Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet EnzVolNet (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Natural enzymes have evolved to perform their functions under complex selective pressures, being capable of accelerating reactions by several orders of magnitude. In particular, heteromeric enzyme complexes catalyze an enormous array of useful reactions that are often allosterically regulated by different protein partners. Unfortunately, the underlying physical principles of this regulation are still under debate, which makes the alteration of enzyme structure towards useful isolated subunits a tremendous challenge for modern chemical biology. Exploitation of isolated enzyme subunits, however, is advantageous for biosynthetic applications as it reduces the metabolic stress on the host cell and greatly simplifies efforts to engineer specific properties of the enzyme. Current approaches to alter natural enzyme complexes are based on the evaluation of thousands of variants, which make them economically unviable and the resulting catalytic efficiencies lag far behind their natural counterparts. The revolutionary nature of EnzVolNet relies on the application of conformational network models (e.g Markov State Models) to extract the essential functional protein dynamics and key conformational states, reducing the complexity of the enzyme design paradigm and completely reformulating previous computational design approaches. Initial mutations are extracted from costly random mutagenesis experiments and chemoinformatic tools are used to identify beneficial mutations leading to more proficient enzymes. This new strategy will be applied to develop stand-alone enzymes from heteromeric protein complexes, with advantageous biosynthetic properties and improve activity and substrate scope. Experimental evaluation of our computational predictions will finally elucidate the potential of the present approach for mimicking Nature’s rules of evolution.

Mots clés : computational evolution of enzymes, markov state models, molecular dynamics, qmmm

Participants :
- University of Girona (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 158121.6 €
Projet WoodJam (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Natural flood management practices, including engineered logjam installations, can slow floodwaters in upstream catchments, promoting infiltration and reducing flood severity. In order to reduce flood damages and prepare for an expected increase in severe floods due to climate change, the EU Water Framework Directive encourages the use of engineered logjams and other natural flood management interventions. It is necessary to consider the effects of channel-spanning engineered log jam installations, which are the most common, on stream hydrodynamics and sediment scour and retention in order to guide management interventions and accurately assess the implications of natural flood management projects. The proposed project objectives will fill existing knowledge gaps related to the quantification of logjam-induced sediment storage and flow resistance, in addition to the prediction of the length over which an engineered logjam influences the downstream river channel. WoodJam will experimentally investigate the impact of jam geometry and spacing on sediment storage and develop a method to assess the porosity of a jam without disassembly. Experimental studies conducted in sediment flumes at Cardiff University will be related to observations of existing natural flood management projects in the UK and Germany, with design and management recommendations transferred to environmental resource managers through discussion and policy documents. Hydraulic modelling studies will identify methods to represent common engineered logjam designs in 2D flood modelling tools, validated by experimental results. These methods will enable accurate modelling of natural flood management project effects. The project approach will provide an innovative approach by uniting CU expertise in LW hydraulics and modelling with Dr. Follett’s previous experience investigating flow and sediment transport through porous obstructions (Professor Heidi Nepf, MIT).


Participants :
- Cardiff University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet AIR (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Natural rubber is an essential commodity for the European society. However, the natural rubber market is seriously endangered. Finding an alternative rubber source for the rubber tree is an urgent issue for EU. The EU has funded several projects on alternative rubber crops in the past. Taraxacum koksaghyz (TKS) was identified as the most promising alternative. However, this wild plant is small and does not produce sufficient rubber to be economically profitable. Rubber production can be increased by plant breeding and by improving the growing conditions. In “AIR” I will apply cutting edge technologies of both fields, hosted by KeyGene, a forerunner SME in development of the TKS rubber production chain. I will be using pre-breeding material that KeyGene has developed by interspecific crosses between TKS and large common dandelions. I will make pre-breeding material true-breeding by introgression of apomixis traits. Apomixis is clonal reproduction by seeds and holds great potential for agriculture. KeyGene is a world leader in apomixis research. I will also optimize production of rubber dandelions under artificial growth conditions, such as hydroponical cultivation, variable light spectra by LEDs, salt and mechanical stress. Plants will be digitally phenotyped and gene expression will be monitored. Based on the experiences from the research phase, a 3D farming growth experiment will be conducted. This has never been done before and its economics will be calculated. Being able to produce its own rubber from dandelions the EU will stabilize and lower rubber prizes for European citizens and will produce high quality inulin for food and bioplastics. Good quality jobs will be created in rural and urban areas, and the CO2 emissions will be decreased. The fixation by apomixis in a sexual species will be a show case for other sexual crops and therefore a step forward for the solution of feeding a growing world population.

Mots clés : rubber, new crops, aeroponics, hydroponics, apomixis, 3d farming

Participants :
- KeyGene (Netherlands) (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 177598.8 €
Projet OPT-ASSEMBLY (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Nature's ability to organize building blocks into large structures of finite size has inspired many researchers to attempt similar constructs with synthetic subunits. DNA origami triangles are such synthetically built subunits capable to self assemble to shells of various shapes. Subunits and their interactions are typically designed so that they match the target shell geometry as much as possible. Such designs, however, require an increasing number of subunit types as the target shell complexity increases. Instead, we propose a computational scheme aimed to reduce the required subunit specificity in such assemblies, by relaxing the exact geometrical constraints on the target surface and exploiting subunit deformability. Two example structures will be considered, in both of which subunits are triangular and the assembly is stress mediated. The first one is an icosahedral structure of either of two sizes, both in a mechanically stressed state. Our aim is to find the appropriate subunit design which assembles both sizes with prescribed yields, from a single type of subunits, by adjusting the subunit's mechanical properties. The second structure is an ellipsoidal shell, which, again, we aim to assemble from a single species of subunits. Finite compliance allows subunits to adapt to the local geometry and coordination, however, the associated frustration raises the problem of controling long range elastic interactions and rules out naive subunit designs. As a solution, we propose an optimization approach to efficiently adjust the subunits' mechanical properties until a target free energy minimum is reached at the required sizes and shapes. We use a coarse grained triangle model with a grand canonical Monte Carlo scheme for equilibrium and dynamical simulations. Progressing from the fastest towards the most accurate estimates of the free energy we intend to provide a full stack methodology for finding the most optimal subunit parameters given a target structure.

Mots clés : self assembly, self organization, dna origami, elastic shells, monte carlo simulations

Participants :
- Babeș-Bolyai University (Roumanie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 141778.56 €
Projet MATISSE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Nearly a decade after its outbreak, the shockwaves of the 2008 global crisis remain omnipresent in Southern Europe. Rapid political, economic and institutional transformations have triggered the reshuffling of housing. Within this framework, transnational investors are entering local property markets, purchasing repossessed houses and/ or non-performing loans. Spain and Greece, and their major cities Barcelona and Athens, are two outstanding but contrasting examples of this socio-political and spatial restructuring. They provide crucial theoretical, methodological and analytical challenges for urban studies and a key opportunity for the development of a novel comparative-relational approach to learn about the local consequences of the strategies of these global actors. The project MATISSE will address three lines of inquiry, looking into: (i) which are the policies encouraging housing financialisation (ii) who are the transnational investors and; (iii) which are the social and spatial implications of such property restructuring. It will bring together an interdisciplinary approach based on a two-way knowledge transfer between the ER’s (Dr Georgia Alexandri) existing research in urban restructuring in Spain and Greece with the Supervisor’s (Dr Stuart Hodkinson) extensive experience and research expertise in housing financialisation, privatisation and corporate mapping.

Mots clés : city, southern europe, spain, greece, madrid, athens, post crisis social and spatial transformations

Participants :
- University of Leeds (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet PREMNEC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) is an inflammatory mediated bowel disease that causes more deaths after the first week of life in extremely preterm infants than any other single pathology, with prematurity and abnormal bacterial colonisation regarded as the most significant risk factors. However, 40 years of research have yielded few advances in treatment and the mechanisms of disease remain poorly understood. A major reason for this lack of progress relates to challenges in translating findings from non-invasive samples (e.g., stool) and the inability to robustly model bacterial-host crosstalk. To overcome this longstanding hurdle, the proposed PREMNEC (PReterm Enteroids to determine the Mechanisms of Necrotising EnteroColitis) fellowship will utilise a novel ex vivo preterm human intestinal enteroid (PHIE) co-culture model to systematically explore the gut microbiome and host functioning in preterm infants. The fellowship is divided in three distinct work packages (WPs). In WP1, surgically resected intestinal tissue (otherwise discarded) from NEC and non-NEC infants will undergo characterisation utilising metagenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and cellular imaging directly on the fresh tissue. Concurrently, WP 2 will isolate crypt cells from the tissue to establish PHIEs that permit accurate and reproducible ex vixo co-culture of bacterial-host interaction. In WP 3, bacterial species isolated from preterm infants will be systematically added to the ex vixo co-culture model and comparable technologies utilised in WP 1 will be applied to determine the pathobiology of disease. Newcastle University will provide expertise in state-of-the-art transcriptomics and cellular imaging technologies. Upon completion of this 24-month fellowship, I will have pioneered significant advancement in the mechanistic understanding of microbial-host interaction in the pathogenesis of NEC and identified potentially beneficial bacteria that may provide protection from NEC.

Mots clés : preterm, gut microbiome, health and disease, mechanism, necrotising enterocolitis, human intestinal enteroid, metagenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics

Participants :
- Newcastle University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet Neighbourhood Change (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Neighbourhood Change in a Comparative Context: a Social-Mobility Approach For decades, scholars have been seeking to understand why and how neighbourhoods change. Integrating different strands of the literature, it is suggested that neighbourhood transitions occur due to the interaction of cyclic dynamics generated by neighbourhoods’ local contexts, and structural transformations generated by higher level contexts. The interaction and the relative roles of these processes have not been investigated so far. Because research designs used to date cannot account for both types of effect, this proposal points to comparative research in contrasting regional and national contexts as a promising direction. Key methodological issues are identified in the current state-of-the-art with regard to the possibility of conducting effective comparative research on the topic: comparability of results, conceptualization of neighborhood change and distinguishing the relative impact of processes at different levels. The proposed research aims at addressing these issues in setting up a systematic approach to comparative analysis of neighbourhood change. The approach relies on the application of methods from social mobility research which has been tackling equivalent challenges. The approach will be implemented in an empirical comparative analysis of neighbourhood change in the Netherlands and Israel.

Mots clés : neighbourhood change, neighbourhood transitions, socio spatial inequality

Participants :
- Delft University of Technology (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 162798.9 €
Projet BioNeedit (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Neonectria ditissima is the causal agent of European fruit tree canker, one of the most devastating apple diseases in Europe. This pathogen causes cankers on apple twigs, branches and main stem, which may lead the loss of the whole tree. While chemical control is the essential component in the management of this disease, no suitable biocontrol products are commercially available against N. ditissima. Following the commitment of the European Union to prefer sustainable biological methods in integrated pest management strategies (Directive 2009/128/EC), BioNeedit will contribute in the development of a new biocontrol product to control European fruit tree canker disease. To achieve this objective, potential antagonistic microorganisms against N. ditissima will be selected i) based on the beneficial role of the microbiome found in N. ditissima infected and healthy tissues of apple trees, ii) through a systematic stepwise antagonist screening program, iii) testing the antagonist behaviour of the microorganisms against N. ditissima in a robust and cost-effective bioassay in planta and iv) evaluating the up-scaled biomass production of the selected antagonists. This multidisciplinary approach ensures that the selected microorganisms will not only have antagonistic properties, but will also fulfil the basic criteria regarding commercial production, safety and registration of plant protection products, as well as the ecological needs for the applications on the field. This approach will also overcome major constrains in the development of a biocontrol product and will reduce additional costs on its registration procedure. BioNeedit will mean a step forward in my career, broadening my existing Plant Pathology expertise and providing me new training in Biological Control. This project will expand my international network to a large group of active scientists and a biocontrol company that will help me to consolidate a position as a mature researcher in academia and/or industry

Mots clés : plant pathology, biological control, mycology, microbial interactions

Participants :
- Wageningen University & Research (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 175572.48 €
Projet SOX10mutants (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Neural crest formation is a critical event in development, giving rise multiple cell types including melanocytes, neurons and glia. This complex process is governed by a network of transcription factors, such as PAX3 and SOX10 and mutations in these genes have been associated with developmental syndromes. Waardenburg syndrome (WS) and Hirshsprung disease are examples of these neurocristopathies and patients suffer symptoms ranging from sensorineural hearing loss and pigmentation defects to intestinal aganglionosis. Over 50 case studies of WS have been reported in Europe and the incidence is estimated to be 1 in 42 000 people. Recent investigations into the molecular basis of WS have failed to identify genotype-phenotype correlations between gene mutations and symptoms, likely due to the in vitro nature of these studies. It has therefore become clear that new tools are needed to better understand the genotype-phenotype relationship in neurocristopathies in an in vivo context. The SOX10mutants project proposes to address this using a novel zebrafish rescue assay to investigate the effects of SOX10 mutations on the development of cell types deriving from the neural crest. Results from this study would impact significantly on genetic counselling and pre-natal screening of WS patients and provide proof-of-concept data for the use of zebrafish as a tool for studying neurocristopathies. This project is the basis of a multi-disciplinary collaboration between Prof. Robert Kelsh (University of Bath, UK) and Dr Nadège Bondurand (INSERM, France), bringing together zebrafish expertise with WS clinical genetics experience. The research fellow, Dr Deeya Ballim, contributes transcription factor knowledge and a diverse skill set. Deeya aims to establish an independent research group and this fellowship will be a key step in her career development, by expanding her research and academic training, supported by Prof. Kelsh and the University of Bath.

Mots clés : zebrafish, novel rescue assay, sox10 transcription factor, waardenburg syndrome, genotype phenotype correlations

Participants :
- University of Bath (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet PHOTON-NeuroCom (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Neuromorphic computing has emerged as a promising approach to mimic the brain by overcoming the limitation of the conventional computers. The current implementation of neuromorphic computing systems (NCSs) has been done in CMOS technology, which comes with area and power-inefficiency. Enormous effort has been devoted to optimize the area and power-efficiency of such NCSs. One of the most promising approaches is the implementation of NCSs using spin-based devices combined with electronics (i.e. spintronics). Although, power-density is improved by spintronics-based NCSs, they are still far from the power-density of the brain that is attributed to the traditional way of changing the state of magnetic moment using a bias current that contributes to 90% of the total power consumed by such NCSs. Given a technique eliminating or decreasing this bias current, the power density of NCSs can be improved by orders of magnitude. PHOTON-NeuroCom proposes a novel approach that adds the benefits from photonics to the current spintronics-based NCSs by replacing the large bias current of the state of the art NCSs with a short polarized laser pulse. This will lead to at least two and three orders of magnitude lower energy consumption and higher speed in comparison with the state-of-the-art spintronics-based NCSs. This is a major step towards filling the huge gap between the power density of human brains and computers. The main objectives of this project are to model magnetic-photonic interaction, design and simulate a NCS through extracted model and fabrication of photonic-assisted STNO. My previous experience with spintronics and mixed signal IC design has put me in a unique position to run such a promising project. On the other hand, I will benefit from a supervision team from host and partner organization with more than 15 years of experience in photonic integrated circuits and IC design. Moreover, the running FET-OPEN project at Aarhus University will speed up my fellowship.

Mots clés : spin torque nano oscillator, neuromorphic computing systems, photonics, spintronics, cmos

Participants :
- Aarhus University (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212194.8 €