Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ACoDM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The environment is an ever changing system to which an animal has to properly respond in order to survive. Decisions are made in unfamiliar situations, where risk assessment critically impacts the decision making; or based on previous experience, where the animal has prior knowledge of possible outcomes. Decision making is a complex process that requires the interplay of multiple neural structures and constant re-evaluation of the outcomes that involve emotional factors. The brain structure most linked to emotion and affective behaviour is the amygdala and its aberrant function caused by lesions or neurodegenerative diseases is associated with impaired decision-making. The proposed research aims to understand the affective aspects of circuit mechanisms underlying decision making. Specifically, the role of an understudied pathway, the amygdalostriatal projection (basal amygdala, BA to dorsomedial striatum, DMS), in decision making; and the synaptic mechanisms underlying the interaction of this input with the well-known corticostriatal pathway (prelimbic cortex, PrL to DMS). Thus, a first goal aims to reveal the function of the BA inputs to DMS in an approach-avoidance conflict and to assess the association of neural activity with decision making behaviour. The second goal aims to uncover circuit mechanisms underlying the control of DMS neuron spiking by the amygdalostriatal pathway and how the cortical and amygdalar inputs impact each other in controlling the DMS activity. These experiments will reveal the role of BA projection in decision-making at DMS level and how the PrL and BA inputs affect neuron activity at single cell level, results that can elucidate the role of the convergent amygdalostriatal and corticostriatal pathways in control of DMS function. Our findings will elucidate the participation of the amygdala in a functional circuit involving the DMS and uncover how it enables efficacious development of optimal strategies during decision making.

Mots clés : amygdala, decision making, emotional processing, dorsomedial striatum, prefrontal cortex

Participants :
- Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Hongrie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 139850.88 €
Projet ICaRMuSs (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The epithelium in the airways and gastrointestinal track are covered by a mucus layer which protects the epithelium from mechanical and microbial insults. The most abundant proteins in the mucus layer are mucins which are synthesized and secreted by goblet cells. Mucus function is largely dictated by mucin composition and goblet cells can modify their secretory properties to adapt to the continuous changes the epithelium is encountered with. Mucins are heavily glysosylated and packed into secretory vesicles in the Golgi apparatus. A calcium signal triggers the fusion of the secretory vesicles with the plasma membrane releasing mucins to the extracellular space. The role of intragranular calcium remains a mayor gap in our understanding of mucin physiology and how goblet cells precisely control mucus composition remains only a matter of speculation. These are highly relevant questions as defects in mucin secretion cause mucus abnormalities, epithelial stress and dysfunction that can lead to microbial deleterious infections, chronic inflammation and more aggressive pathologies such as cystic fibrosis, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In this project I will address how calcium regulates the trafficking, sorting and secretion of mucins, filling current gaps in our understanding of mucus physiology. I will genetically engineer mucin-secreting cells with the CRISPR/Cas9 tools to add GFP and RFP to MUC5AC and MUC2 loci and describe granular composition by super resolution microscopy and FACS. I will use a first-in its kind probe to measure intragranular calcium concentration and finally I will purify secretory granules and sequence them with mass spectrometry to determine which membrane proteins are important for mucin secretion. This project will allow me to apply my experience in highly relevant questions in cell biology and it will also enhance my creative and innovative potential through advanced training and international mobility.

Mots clés : mucus, mucin, secretion, calcium, golgi, protein sorting, exocytosis, microscopy, crispr, mass spectrometry, super resolution

Participants :
- Centre for Genomic Regulation (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 172932.48 €
Projet MIRROR (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The evaluation of trawling impact on the productivity of demersal fish species is a crucial knowledge to maintain the yield from wild-capture fisheries and to cope with the global increasing demand of sea proteins. Under this scenario, the study of patterns of trawling disturbance (TD) at relevant scale to provide realistic management strategies will represent a challenge to next generation scientists. TD generates a multi-faced combination of direct (e.g. displacement of population structure of commercial species targets) and indirect (e.g. food-web alteration) effects contributing to the likelihood of resource limitation and hence stability of the whole marine ecosystem. The indirect effects are still understudied. It remains still largely unknown how the alteration of benthic dynamics due to chronic trawling disturbance can trigger unpredictable cascade effects involving most ecological components impairing the system to cope with the natural environmental variability. MIRROR aims to investigate the TD effects on the diet and condition of a target species (Mullus barbatus) in the Western Mediterranean Sea through the mechanisms of competitor and benthic prey reduction by the fishing activity. MIRROR will explore the effects that changes in fish condition can have on life-history traits (e.g. growth and reproductive potential). Understanding the link between TD, condition and LH traits represents a stepping stone for the inclusion of condition as an indicator for the management of exploited species. MIRROR’s outcomes may allow the identification of TD thresholds to achieve a desired mean optimal condition. The integration of results will be used to inform stakeholders and policy makers suggesting measures to promote a sustainable fishery by minimizing impacts and ensuring productive and healthy fish population, as recommended by national and international directives and required when setting certification standard and ecolabels.

Mots clés : trawling disturbance, fish life history traits, ecosystem based fishery management, ecosystem integrity, sustainability

Participants :
- Universitat de les Illes Balears (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 160932.48 €
Projet DELIGHT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The evolution from 5G to the next-generation wireless system will call for a more radical change than any occurred among the previous generations: at the network level, flexible device-centric architectures will alleviate the need for centralized coordination; at the device level, operating frequencies will massively migrate to mmWave bands to exploit the large amount of available bandwidth. The project's core idea is that the design of a flexible network architecture and the implementation of low-complexity, energy-efficient mmWave hardware are interconnected physical-layer research problems. The proposed project thus represents the first attempt towards the joint network- and device-level design and optimization of beyond-5G wireless systems. Its ultimate goal is to provide a unified view of the types of network and hardware that are necessary to deliver tailored services for current and emerging wireless applications under a common and sustainable physical infrastructure. More specifically, it has the following main objectives: i) develop new theoretical knowledge on application-specific device coordination and novel distributed resource allocation schemes to support the coexistence of network- and device-centric mechanisms; ii) provide new analytical insights into the performance-complexity tradeoff in beam-space processing and low-resolution ADCs/DACs for mmWave communications; iii) analyze the interplay between network- and device-level design parameters for a given service/application. Relevant emerging wireless frameworks, such as cell-free massive MIMO and D2D-aided multicasting, will be considered. The proposed research involves advanced mathematical skills and interconnects expertise from communication/information theory, signal processing, and (distributed) optimization theory. Given the largely unexplored research field, the proposed project brings tremendous opportunities to break new intellectual grounds and make concrete contributions to society.

Mots clés : beam space processing, beyond 5g, cell free massive mimo, d2d aided multicasting, device level coordination, low resolution adcs, dacs, massive mimo, mmwave communications, network level coordination

Participants :
- University of Oulu (Finlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 190680.96 €
Projet SWaG (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The experienced researcher (ER), Dr. Siew-Leng LOO, will carry out a fellowship to develop a new cryogel-based material for onsite water production from seawater and atmospheric moisture. The fellowship will be carried out in Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) under the supervision of Dr. Despina FRAGOULI. Specifically, the research aims to develop photothermal cryogels that can generate potable water via two approaches: (i) solar desalination achieved through solar-induced evaporation of seawater followed by condensation of the vapor generated, and (ii) atmospheric-water harvesting accomplished through the absorption of water vapor followed by (liquid) water recovery via solar-induced evaporation. This work will be the first demonstration of cryogels for solar-induced desalination and atmospheric-water harvesting. A portable device incorporating the photothermal cryogel that is easy to use will also be developed as a technological solution for decentralized water production in remote communities and disaster relief applications. Therefore, the work will not only advance the scientific understanding on desirable structures for enhanced performance in solar-induced desalination and atmospheric-water harvesting, but it also potentially have significant societal and humanitarian implications.

Mots clés : interfacial solar evaporation, solar induced desalination, atmospheric water harvesting, point of use, decentralised water technologies, photothermal cryogels

Participants :
- Italian Institute of Technology (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 171473.28 €
Projet CoEND (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The experienced researcher, Dr. Ali Abedi, and the host supervisor, Prof. Angel Rubio, aim at developing a new predictive and practical approach that overcomes the difficulties that current methods have to treat the correlated electron-nuclear dynamics in systems such as light-harvesting complexes. The proposed project starts with the fundamental method development based on the “exact factorization framework” recently introduced by the researcher, goes through a systematic performance test to reach the desired accuracy/efficiency trade-off, and will be implemented in a computational platform to be applied to study large systems such as artificial light-harvesting complexes.

Mots clés : coupled electron nuclear dynamics, beyond born oppenheimer approximation, time dependent density functional theory, semiclassical dynamics, light harvesting complexes

Participants :
- University of the Basque Country (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 170121.6 €
Projet DEFPOLL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The extraordinary diversity of flowering plants is arguably most evident in two seemingly unrelated aspects of life history: reproduction, exemplified by the stunning diversity in flower form and function; and defence, exemplified by the remarkable variation in toxic chemistry found in the leaves of most plant species. Despite over 150 years of research on these topics, comparatively few studies have addressed how defence and reproduction interact on ecological and evolutionary time scales. This is surprising, first, because variation in sexual reproduction determines key aspects of plant populations that are known to influence the frequency and impact of antagonists such as herbivores and pathogens; and second, because herbivory and disease are ubiquitous stresses that influence plant reproductive success. Feedbacks between defence and sexual reproduction therefore represent a rich set of unexplored mechanisms explaining important components of plant trait diversity. The objective of this proposal is to address this knowledge gap by answering two questions: First, what are the immediate consequences of a shift in a plant species’ reproductive strategy for interactions with pollinators and herbivores? Second, what are the impacts of these altered species interactions for plant fitness and the evolution of both leaf defence traits and floral pollination traits? To answer these questions, I will gain training in plant molecular biology, allowing me to combine cutting edge genome-editing techniques and gene expression analyses with my own expertise in evolutionary ecology and chemical ecology. With this interdisciplinary approach, I will assess novel genetic and ecological factors underlying variation in defence and pollination phenotypes, two classes of plant traits that are of critical significance in both wild and managed plant species.

Mots clés : plant mating systems, plant defence, pollination, herbivory, coevolution, arabidopsis lyrata, self incompatibility, brassicaceae, evolutionary ecology, molecular ecology

Participants :
- University of Sheffield (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet cellsIMPACT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The fashion for tanned skin (in western countries) goes hand in hand with a high risk of getting melanoma: the most dangerous skin cancer. The recent development of novel classes of immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) for oncology has brought up hopes for the treatment of advanced-stage melanoma patients. Targeting immune checkpoints has reached remarkable clinical benefit in multiple cancers (especially in melanoma), enabling life extension and even complete remission in some cases. However, one of the current major limitations of ICB is that they cause durable clinical responses only in a relatively small number of patients and the reason behind this is still poorly understood. The central goal of this project is to discover novel and robust biomarkers predicting response to ICB as well as to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying therapy resistance (either intrinsic or acquired). I propose to establish dynamic maps of the evolving tumor ecosystem, including the tumor microenvironment (TME) landscape, at single-cell resolution during adaptive response to ICB. Pre- and on-treatment biopsies and blood samples from stage IV melanoma patients are currently being serially collected. I will analyze single cell RNA/DNA sequencing data obtained from these samples and integrate them with staining data from multiplex immunohistochemistry of the melanoma tissue. I will apply novel bioinformatic and statistical approaches to reach the ultimate aim: integration of the above-mentioned data with patient’s clinical characteristics and identification of unknown patterns (biomarkers) associated with responses to ICB, an urgent unmet clinical need. My expertise in melanoma immunology and in the analysis of large clinical datasets will be instrumental for the successful completion of this project.

Mots clés : melanoma, single cell sequencing, checkpoint blockade

Participants :
- Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 178320.0 €
Projet TKTKGEN (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : TERMINATED

The fastest growing social media application, with over 1.4 billion downloads and 800 million active users worldwide as of September 2020, the video-sharing social network TikTok is a key site to explore the digital culture of so-called "generation Z", comprising those who have been born since the late 1990s, and are now teenagers or in their early 20s. TikTok’s 15 second videos, comprising dance crazes, internet challenges and lip-syncs at the tune of famous pop songs point to different social media logic compared to text-based social media such as Facebook and Twitter, often accused of having become a space for raucous confrontation. While in public discourse much has been made about the different orientation underpining TikTok online communities vis-a-vis "first generation social media" systematic and in-depth research is necessary to assess these claims and understand the new "style of online participation" emerging on this platform and its consequences for identity, group membership and community. What are the dominant subjective motivations and the “ethos” that informs TikTok communities? How do practices of imitation and emulation seen in the context of dance crazes and internet challenges enforce a sense of group belonging? And what are the political implications of these trends? The TKTKGEN global fellowship will combine social media analysis and focus groups to examine emerging forms of participation and identification in TikTok communities. It will comprise a 12-month outgoing phase at Fudan University in Shanghai to receive training in new digital methods and study Chinese TikTok communities and a 12 month incoming phase at Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence to study sociological theories of participation and investigate Italian TikTok users. The project will result in high quality and innovative research outputs and contribute to European research excellence on social media, youth culture and digital methods.

Mots clés : social media, tiktok, participation, generation z, belonging, digital methods, china, italy

Participants :
- Fudan University (Chine) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Scuola Normale Superiore (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 164036.16 €
Projet CARiPSCTcells (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The feasibility and effectiveness of adoptive T cell therapies for cancer has now been proven in several clinical settings. Yet, the current approaches are still “individual-tailored” and thus, their progress and broader use is limited. Having rapid access to “off-the-shelf”, safe cellular products, which can be applied across histocompatibility limitations, would greatly benefit the broader applicability of adoptive T cell therapy. To this end, the applicant recently reported, in a proof-of-concept study, that genetic engineering of T-cell derived induced pluripotent stem cells (TiPSC) with Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CARs) can be an efficient strategy to concomitantly harness the unlimited availability of induced pluripotent stem cells and direct the specificity and functional potential of TiPSC-derived T cells in an HLA-independent manner. Based on this technology, this proposal aims to further investigate novel stem cell genetic engineering strategies in order to obtain in vitro, unlimited, safe and broadly applicable T cells targeting Multiple Myeloma (MM). We propose to target MM with a novel CD38-targeting CAR (CD38CAR). Since CD38 is not a MM-specific target, we aim to simultaneously tackle the on-target/off-tumor toxicity by introducing a drug-regulated expression of CD38CAR. In addition, we aim to use the CRISPR/Cas9 system to achieve targeted knockout of the endogenous T cell receptor (TCR) and the HLA antigens on the CAR-engineered TiPSCs (CARTiPSC) in order to extend the applicability of CARTiPSC-derived T cells across HLA-barriers. The success of this proposal will lay the foundation for further translational application of CARTiPSC-derived T cells cells and investigation of new strategies to enhance their effector function and persistence.

Mots clés : chimeric antigen receptor, induced pluripotent stem cells, adoptive t cell therapy

Participants :
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 42319.47 €
- Amsterdam University Medical Centers (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 123279.33 €
Projet LuMiNouS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The fellow will investigate the use of atom arrays as next-generation quantum light-matter interfaces. He will be hosted by the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, Spain. At ICFO, he will be integrated in the Theoretical Quantum-Nano Physics group under the supervision of Prof. Darrick Chang. Quantum atom-light interfaces have the potential to significantly impact all four domains of Quantum Computation, Communication, Metrology, and Simulation prioritized by the European Quantum Technologies Roadmap. All these future quantum technologies require the ability to efficiently interface light and matter at the level of single quanta. However, despite decades of research in quantum optics, current light-matter interfaces still struggle to meet this requirement at the level needed for robust applications. LuMiNouS is a multidisciplinary, theoretical study of a novel approach based on one-dimensional subwavelength arrays of atoms near nanophotonic waveguides, which are now becoming available experimentally. We aim to show that the spatial ordering and low dimensionality give rise to powerful, previously unexploited interference effects. This new paradigm promises exponential improvements in the fidelity of quantum information processing protocols. LuMiNouS on one hand aims to develop novel protocols with dramatically better error scalings than currently known approaches, and on the other hand will remove the disconnect between theory and experiment by understanding and exploiting real-world complexities. To reach the first objective, we will, in particular, focus on using atom arrays to significantly improve the performance of quantum repeaters, and on realizing high-fidelity interactions between individual photons, a prerequisite for realizing coherent photon-photon gates. Our efforts towards the second objective will be focused on mitigating imperfect lattice filling, and exploiting the atoms' quantized motion as a powerful, previously untapped resource.

Mots clés : subwavelength atom arrays

Participants :
- Institute of Photonic Sciences (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 172932.48 €