry out pore-scale simulations to study the interaction of diffusiophoresis and flow through porous media. The project activities include (a) development and implementation of a diffusiophoretic model a finite element code, (b) 2D and 3D pore-scale simulations and (c) upscaling of dynamics to the Darcy scale. The project will be conducted at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), with an internationally leading expertise in pore-scale simulations. Secondment at Université de Lausanne (UNIL) is aimed towards defining test cases to be reproduced experimentally in micromodels. Secondment at Repsol S. A., an energy company, is aimed to assess the potential of the research topic towards a practical application.

Mots clés : diffusiophoresis, porous media, pore scale simulations, navier stokes and advection diffusion equations, particle trapping, colloidal suspensions

Participants :
- Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 172932.48 €