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

One of the greatest minds of antiquity was no doubt Aristotle. He is usually studied or read as a philosopher. However, his entire life, Aristotle was also a researcher, fascinated by history. His most important historical work is his huge collection of Constitutions, which were a gold mine of unique information on the history and organization of the Greek city-states. Only the Athenian Constitution survives almost in its entirety. Of the other constitutions all that remains are "fragments," i.e. citations in extant writers, and the epitome by Heraclides Lembus. There are many editions and studies of the Athenian Constitution, but nothing comparable is found for the other constitutions. Therefore, my project will focus on the fragmentarily preserved constitutions, more specifically the 44 constitutions which were also included by Heraclides. My aim is to define the content and structure of the fragmentary Constitutions, study the link with Aristotle’s political philosophy, explore his reception and the relation to other ancient writers and identify the sources, method, historical value and authorship. For this purpose I will make an edition, translation and commentary of the fragments, which will be published as a book by Brill. This research will fill a major research gap in our knowledge of Aristotle’s lost works and his impact on western civilization. The Constitutions also offer valuable information on the political system and culture of many Greek cities. Ancient Greece is usually considered the ancestor of our modern democracy, but the reality is much more nuanced than we often make it out to be. The Constitutions can help us better understand the ancient world, which may serve as a mirror for modern discussions about justice, power, autonomy and government. LMU will be the perfect host for this project, since it gathers world-class authorities on Aristotle and hosts the Bavarian State Library, which contains one of the best classics collections in the world.

Mots clés : aristotle, constitutions, fragments, edition, political philosophy, history and organization of greek city states, greek historiography

Participants :
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159460.8 €
Projet HsrELPnano (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

One of the main challenges in drug delivery is the fabrication of carriers that possess a molecular trigger or property that induces tumor cell death or activates the release of the drug cargo from the vehicle once it has reached the desired place of action. Elastin like polypeptides (ELPs) are genetically engineered protein polymers with a reversible ability to from nanoparticles by phase separation when they are above its transition temperature (Tt), while below Tt they remain solubilized. My proposal aims to study a cutting-edge finding about a recently discovered thermal pathway-dependent assembly of ELPs and translate it into innovative solutions in drug delivery. This unique feature allows protein payloads to partake in the co-assembly itself making possible to encapsulate and protect the macromolecular cargoes in the nanoparticle interior. Additionally, I will expand this encapsulation possibilities to magnetic nanoparticles. HsrELPnano will enlarge the scope of the pathway-dependent co-assembly of ELPs. A further understanding and control of these assembly mechanisms will contribute to expanding the toolbox of stimuli-responsive systems, especially to their application as drug delivery systems. The final goal is to design novel ELP nanocarriers that can deliver a treatment in vivo under specific stimuli as pH, redox environment by therapeutic agents and magnetic hyperthermia. To carry out this project, ELPs will be engineered to assemble into nanoparticles above physiological temperature followed by internal crosslinking to retain their structure also below the Tt. Since the crosslinkers can be designed to render this susceptibility to specific triggers the coacervates will disassemble under these stimuli, releasing their payload within the target tissue. This action will enhance my future career prospects and skills, fulfilling an end-to-end training from synthesis to application, which is highly appealing in this multidisciplinary field.

Mots clés : stimuli responsive, polypeptides, recombinant proteins, drug delivery systems, nanocarriers, hyperthermia

Participants :
- Eindhoven University of Technology (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187572.48 €
Projet EMTECS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

One of the most challenging aspects of Suzuki-Miyaura reactions is the stereospecific cross-coupling of sp3 substituted boronic esters with aryl halides. Recently, the host group developed a metal-free, stereospecific cross-coupling reaction of chiral alkyl boronates with electron-rich aromatics, promoted by the use of electrophilic oxidants. This proposal seeks to substantially extend this cross-coupling chemistry through the application of a range of different electrophiles that will not only mediate the cross-coupling process, but also remain in the final product, creating multiple carbon–carbon bonds stereospecifically. In particular, the application of electrophilic organometallic species will be investigated so as to take advantage of the power of metal catalysts in the formation of carbon–carbon bonds. Through the use of this strategy, doubly functionalised enantiopure aromatic compounds may be formed in a very efficient three-component coupling process that utilises readily accessible enantiopure alkyl boronic esters, electron-rich aromatics and catalytically generated organometallic electrophiles.

Mots clés : cross coupling, boronic esters, enantiospecific

Participants :
- University of Bristol (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet BMC Rendering (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

One of the most challenging problems in computer graphics (CG) is to synthesize physically-based realistic images given an accurate model of a virtual scene. Rendering a photo-realistic image requires solving the illumination integral which describes the light transport on a scene, and whose value is in general computed by resorting to numerical approximations such as those based on Monte Carlo (MC) methods. The quality of the approximation of those methods is strongly dependent on the samples placement and weighting. Therefore several works have focused on improving the purely random sampling used in classic MC techniques. In particular, a recent and innovative approach called Bayesian Monte Carlo (BMC) has been proven to greatly outperform classic MC methods due to its ability to incorporate prior knowledge which is then used for careful samples weighting and placement. This method was successfully applied in rendering by Brouillat et al. (2009) but only for diffuse materials. Recently, Marques et al. (2013) have generalized the application of BMC to non-diffuse materials. These works have confirmed the potential of BMC for efficiently solving the rendering integral, making it a new trend in computer graphics. Nevertheless, the use of BMC in CG is still in an incipient phase and its application to more evolved and widely used rendering algorithms remains cumbersome. We propose a research plan with a double objective: first, to develop an adaptive sampling strategy for BMC integration, where a new set of samples is used to further improve the approximation of the previous integral estimate. Second, to apply BMC to higher dimension problems such as path tracing, where the integration over all possible ray paths turns the approximation into a high-dimension integration problem, hence addressing the holy grail of the integration in light transport simulation: the curse of dimensionality.

Mots clés : computer graphics, globarl illumination, ray tracing, bayesian monte carlo

Participants :
- Pompeu Fabra University (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 158121.6 €
Projet FIREMAN (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Statut du projet : CLOSED

One of the most challenging tasks in ecology is to reclaim landscapes being disturbed by anthropogenic activities. Many human endeavours have been put forth for improving microbial activities and their structures, soil organic carbon level and plant reestablishment after depleting the top earth. Global use of pyrogenic carbon shows promising prospect on C sequestration and soil restoration, but there is a noticeable delayed advancement in improving its benefits. In accordance to UN Climate Smart Agriculture and UN Sustainable Development Goals, this project will seek a novel strategy for soil restoration by using pyrogenic carbon and core microbial communities (CBMs), to gain multiple benefits including aspects of waste management, C sequestration and plant regeneration. The project will make use of unique habitats for CBMs selection at both a long-term natural successional post mining site and a well-recorded reclaimed meadow in Czech Republic, Central Europe. The main objective of this project is to assess if pyrogenic carbon could ensure the function of CBMs during their transplantations from donor to recipient soils: 1) disentangle the ‘refuge’ effect of pyrogenic carbon on CBMs from macro-fauna by isotopic analysis, and microbial oxidation effect on pore structures and hydrophobicity of pyrogenic carbon, and 2) clarify the compositions of CBMs and their functions to responsive plant species in undeveloped soils. The transfer of knowledge between the host institution and the candidate will pave a solid way for the researcher’s scientific career, and future collaborations between the researcher, the host and the secondment are foreseen. Altogether, this project will provide a promising potential to increase the competitiveness of EU in using bio-wastes and soil inoculants for circular economy by bridging in waste management and soil restoration.

Mots clés : pyrogenic carbon, thermal pyrolysis, core micorbial communities, inoculation, plant soil feedback, faunal grazing, sequencing, c sequestration

Participants :
- Czech Academy of Sciences (Rép. Tchèque) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 156980.64 €
Projet Epigenome_embryo (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

One of the most intriguing questions in biology is how a single cell (zygote) is generated that has the potential to give rise to all cell types of an organism, known as totipotency. The overall purpose of this project is to gain mechanistic insights into the establishment of the totipotent state, in terms of 3D chromatin organization and zygotic genome activation (ZGA), summarized in two key aims: i)To test whether and how epigenetic reprogramming modulates the 3D chromatin structure in zygotes: The generation of a zygote is accompanied by Tet3-dependent active DNA demethylation of the paternal genome and asymmetry in histone modifications between the parental genomes. Whether this alters chromatin organization and promotes transcription is poorly understood. To test this, I will perturb Tet3 activity and perform single nucleus Hi-C (snHi-C) of zygotes to determine changes in genome architecture. In addition, I will study the effect of the absence of Kdm4a on the different histone marks and the consequent potential effect on chromatin architecture. This work will provide the first insights into how epigenetic reprogramming alters chromatin organization. ii) To study the mechanism of ZGA: The activation of embryonic transcription is crucial for the development of an organism. However, the essential activators of ZGA in mammals remain largely unidentified. Based on work in Drosophila, a leading hypothesis is that ZGA is triggered by pioneer transcription factors. To identify these, I will participate in a targeted knockdown screen in embryos to identify factors required for ZGA. I will focus on one potential candidate and generate transgenic mouse strains to study its function in early embryos. This high-risk high-gain aim has the potential to identify novel regulators of the mammalian ZGA.

Mots clés : dna demethylation, histone modification, chromatin architecture, totipotency, zygotic genome activation, zygotic reprogramming

Participants :
- Austrian Academy of Sciences (Autriche) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 174167.04 €
Projet SCALE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

One of the most pervasive laws in biology is the maintenance of the relationship between organ sizes among individuals, populations and/or species. The existence of such allometric scaling, together with the fact that most of the organ growth regulators are pleiotropic, suggests that the same genes are controlling the size of different organs. Yet, in many instances during evolution, the morphological scaling relationship among organs has been modified and new relationships have evolved. How allometry is maintained and evolve at the molecular level is, however, poorly understood. It is equally unclear how identity factors influence growth processes in different organs. We hypothesise that organ identity factors quantitatively modulate the expression of general growth regulators through chromatin-based mechanisms that modify their sensitivity to hormonal signals. I will test this hypothesis by studying the molecular basis of one prominent example of allometric scaling evolution in plants, the decrease in flower size after the transition to selfing, using a combination of genomics, molecular genetics and cell biology approaches. This work will determine how organ growth is affected, spatially and temporally, by organ identity and highlight the molecular mechanisms quantitatively regulating the transcription of general growth regulators, determining the size of different organs.

Mots clés : development evolution, growth, gene transcription, flower, petal, capsella

Participants :
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203852.16 €
Projet ItsAllAboutMotion (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

One of the most significant current discussions in the understanding of the human brain is the functional recruitment of some regions of the cortex for specific tasks, regardless the sensory modality (e.g. visual, tactile or auditory) in which the stimuli is received. The ability to perceive motion, among others visual properties, is a fundamental faculty of the human brain. The predisposition to detect motion is present since the first months of life and is one of the main prerequisites for a child’s healthy brain development. Brain lesions that impair the detection and processing of motion have a profound impact on daily activity. Consequently, visual motion processing is one of the most fundamental and well-studied systems in the human brain, canonically known to develop mainly for the purpose of visual perception. The aim of this proposal is to elucidate in humans whether the functional recruitment and specialization of the visual motion system is independent of the sensory modality in which the stimuli are perceived, to characterize the sensory independent functional mesoscopic architecture within the brain regions involved and to establish their causal role in perception. I will answer these questions using advanced methods such as ultra-high field fMRI at 7T, intracranial electrodes, transcranial magnetic stimulation and advanced neural based analyses. The integrated approach I propose here provides a unique multiangle perspective to investigate the neural substrate of multisensory processes. The fact that motion sensitive brain regions exhibit sensory-independent responses and that the same neuronal ensemble may respond to aspecific sensory features will challenge our notions on brain sensory segregation and functional development and will impact other high-level cognition studies at large. Moreover, it will provide essential knowledge for novel research on sensory substitution devices for rehabilitation in sensory-impaired individuals.

Mots clés : motion processing, 7t fmri, multisensory, functional specialization

Participants :
- University Hospital of Lausanne (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche), subvention : 203149.44 €
Projet HONEST (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Economic Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

One relevant cost category in the healthcare system are wages. The hospital setting in Switzerland, where wages can differ widely, is attractive because it enables an examination of the impact of wages on patient safety. We would expect that once wages differ within hospitals, it will cause differences in recruitment and retention, especially of well-trained workers, as satisfactory wage is a known significant factor in job-seeking behaviour and is important in keeping hospital workers in their current positions. Lacking well-trained workers in turn should lead to worse service quality and thus to worse patient safety. Current research has shown that hospitals with well-trained nurse staffing and work environments have better nurse and patient outcomes. However, many researchers fail to account for wage effects, the neglect of which may confound findings. Objectives: To describe physician and nurse wages in Swiss hospitals and to identify their main drivers (aim 1). To assess the association between physician and nurse wage and patient safety (aim 2). To conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis and a budget impact analysis of hospitals’ investments in nurses’ and physicians’ wages. (aim 3). Methodology: I will access 2 datasets from The Swiss Federal Statistical Office: the hospital statistics (4 subsets on the hospital level) and the medical statistics (inpatient episodes in the hospital on individual level). To test my hypothesis (aim 1, 2), I will use regression analyses with the wage per full-time equivalent as dependent variable. I will adjust the results for employers’ characteristics on the hospital level and individual patient characteristics as possible confounding variables. As the dataset is large (>1.2 million cases/year), I will use also Generalized Additive Models in order to adjust for clustering. Besides regression analysis, I will perform also Bayesian analysis in order to explore uncertainty of the results estimate. All analyses will be conducted in R

Mots clés : health workforce, healthcare quality, wages drivers, hospital employment, patient safety, healthcare expenditures, well trained nurses and physicians

Participants :
- University of Basel (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191149.44 €
Projet JOLI (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Oocyte production is a key feature of animal development, comprising a series of carefully regulated events. This project will exploit a new experimental model, the hydrozoan Clytia hemisphaerica, to analyse by live imaging approaches the entire process of oogenesis in isolated female gonads from stem cell to oocyte for the first time. Analyses will focus on early events largely inaccessible in existing animal models, covering the transition from mitotic proliferation of germ cell precursors to meiotic entry. Key events include homologous chromosome pairing, synaptonemal complex formation, and meiotic double strand break formation. Clytia gonads are optically clear, simply organised and maintain oocyte production for several days ex-vivo. The three specific project objectives are 1) to define the spatiotemporal progression of early oogenesis through molecular cartography of the different precursor pools and cell morphology characterisation; 2) to establish conditions for long term imaging, including development of fluorescent markers; 3) to address the function of the key enzyme Spo11 by combining live imaging with CRISPR-mediated gene knockout, monitoring the movements of homologous chromosomes during pairing and identifying the sites of synaptonemal complex polymerisation. This multifaceted project represents a thematic shift for the applicant and involves a new collaboration between expert labs with complementary strengths in developmental, molecular, and cellular biology. Two-way transfer of knowledge will enable the candidate to develop new skills (microscopy, live imaging, transgenics) whilst introducing her existing expertise with cnidarian biology and bioinformatics to the host labs. The project will improve understanding of the cellular and molecular dynamics of meiosis, establish a new experimental model for oogenesis studies, and provide the candidate with a solid foundation of complementary experience to fulfill her long term career objectives.

Mots clés : germline, jellyfish, meiosis, synaptonemal complex, reproduction

Participants :
- Collège de France (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 196707.84 €