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

Blood vessel rupture in brain aneurysm is fatal in 40% of cases; vision loss initiated by Retina Pigment Epithelium rupture affected 60 million people in 2020. This proposal establishes new approaches to simulate these systems and the fellowship develops a unique skillset to solve problems involving tissue fracture, having major impact on future medical intervention. Soft tissues are essential in our body and their failure to maintain mechanical integrity leads to diseases. Despite its importance, present understanding of fracture in tissues is limited. Fracture significantly alters the mechanics of tissues and experiments alone are unable to disentangle the interacting processes occurring concurrently at the crack tip and in the bulk material. Hence, a mathematical approach is needed to understand how fracture propagates at cell level up to failure. Models that account for all the complex processes that occur during fracture are still missing. BIOFRAC aims to develop an accurate numerical model of tissue fracture by adopting an innovative micromechanical approach—supported by laboratory and clinical experiments—to account for the multi-physical complexities by means of a novel constitutive relationship. This approach will allow us to predict crack evolution up to catastrophic failure. BIOFRAC focuses on the study of a single layer of epithelial cells—a simple yet clinically relevant tissue that lines many organs. Using this system, BIOFRAC seeks to uncover the biophysical and mechanical processes that control fracture initiation and propagation. The approach will then be used to address ophthalmological problems by development of a novel computational model for Retinal Pigment Epithelium able to quantify the risks of fracture during Age-related Macular Degeneration treatment. BIOFRAC will stimulate more studies of disease evolution and novel therapy. The new skills will boost my career by placing me at the forefront of tissue failure research.

Mots clés : biomechanics, fracture, viscoelasticity, fractional calculus, soft tissues, biophysics

Participants :
- École polytechnique de Milan (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 172750.08 €
- University College de Londres (Royaume-Uni) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet DMShot (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

An exciting area of research in quantum condensed matter physics involves the exploration of Majorana bound states (MBS) to create topologically protected qubits for fault-tolerant quantum computing. In the quest for experimental evidence of these quasiparticles, the most frequently observed indication of MBS is considered as a peak in the differential conductance spectra at zero bias voltage. While this observation could be easily detected in scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy experiments, it does not serve as a piece of conclusive evidence for the Majorana nature of a state as other topologically trivial bound states, such as Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states, can also exhibit the same zero-bias conductance peak. In this direction, recent theoretical investigations have extensively examined how shot noise at atomic could serve as a distinctive tool to differentiate between MBS and trivial bound states in vortex matter and nanowires. However, experimental verification of these theories has not been feasible so far due to the underlying challenge of measuring shot noise with high enough sensitivity at a nanometer resolution. Although experimentally challenging, in this project we will combine atomically resolved differential conductance and shot noise together by using a home-built shot-noise scanning tunneling microscope (SN-STM). The unprecedented power of this technique will be exploited to measure shot noise which provides direct evidence to distinguish the MBS from any conventional in-gap mode. We propose to investigate a couple of different scenarios such as single atomic impurities and vortex cores in a variety of iron-based superconducting quantum material, magnetic nanostructure (1D chains) coupled to an s-wave superconductor.

Mots clés : majorana modes, topological superconductors, noise analysis, quantum computing

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 211754.88 €
Projet CC-DNArep (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Ensuring cellular integrity and genome stability requires tight control of DNA damage repair. Defects in the processes involved lead to the accumulation of mutations that might cause various diseases, including cancer. DNA double-strand break (DSB) is the most severe type of DNA damage, and two main pathways exist to repair it. The non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) is an error-prone repair pathway with little or no DNA processing, which results in mutations of DNA sequences at the repair site. Alternatively, Homologous Recombination (HR) ensures an error-free repair by using the information present in homolog sequences. Thus, maintaining the HR:NHEJ balance and precise regulation of these pathways is essential for cell fitness. Upon DSB, CtIP is recruited to the damaged site and promotes DNA end resection, required to initiate HR. Recently, CCAR2 was identified as an antagonist interactor of CtIP, therefore promoting NHEJ. CCAR2 is a protein without defined catalytic activity but with several functional domains known to interact with other protein partners. However, how CCAR2 binding regulates CtIP activity on DNA damage repair remains elusive. In this project, I propose to study this interaction by a multidisciplinary approach. Biochemical and biophysical single-molecule fluorescent studies will be applied to understand the regulatory function of CCAR2 upon interaction with CtIP. These will be combined with molecular dynamics simulations to obtain further insights into their direct interaction and how different ligands affect the stability of the CCAR2-CtIP complex. Moreover, in vitro findings will be complemented with experiments in human cell lines upon induced DNA damage. Altogether, this project will provide a full mechanistic understanding of CCAR2-mediated regulation of CtIP activity in the cell. This will shed light on essential information regarding how the HR:NHEJ balance can be modulated, which could have an impact on the treatment of several diseases.

Mots clés : dna resection homologous recombination dna repair

Participants :
- Université de Séville (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 209914.56 €
Projet React2Success (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Economic Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Reducing gender inequality is one of society’s greatest challenges and a top priority of the European Commission as reflected in its Gender Equality Strategy 2020-25. One of the UN Global Goal targets is ensuring women’s effective participation at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public. Yet, only around a third of managers in the EU are women (2022 SDG statistics). Why?  The objective of React2Success is to uncover how gender behavioural differences in reaction to success and failure under competitive pressure influence gender gaps in educational and career paths and, ultimately, unpack the mechanisms by which gender inequality persists.  Providing causal evidence on gender gaps in reaction to performance shocks in competitive settings —such as job applications for leadership roles or high-stakes exams— remains challenging. In real-life settings, gender differences in preferences for competition result in self-selected samples, while in tournament-like lab experiments incentives often differ from real-world conditions. React2Success aims to fill this gap. I will take an interdisciplinary theoretically-driven Big Data approach by linking detailed population-level administrative records of both low-stakes high school and high-stakes university admission examinations with information on non-cognitive and long-term socio-economic outcomes from experimental survey data to: First, document gender gaps in response to competitive pressure in a real-life setting addressing concerns of sample-selection bias and external validity. Second, examine gender differences in reaction to success and failure in a high-stake competitive setting and shed light on the behavioural mechanisms at work. React2Success will also go beyond its immediate scope to establish the long-term socio-economic impact of these gender gaps and supply scientific evidence for devising cost-effective policies to tackle persistent equality issues in the allocation of talent.

Mots clés : gender economics applied microeconomics education gender inequality

Participants :
- Université de Séville (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 194074.56 €
Projet MutualistChange (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Plant interactions with microbial mutualists are critical for plant growth, with mutualists enhancing plant access to essential nutrients and ameliorating the effects of stressful environmental conditions such as extreme temperatures and drought. As a result, microbial mutualists may play an important role in mediating plant responses to changing climates. The goal of this project is to elucidate how interactions with microbial mutualists shape plant distributions and communities in response to climate change in mountain grassland habitats. My project builds on recent advances in monitoring techniques like eDNA metabarcoding to characterize microbial communities at large scales, allowing for detection of patterns in the relationships between environmental drivers, plant community composition, and microbial mutualist communities. The novelty of this project lies in the combination of this type of data with an experiment manipulating microbial mutualists, which is essential for identifying the causes underlying observed patterns. Specifically, I aim to (1) determine variation in plant species responsiveness to mutualists with and without drought stress, (2) examine whether mutualist-responsiveness predicts plant distribution responses to drier, warmer climates, and (3) model both direct effects of climate on plant community structure and indirect effects via microbial mutualist communities that are affected by climate and interact with plant communities. In addition to advancing our understanding of how microbial mutualists shape plant communities, this project will facilitate knowledge transfer between me and my host institution. I will receive training in research areas such as advanced statistical modelling and eDNA metabarcoding techniques and analyses, while sharing my expertise in the ecology of plant-microbial mutualist interactions.

Mots clés : arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, rhizobia, microbial mutualists, climate change, grasslands, alpine habitat

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 211754.88 €
Projet CineTopos (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

CineTopos explores the intersection of cinephilia and topophilia. The first refers to the love for cinema, a love composed of moments, rituals, and artifacts; while the second refers to the ‘love of place’, the emotional connection that individuals have with specific places. In effect, the concept of ‘topos’ includes both a physical and a mental space. I argue that both concepts can be connected, and I will address cinephilia as a ‘site-specific’ phenomenon, deeply connected to a specific location and geography. My approach will contribute to an underexplored area, as current discourse generally focuses on the relationship between cinema and urbanism. Unlike studies that examine how films depict cities or how cities are shaped by the evolution of movie theatres, my research will delve into the social spaces linked to cinephilia that extend beyond cinemas or film clubs. Indeed, cinephilia was shaped by cinephilic places par excellence - cinemas, ciné-clubs, video rental stores – but also 'cinephilic para-spaces' – such as cafés and restaurants where cinema was discussed, and neighborhoods frequented by cinephiles. As a case study, I will focus on Lisbon from the 1950s to the 1980s. Lisbon is a peripheral and often overlooked capital within Western European film studies. However, within Lisbon, one can find many ‘cinephilias’, with their variations, communities and subcultures. Distinctions can be made based on social class and wealth, as well as on cinematic ‘schools of thought’. I aim to map the spaces and places that were significant for cinephile and film culture over time (1950-1980), including key social and political changes like the Carnation Revolution, and to identify which elements persist in contemporary Lisbon. This topic lends itself not only to academic dissemination and knowledge transfer, but it can also serve as project creating community involvement and activating intergenerational cultural memory in relation to cinephilic spaces.

Mots clés : film culture film history cinephilia spatial theory urban identities

Participants :
- Université de Londres (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 260347.92 €
Projet SYNGAP-IsoDev (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Synaptic Ras GTPase activating protein (SynGAP) is crucial for neuronal communication and is highly concentrated in excitatory synapses. Mutations in the SYNGAP1 gene cause SYNGAP1-related intellectual disability (SRID), a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by epilepsy, developmental delay, and autism. As there is no cure for SRID, this proposal will elucidate SYNGAP1 expression and function during development. In the adult brain, SynGAP regulates synaptic plasticity by interacting with other proteins to modulate synaptic strength. Recent studies suggest non-synaptic functions for SynGAP during neurodevelopment, regulating cell type specification in early cortical formation. This study will pioneer the investigation of SYNGAP1 isoform function and regulation across brain development.  SYNGAP1 encodes for multiple N- and C-terminal isoforms with unique roles in synaptic function. Mouse models revealed that SynGAP-α1 affects synaptic plasticity, while SynGAP-β influences dendritic growth. Despite this, the regulation of the gene and its mRNA and isoform expression, especially during neurodevelopment, remains poorly understood. Preliminary analysis shows differential SYNGAP1 N-terminal isoform expression prenatally compared to adult brain. We hypothesize that (i) SYNGAP1 isoform expression is transcriptionally regulated in neurodevelopment with differential isoform usage between pre- and postnatal stages, and (ii) these isoforms have unique functions. We find that CRISPR activation (CRISPRa) upregulates Syngap1 in adult mouse hippocampus, offering a promising approach for modulating isoform expression. To test these hypotheses, we aim to employ cutting-edge techniques in mouse and human SRID models. Approaches include targeted long-read sequencing, intrahippocampal CRISPRa, behavioral phenotyping, and human cortical organoids. The goal is to uncover mechanisms of isoform-specific functions and their impact on SRID, potentially informing new therapies.

Mots clés : syngap1, isoforms, post transcriptional regulation, mouse models of neurodevelopmental disorders, hipsc derived organoids, crispra, targeted long read sequencing, mouse stereotaxic surgery

Participants :
- Université de Pennsylvanie (Etats-Unis) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université de Londres (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 430343.4 €
Projet SPLINTER-PAHOTURI (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

It is widely assumed that languages in contact will tend to converge, either lexically, structurally or both. Multilingual speech practices drive the convergence: multilinguals economize cognitive resources by importing lexical items and grammatical structures from one language to another, gradually causing the languages they speak to become more alike. However, recent research suggests that the relationship between convergence and language contact is contingent on social context. Social environments that encourage the use of dialect or language to signal group identity and language ideologies that promote the selection of specific lexical items and linguistic structures as markers for social differentiation can drive divergence between languages in contact. Divergence under contact remains controversial as it implies that the deliberate cultivation of linguistic differences by multilingual speakers can cause dialects or languages to diverge, contradicting a common assumption that language change proceeds unconsciously. In general, actual multilingual competencies and speech practices remain underdescribed in such societies. What is required is a more detailed documentation and analysis of multilingual interactions so that the processes that underlie contact-induced divergence can be observed in practice. This project seeks to fill this gap in our understanding by documenting and analyzing in detail language use in three multilingual villages of the Pahoturi ethnolinguistic group of Papua New Guinea, where contact-induced divergence has been used to explain linguistic diversity. It seeks to document and investigate the relationship between sociocultural variables, language acquisition trajectories, language ideology and multilingual speech practices. The general prediction is that multilingual speakers are more likely to be innovative in their speech practices in particular languages as they consciously attempt to differentiate themselves from their neighbors.

Mots clés : language documentation sociolinguistics multilingualism language typology language ideology

Participants :
- Université Friedrich-Schiller d'Iéna (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 313394.64 €
- Université nationale australienne (Australie) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet HeatScopy (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Seasonal and short-term heat storage with phase change materials (PCMs) represent a promising alternative to traditional carbon-intensive energy systems. They could reduce greenhouse emissions and provide sustainable renewable heating systems. Paraffin waxes have demonstrated potential for this purpose and fillers to enhance the thermal conductivity of waxes have been developed. However, these mixtures are expensive and unsustainable to upscale. Bio-based PCMs are cheaper, but often come with large heterogeneities, for which heat storage performance is difficult to predict. This study proposes the advancement of experimental methodologies to identify the impact of heterogeneities and mixture composition on phase change material performance for the development of sustainable products. An experimental approach is particularly beneficial, since computational techniques often require assumptions for high purity, which deviate significantly from the composition of naturally-occuring waxes. In this context, the proposed project will build on new experimental tools enabling to characterize heterogeneous and more complex mixtures, shed light on literature gaps about the mechanism of co-crystallization and speed up the selection of more sustainable and less costly PCMs. This study proposes to use atomic force microscopy, low field nuclear magnetic resonance, inverse gas chromatography and T-history, to reveal the mechanism behind the structural evolution during the phase change. A workflow will be developed using conventional paraffin wax and filler mixtures. Then, the established workflow will be applied to plant-based waxes, such as soy wax and coconut oil-based wax. The final goal is to predict heat storage performance of novel materials, from the evolution of structural features characterized experimentally. This workflow will facilitate the selection and testing for PCM to ensure optimal heat storage performance and a reduction in greenhouse emissions for heating.

Mots clés : phase change materials, energy storage, atomic force microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, inverse gas chromatography, paraffin wax, plant based wax

Participants :
- Université de technologie d'Eindhoven (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 217076.16 €
- Université de Nouvelle-Galles du Sud (Australie) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet OMATSOLFUEL (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Given the need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels, there is a great interest in the development of solar fuels and especially solar H2. However, the production cost of solar H2 is still not yet competitive. Current strategies rely on converting water into H2 and O2, a low-value-added molecule. This is because process feasibility was based on the reduction half-reaction, with the oxidation half-reaction being secondary. In OMATSOLFUEL, the focus is shifted instead to the oxidation half-reaction. I will develop routes for the photoconversion of model glucose reactive mixtures and rich-glucose industrial mixtures. They are cheap, renewable, and could help micro industries become self-sufficient in fuels and energy. Instead of simply generating H2 and O2, the glucose will be photocatalytically converted into high-value-added molecules (e.g. arabinose or erythrose) and H2. These molecules would be highly interesting for plummeting the cost of solar H2 and replacing molecules produced by the petrochemical industry. To reach this objective I will design efficient and selective photocatalysts based on oxynitrides and novel chalcogenides structures. The main efforts will be on the electronic structure engineering by adjusting the S 3p, N 2p, O 2p, and metallic d orbitals to shift the valence band maximum and the oxidation potential of the photogenerated holes closer to the targeted glucose oxidation potentials. Powders and thin films will be synthesized by soft route methods and chemical or physical vapor deposition methods. The resulting morphology, structural and electronic properties will be characterized with the well-equipped platform of the Institut des Matériaux de Nantes (IMN), and in particular with photoelectron spectroscopy.

Mots clés : chalcogenides, oxynitrides

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 143754.0 €