Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet METABOLATE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Large bone defects display compromised healing associated with pronounced inflammation and constitute a major clinical problem. Recently, a range of novel biomaterial-based approaches have been engineered to promote bone regeneration. However, once these constructs are implanted, they encounter the harsh environment of damaged tissue and often fail to induce a regenerative response. With this MSCA Post-Doctoral Fellowship, I will address the clinical problem of large bone defect repair by harnessing extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from metabolically modulated macrophages to promote the immunogenic, angiogenic, and osteogenic response in the long-term healing cascade. Specifically, my research goal is to generate an immuno-engineered scaffold with these multitargeted regenerative EVs to maximise bone repair. The proposed multidisciplinary project will be carried out in the Tissue Engineering Research Group (TERG) at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), which is a leading partner in the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funded Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research Centre (AMBER) under the supervision of Prof. Annie Curtis. Additionally, as part of my project training plan, I will carry out a secondment in Trinity College Dublin, under the supervision of Prof. David Hoey, gaining expertise in materials for bone regeneration. At the end of the fellowship, with my non-academic placement at TAmiRNA, a biotech company specialising in diagnostic and therapeutic miRNAs, I will investigate the small RNA-cargo of the pro-regenerative EVs for the identification of new specific therapeutic targets. METABOLATE is a unique opportunity to acquire advanced research competencies and complementary skills through interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral training. This will allow me to mature as an independent scientist and to enrich my professional profile, preparing me for a multitude of career choices.

Mots clés : immunomodulatory biomaterials, bone regeneration, extracellular vesicles, immunoengineering, macrophage metabolism

Participants :
- Trinity College (Irlande) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 242476.2 €
- Tamirna gmbh (Autriche) — Partner, associated partner, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 0.0 €
Projet ORCHESTRA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

As super-diversity becomes an integral part of the modern youth's everyday reality, it is of vital importance for them to learn how to embrace differences, appreciate and value ‘otherness’, and develop positive relations with people of diverse backgrounds. Although the literature suggests that adolescence is an especially crucial period for the development of inter-ethnic attitudes, we still lack a clear understanding of how youth change their inter-ethnic attitudes across this developmental stage and which factors contribute to these changes. To address this important gap in knowledge and go beyond the state of the art, this project will analyze whether youth follow different developmental trajectories of inter-ethnic attitudes across adolescence and provide a comprehensive understanding of the role of school context in shaping these trajectories. The focus of this ambitious project is on attitudes in general, rather than only prejudice, since it will not only find ways to prevent negative outgroup dispositions, but also identify factors that might place youth on positive attitudinal trajectories during this critical developmental period. The project will utilize a mixed-method research design integrating quantitative (i.e., longitudinal large-scale panel data) and qualitative (i.e., semi-structured interviews and citizen science) approaches. The project will not limit its analysis to ethnic majority youth but will also focus on adolescents of various minority backgrounds (including newly arrived Ukrainian refugee adolescents) across different national contexts. New knowledge in this area will make a unique contribution to the theory advancement as well as provide an avenue for developing more personalized and effective programs and interventions aimed to facilitate positive inter-ethnic interactions among youth. The host is the perfect match for the successful realization of the project and provides a highly appropriate environment for the fellow's career growth.

Mots clés : inter ethnic attitudes, school context, adolescents, developmental trajectories, citizen science

Participants :
- Université de Mannheim (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 189687.36 €
Projet DynTideEOS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The discovery of a merging binary neutron star in 2017, GW170817, marked an historic moment in the field of astronomy. This ground-breaking observation, witnessed by both electromagnetic- and gravitational-wave instruments, unveiled a wealth of scientific insights while capturing worldwide public attention.  Neutron stars, with their extraordinarily dense interiors, are Nature's laboratory for dense nuclear matter, about which very little is currently known. While in the past, electromagnetic observatories have been the primary sources of neutron-star observations, the emergence of gravitational-wave astronomy, epitomised by GW170817, has introduced a novel dimension to the observational effort. The forthcoming generation of gravitational-wave interferometers will possess even greater sensitivities, but their scientific impact will rely on meticulous design choices, along with the development of advanced data-analysis methods and robust physical models. This proposal, DynTideEOS, will address these critical needs and contribute to the science capability of these instruments at a critical time for design decisions.  DynTideEOS considers the dynamical tide, which drives the oscillation modes of the neutron star when the binary is closely separated. This project will identify the dominant modes in the gravitational wave, extract valuable constraints on the nuclear-matter equation of state and pioneer a state-of-the-art gravitational-waveform model for the dynamical tide.  Dr Fabian Gittins, with his outstanding background in theoretical astrophysics, joins forces with Prof Chris van den Broeck, a world-leading expert in gravitational-wave observations at Utrecht University. DynTideEOS not only promises original contributions to neutron-star astrophysics and gravitational-wave astronomy, while setting the stage for rich insights into nuclear physics, but will also underscore Dr Gittins's research excellence with a strengthened connection to observational physics.

Mots clés : neutron stars, gravitational waves, equation of state, binaries, oscillations

Participants :
- Université d'Utrecht (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet ECoCT (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Circulation of seawater through the oceanic lithosphere represents the largest fluid-rock interaction system on Earth. As a volatile part of biological and geological cycles, carbon is profoundly affected by fluid-rock interactions. As gaseous CO2 and CH4, carbon is a greenhouse gas, and in the form of simple carboxylic acids, it is an energy source for subsurface life. However, our knowledge of carbon fluxes and the fate of especially organic carbon in hydrothermal systems remains limited. Detailed datasets of rock-dominated open system experiments and in situ identification of organic compounds are needed to determine the mechanism that controls CO2 fluxes and reactivity in the subsurface and to extend our knowledge of the deep biosphere. Conventional experiments often use closed system reactors, and microbiology studies often depend on bulk rock analyses. These methods only provide a first idea of the reactions occurring in the lithosphere. The project presented here aims to conduct novel open-system experiments to increase our understanding of environmental conditions and processes that control the in situ transformation and reactivity of carbon compounds within hydrothermal systems. Parameters influencing the reactivity will be disentangled by combining state-of-the-art element and microstructural analyses with new powerful 3D visualization methods. First, a better understanding of organic matter flow within the lithosphere is established. Afterward, a conceptual model for C-transformation will be developed by applying experiments in a monitored environment. Finally, the results will highlight the effect of coupled processes occurring at the pore scale on the carbonation rate and efficiency relevant to industrial implementation. ECoCT will allow me to improve my interdisciplinary skills and thinking, increase my professional network and gain experience in outreach and management, thus greatly enhancing my future career opportunities.

Mots clés : carbon cycle, fluid rock interaction, serpentinization, oceanic lithosphere, carbonation, open system experiments, deep biosphere

Participants :
- Université libre de Berlin (Allemagne) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université d'Utrecht (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet BBB-UT (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is estimated to affect more than 840 million people worldwide constituting a major global health crisis. Clinically, the number of CKD patients will continue to rise mostly because of the ageing population and the increased prevalence of comorbidities such as diabetes and hypertension. In Europe, around 100,000 million people are affected by it. According to the gloomy predictions, Europe is at risk of a dismal increase of CKD patients as well as costs to healthcare systems. Patients with advanced CKD display a loss of kidney function leading to a blood accumulation of, a.o. protein-bound uremic toxins (PBUTs) that are poorly eliminated by renal replacement therapies. This systemic retention known as the uremic syndrome affects other organs. Indeed, neurologic complications such as blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption have been reported in CKD patients. The BBB guarantees the exchange between the blood and the brain through a complex cellular organization and a diverse range of transport proteins mediates the movement of endo/exogenous compounds. I hypothesize that impairment of kidney tubular functionality in CKD causes an alteration of BBB integrity and function. This results in an aberrant BBB pass-through of PBUTs as well as impacts BBB vectorial transport capabilities. This fellowship aims to develop an appropriate multi-organs-on-chip device to accurately describe (i) the impact of PBUTs on BBB integrity and functionality, and (ii) the involvement of kidney-brain axis dysfunction in PBUTs-driven BBB disruption. We will develop a bioprinting-based microfluidic BBB-on-chip to accurately study BBB permeability, architecture, and transport function. This device will be connected to our established proximal tubule-on-chip to form a robust (kidney-brain) multi-organs-on-chip system. This project will pave the way toward the establishment of new and effective CKD therapies, and an expert system for pharmacology studies in a near future.

Mots clés : kidney brain crosstalk multi organs on chip biofabrication membrane transporters uremic syndrome blood brain barrier

Participants :
- Université d'Utrecht (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet BRCA-RLT (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Despite current advances in prostate cancer (PCa) treatment, 10 to 20% of PCa will evolve to a metastatic stage, where the overall survival is 14 months. Radioligand therapy (RLT) is a new, promising treatment consisting in the injection of a radiolabelled vector. In PCa, this therapy targets Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen, which is overexpressed on PCa cells compared to other tissues. RLT has been shown to increase the overall survival of patients in clinical trials, but in order to improve its efficiency and identify possible biomarkers for patient selection, tumour response mechanisms must be studied. Especially, some reports indicate that deficiency in DNA Damage Response (DDR) genes could be correlated to an increased sensitivity of tumour cells towards RLT. In PCa, one of the most frequent deficient DDR gene is Breast cancer 2 (BRCA2), which is correlated with bad prognosis. In addition, retrospective studies showed a potential link between BRCA2 deficiency and a modulation of the immune response, which also influences treatment response. Therefore BRCA2 deficiency could impact both the immune response and RLT outcome. In this project, I will investigate the impact of BRCA2deficiency on RLT response. Both the tumour DDR and immunogenicity will be assessed, in order to view the treatment response as a whole. These studies will be conducted in vitro in murine and human PCa cell lines and in in vivo murine model. Results of my project will show the impact of BRCA2 deficiency on RLT outcome and whether BRCA2 status could be used as a biomarker to predetermine potential good responders to RLT. Besides contributing to the fundamental scientific advancement on the effect of BRCA2 deficiency in RLT response, I also aim to raising the awareness of these principles in the scientific community and other stakeholders such as clinicians. This will open the way to development of potential biomarker of good response to this new treatment

Mots clés : radioligand therapy, dna damage repair, immune response, prostate cancer

Participants :
- Université Érasme de Rotterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet PHIDELITY (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Virus infections cause a major healthcare burden worldwide. The neurotropic human herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) establishes life-long latent infection in neurons, from which it frequently reactivates to disseminate within the population. Clinical complications caused by HSV-1 infections range from mild (herpes labialis) to sight- (keratitis) and even life-threatening diseases (encephalitis). Prevention and treatment of HSV-1 infections are considered a top priority by the WHO. However, development of vaccines and improved therapeutic approaches is hindered by our incomplete understanding of the virus-host interactions that govern infection and disease, especially the interplay between HSV-1 and intrinsic neuronal defenses. The highly conserved cellular RNA degradation pathway nonsense-mediated decay (NMD), which regulates expression of ~10% of cellular transcripts and controls numerous fundamental processes, has recently emerged as an important regulator of neuronal function. Based on my previous postdoctoral studies that revealed a major role for NMD in controlling infection by oncogenic human herpesviruses combined with my preliminary data on HSV-1, I hypothesize that NMD provides an intrinsic defense mechanism that controls HSV-1 infection. In this fellowship, I propose to combine my experience and the expertise of the host institute to determine the physiological relevance and molecular mechanism by which NMD controls HSV-1 infection in its natural human host. Successful completion of my project will lead to improved insight into the virus-host interactions that control infection of HSV-1, thereby providing novel therapeutic targets to combat HSV-1 infection and pathogenesis. Moreover, the extensive and multidisciplinary training in research and transferrable skills provided by this fellowship will be invaluable for my goal of becoming an all-round competitive scientist leading an independent research group focused on intrinsic immunity to neurotropic viruses.

Mots clés : human herpesvirus, nonsense mediated decay, herpes simplex virus, trigeminal ganglion, neuron, neurotropic viruses

Participants :
- Université Érasme de Rotterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet GenderedMinerals (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

This project fills a significant gap in political ecology literature by critically assessing, through an ecological, decolonial feminist lens, the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). The CRMA aims to secure and govern new and existing supply chains for the green and digital transitions. An extensive political ecology and critical development studies literature considers neocolonialism and green imperialism when it comes to Global North and EU efforts to secure mineral supplies in producer countries abroad. While gendered dynamics and a masculine ethos, I hypothesize, play a vital role when it comes to EU critical raw materials regulation and policy, the scholarly literature is sorely lacking a feminist theoretical lens and methodological approach to the CRMA’s material and symbolic dimensions. The project objective is therefore to bring an ecological feminist lens to the EU’s growing involvement in securing and governing supply chains of critical raw materials, focusing on the CRMA and its strategic partnership with the Democratic Republic of Congo. This includes examining legal developments, institutional dynamics, and views at EU level, not yet sufficiently explored. Analysis of the role of corporations in the perpetuation of patriarchal, colonial dynamics – through corporate lobbying and action at the epicenter of empire (the EU) – is a key part of this project, given corporate players’ integral involvement with CRMA development. I will creatively combine traditional research methods associated with political science and IR (such as semi-structured interviews and participation in high-level events) with ethnographic and open-ended methods such as participant observation, story-telling, non-linear narratives, and artistic expression. In this manner the project will bring foreground alternative visions of green and just transition, while allowing me to develop my conceptual and methodological skills and profile as an ecological feminist researcher.

Mots clés : critical raw materials global supply chains european union democratic republic of the congo ecological feminism

Participants :
- Université d'Utrecht (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 232916.16 €
Projet HoloNS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

My research project aims at using holographic methods to acquire insight into the properties of dense matter in the core of neutron stars. The latter are hard to predict due to the strength of interactions, that requires non-perturbative methods. A promising approach that is able to produce unambiguously non-perturbative results, is given by the holographic correspondence. In this project, I will apply the holographic correspondence in the regime of dense matter, with two main objectives. My first goal is to determine the phases of neutron star matter in holography. I will construct the holographic dual of dense baryonic matter, and extract relevant physical properties, including the neutron star equation of state, and the location of the transition to deconfined quark matter. I will also include the effects of isospin imbalance, to determine whether or not it can generate mesonic condensates in the core of neutron stars. My second objective is to understand the transport properties of dense holographic matter. These properties are relevant for neutron stars dynamics in a merger or during a supernova. In such events, the evolution contains two components : the strongly coupled baryonic matter that equilibrates fast, and is thus controlled by hydrodynamics, and the neutrino fluid, which is typically out of equilibrium. Both the hydrodynamics of the baryonic medium and the neutrino transport will be investigated. My results will be compared with available experimental constraints, and existing models proposed for the description of dense matter.

Mots clés : holographic qcd neutron stars dense nuclear matter phases of qcd qcd transport neutrino transport

Participants :
- Université d'Utrecht (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 232916.16 €
Projet TrueClim (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Recent research has increasingly highlighted that species and community distributions are not simply tracking climate change. Indeed, significant delays in species distribution responses, and even unexpected downward or equator-ward shifts have all been observed. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these mismatches, such as slow population dynamics, habitat fragmentation or spread-limiting biotic interactions. Yet, the hypothesis forwarded here is that we first need the relevant baseline climate change data before we can accurately answer this question. Indeed, organisms respond to microclimate change, which can be strongly disconnected from macroclimate change. It is the local temperatures near the ground or below the vegetation - often tens of degrees different from weather station data - that set the bounds of organisms’ range limits. In this project, we will take advantage of the SoilTemp-database, a global database of more than 100,000 in-situ measured microclimate time series. I will use it to make global predictions of the rate of microclimate change over time. These new global microclimate data products will then be used to improve field-based estimates of the velocity of plant species’ distribution range shifts. These improved estimates of species’ reactions to climate change are critically needed to adjust biodiversity management to a rapidly changing world.

Mots clés : microclimate change, species redistributions, climate change, biodiversity management

Participants :
- Université d'Utrecht (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 232916.16 €