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

Visual neuroprostheses or the bionic eyes, aim to restore patterned vision to the blind by electrically stimulating the remaining neurons in the visual system. The ultimate goal of bionic eye research as a means of treating vision loss is the capacity to reproduce the same neural messages that travel between the eye and the brain of normal vision. The visual system 'sees' the world by way of sending signals to the brain that indicate transitions from 'light ON to light OFF' and from 'light OFF to light ON' wherever a transition exists. Despite the remarkable progress over the last decade, until recently, visual neuroprostheses could only stimulate both the ‘ON-to-OFF’ and the ‘OFF-to-ON’ pathways simultaneously, sending confusing neural messages to the brain. Selective activation has been demonstrated in vitro while validated computational models predict that neural signals can be modulated by affecting these waveforms. This proposal aims to investigate, in a functional model of the disease (Royal College of Surgeons rats), new ways to preferentially activate the aforementioned visual pathways using amplitude- and frequency- modulated signals combined with low-power noise. It is expected that the resulting neural encoding to be more natural and to therefore improve the perception of the bionic eye recipients. Two strategies will be adopted: (1) acute electrophysiology experiments to obtain optimal stimulation parameters, and (2) chronic studies in behaving animals with retinal degeneration subjected to classical conditioning. This is a highly multidisciplinary proposal that includes a comprehensive plan for the dissemination of the results among the scientific community and the general public, while providing opportunities for industrial engagement. The fellow will be immersed in a motivating research environment and will be exposed to a series of training and networking activities which provide an excellent ground for future career perspectives.

Mots clés : visual prosthesis, neurostimulation, neural engineering, bionic eye, neuromodulation

Participants :
- Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 170121.6 €
Projet MediVAC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Vitex agnus-castus (VAC) is a medicinal plant clinically shown to be an effective treatment for premenstrual syndrome. The bioactive constituents are diterpenoids that can interact with G-protein-coupled receptors such as the dopamine D2 and D3 receptors. This specific activity also opens up the possibility of other therapeutic applications where dopaminergic drugs are required, such as for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. The major barrier to the development of VAC diterpenoid drugs, and the further exploration of pharmacological activity of VAC diterpenoids, is the lack of a source of pure compounds. MediVAC is a 24 month research project that will discover the genes involved in the biosynthesis of pharmacologically active diterpenoids in VAC, and to express these genes in a biotechnological platform for the sustainable production of pure bioactive diterpenoids. State-of-the-art imaging mass spectrometry tools will be used to identify diterpenoid rich tissues which will be targeted for transcriptomics. Then, through the integration of bioinformatic, molecular biology and analytical chemistry techniques, the diterpene synthases and cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in VAC diterpenoid biosynthesis will be identified and functionally characterised. The resulting molecular toolbox of diterpenoid genes will be stably integrated into yeast for the production of bioactive diterpenoids. The engineered host strains hold potential for the future development of an industrial scale production platform able to produce high-purity, bioactive diterpenoids for the pharmaceutical industry. Implementation of this proposal will provide the research fellow with essential training in the field of molecular biology and further her plant metabolic profiling expertise, leaving her with a unique and highly sought after skill set.

Mots clés : diterpene, medicinal plant, natural product, phytochemistry, terpenoid, biotechnology, yeast

Participants :
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 200194.8 €
Projet CCINB (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Vocalization is an essential medium for communication in almost all mammalian species, including our own. Vocal patterns can be either learned, as with human speech, or innate, as the various affiliative and agonistic vocalizations produced by mammals. A major unresolved issue is the relationship between ancestral mammalian circuits for innate vocalizations and the derived circuitry that enables vocal learning. One hypothesis is that motor cortical structures are also active during innate vocalizations, and interact with subcortical vocal circuits important to vocal patterning, thus providing the architectural foundation from which learned vocalizations evolved. In support of this idea, recent studies in non-human primates show that certain neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex are highly active before and during innate vocal production. Perhaps even more surprisingly, a very recent study found a strong involvement of prelimbic cortex and cingulate area 2 in the production of ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in rats. Nonetheless, most of the advanced genetic tools necessary to map, monitor, and manipulate the cortical neurons active during innate vocal behaviors are not applicable in monkeys and rats. Thus, the functional and anatomical relationship between these neuronal circuits important to innate vocal patterning remain unknown. Here, we propose to exploit the wide range of genetic and physiological tools available in the mouse, including the ability to optogenetically elicit USVs in head-fixed mice, to identify PLC and C2 neurons that are active during USV production and explore how they interact with subcortical vocal circuits.

Mots clés : social communication, vocalization, vocal motor control

Participants :
- Universität Innsbruck (Autriche) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 252349.44 €
- Duke University (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet VOLCANOWAVES (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Volcanic eruptions have a high social and economic impact on a global scale, and they can be responsible for severe consequences into climate changes and on population’s life, determining severe damages to buildings, crops, telecommunications and air traffics. The security and protection of populations in sites exposed to risk requires the improvement of our ability to forecast volcanic eruptions and the development of better alert protocols, in order to take preventive measures and minimize their effects in both human and economic terms. Volcano monitoring is mainly based on the analysis of seismic signals, in order to found precursory events which appear before an eruption. Due to the big amount of seismic data nowadays acquired by the volcanic observatory, in a volcano crisis it became difficult the manual supervised detection and classification carried out by expert technicians. So an automatic volcano-seismic signal processing is crucial to quickly detect and analyse the precursory seismicity and to correctly assess the population risk. This project is conceived to advance beyond-the-state-of-the-art providing tools for a better and more accurate automatic volcano-seismic signals detection and classification to obtain Early Warning Decision Making algorithms. This is a highly interdisciplinary project, where the Signal Processing, Machine Learning, Big Data, and Knowledge Management are combined with the Volcanic Seismology science. In order to carry out this project, seismic records from some volcanoes (in particular, Etna, Colima, Montserrat volcanoes) are available. The proposed strategy includes a new philosophy in database creation and new and innovative signal processing techniques, and will improve our ability to forecast volcanic eruptions. The proposed methodologies are new in the field of volcano-seismology, but researchers involved in the project have already applied them successfully in different contexts.

Mots clés : signal processing, machine learning, deep learning, volcanology, geophysics

Participants :
- University of Granada (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 170121.6 €
Projet VOLCPRO (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Volcanic eruptions injecting gases into the stratosphere modify Earth’s radiative balance and atmosphere chemistry, which in turn impacts all components of the Earth system. The surface cooling that follows large eruptions can have major societal impacts and volcanic eruptions contribute to mitigate global warming. Yet, climate model projections use simplistic representation of this key forcing and commonly assume a constant volcanic forcing in the future. The most realistic projections only represent very large and rare eruptions, and ignore how climate change will affect the rise of volcanic plumes, the evolution of the associated aerosol clouds and the subsequent climate impacts. To improve the representation of volcanic forcing in climate model projections, I will address two fundamental questions: 1) How does a statistically realistic representation of volcanic eruptions of all magnitude in climate models affect projected climate changes? 2) How will climate-volcano feedbacks modulate the impact of future volcanic eruptions on climate? To answer them, I will perform a suite of experiments with the United Kingdom’s flagship Earth system model, UKESM1, which is a fully coupled aerosol-chemistry-climate model. These experiments are aimed to feed the designing of future climate projections. During the fellowship, I will gain brand-new skills in climate modeling and be trained by world-leading experts in this field. I will combine these skills with my expertise in physical volcanology to address the proposed research questions and, in particular, improve our understanding of climate-volcano interactions in the context of global climate change. The fellowship will enable me to become an interdisciplinary leader in climate-volcano research and will constitute a stepping stone towards new research opportunities and applications for a tenure-track position.

Mots clés : volcanic radiative forcing

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 224933.76 €
Projet VEILA (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Volcanism has shaped the human trajectory as a result of the regional impacts of ash deposition and through global climate change caused by stratospheric veils of volcanic sulphate aerosols. Volcanic forcing of climate is suspected to be implicated in centennial scale climatic cooling during the Common Era, notably in triggering the Little Ice Age (LIA, circa 1300-1850 CE), and the shorter but cooler Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA, circa 530-680 CE). The latter episode would have contributed to major societal reorganisations that occurred across Eurasia, including the rise and demise of empires, migrations and political upheavals. The LALIA coincides with a series of large volcanic eruptions of unknown source, only identified by sulphur-rich horizons in polar ice cores, left by aerosols trapped in the ice after dispersal through the high atmosphere. This project aims to locate the volcanic sources of these unknown 6th and 7th century eruptions, by characterising and correlating their geochemical fingerprints in global archives, including Antarctic and Arctic ice cores and equatorial lake sediment cores. An interdisciplinary approach at the interface of glaciology, tephrochronology, dendrochronology, and climatology will be used to extract and analyse micrometric particles of far-travelled ashes and to identify correlations between different the samples and potentially to identify the source. The results of the proposed research will provide methodological advances of wider interest to tephrochronologists, and will facilitate modelling of the climate impacts of these eruptions. The outputs will provide a better understanding of the role of volcanism in centennial scale climate cooling during the Common Era, and inform the extent to which volcanism and associated climate forcing played a role in Eurasian history in the Late Antique period. They will also be relevant to understanding the potential impacts of future temporal clustering of climate-forcing eruptions.

Mots clés : volcanic eruption, ice cores, sediment cores, tephrochronology, late antique little ice age

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet WIT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Cofund Doctoral programme
Statut du projet : SIGNED

WIT is a highly competitive, merit-based, International Fellowship Programme aimed at attracting 16 Early-Stage Researchers (ESR) to develop a total of 60-month stay through 2 open calls at international level (8 fellowships per call, 36-months of stay duration per fellow), in order to develop innovative projects in the fields of a) Health, b) Automotive-Mechatronics & Advanced Manufacturing and c) Energy in order to generate a positive impact in terms of excellent science, innovation, and talent attraction and retention, particularly at a regional level, strengthening the regional economy and promoting international networking.

Mots clés : fellowships, health, automotive mechatronics and advanced manufacturing, energy, navarra

Participants :
- Servicio Navarro de Salud (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche), subvention : 1301760.0 €
Projet ANTHEM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Waste heat—the rejected by-product of all energy conversion processes—remains a huge and unexplored reservoir of green energy. It is estimated that two-thirds of the 160 TWh required for global power consumption is lost to the environment each year. Converting even a fraction of this wasted energy into electricity at the cost of 10 cents per kWh would generate a new EUR 1.0 trillion industry—creating jobs, boosting the economy, and increasing energy efficiency. A scalable preparative strategy towards inexpensive thermoelectric (TE) materials would allow direct heat to electricity conversion to be widely implemented. Realizing this ambition will require a new approach, as current methods rely on rare, toxic, and expensive materials to produce rigid and inefficient TE devices. To overcome these shortcomings, the ANTHEM project aims to develop a robust strategy towards advanced hybrid organic-inorganic TE materials through the novel concept of vapor phase infiltration (VPI). VPI presents a truly novel strategy to fuse state-of-the-art organic-inorganic TE materials at the nanoscale—opening the possibility for flexible, low cost and even transparent TE materials. Moreover, VPI is an easily scalable vapor-phase process that could extend to a large variety of inorganic/polymer combinations. In this project specific targets will include optimizing the degree of control in scattering engineering, size/ interface composition and spatial distribution of the inorganic phase, key factors for maximizing thermoelectric performance. With an optimal blend of expertise in materials chemistry, characterization and theory from leading European research groups, ANTHEM will deliver a roadmap towards low-cost and abundant hybrid TE materials that incorporate metal oxides, sulfides, or selenides. The success this project has great potential to advance not only the field of VPI, but hybrid TE too—creating concrete possibilities for the critically important waste-to-energy industry.

Mots clés : thermoelectrics, vapor phase infiltration, atomic layer deposition

Participants :
- CIC nanoGUNE (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 170121.6 €
Projet ProIce (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Water freezing and ice formation are fundamental processes for life on Earth. Ice active bacteria are the most efficient ice nucleators known. These specialized bacteria catalyse liquid-solid phase transitions of water at high subzero temperatures using ice-nucleating proteins (INPs). Despite the critical and well-recognized importance of ice bacteria on local and global precipitation, frost damage in agriculture and their potential for biomimetic freezing applications, the molecular mechanisms behind protein-driven ice formation remain largely elusive. In this project, I want to study the function of INPs at the molecular level using tools provided by recent advances of ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy. Supported by experienced scientists in the host group, I will develop a novel two-colour two-dimensional sum frequency generation (2D SFG) approach that will enable me to address the fundamental aspects of protein and water structure, molecular motion and energy flow. First, I will elucidate the secondary structure and conformation of a new model bacterial INP at a lipid membrane-water interface. Then, I will follow ultrafast energy transfer from interfacial water layers to the surrounding media to test the hypothesis that INPs can remove latent heat of nucleation from the nucleation site. Finally, I will study the effect of inter-protein distance and aggregation on the ultrafast energy transfer. The project will be supported with molecular dynamics simulations, protein engineering and cryo-electron microscopy by collaborators. My experience in non-linear optical spectroscopy combined with the excellent scientific environment in the host group will make it possible now to gain new insights into the mechanism of biological ice formation that were not accessible previously. The findings will be of interest for an interdisciplinary audience, and could provide input for next generation climate models and freezing technologies.

Mots clés : sum frequency generation, nonlinear spectroscopy, vibrational spectroscopy, ice nucleation, ice proteins, two dimensional spectroscopy

Participants :
- Aarhus University (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 207312.0 €
Projet NanoOsmDiode (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Water scarcity is an urgent global challenge and one of the greatest societal threats posed by climate change. Despite growing concern over water availability, processes to expand water supplies beyond current freshwater reserves, such as desalination and wastewater reclamation, still suffer from insufficient rejection of contaminants and relatively high energy requirements. Nanofluidic technologies have the potential to revolutionize water treatment owing to the extraordinary transport characteristics of confined pores. The objective of the proposed project is to develop a new nanofluidic device—the osmotic diode—for voltage-driven desalination and pumping. To control water and ion transport, the device requires a nanopore with tailored asymmetric surface charge. An applied voltage difference can be used to drive water molecules through the nanopore while ions are rejected, desalinating source water. The system is advantageous because permeability and selectivity properties can be tuned based on nanopore characteristics, and it offers improved versatility compared to existing desalination processes. To realize the technology, the proposed work will (i) fabricate a single pore osmotic diode with tailored surface charge, (ii) characterize water transport across such a nanopore utilizing ultrasensitive flow measurement techniques, and (iii) use knowledge from the single pore system to scale up performance to many-pored membranes. Throughout the project, advanced modeling techniques will be utilized to fundamentally understand transport and further optimize the system. The proposed research action will address Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges related to water security and resource efficiency while advancing the field of nanotechnology through the development of new fabrication and flow measurement methods. The research action will also represent the first proof-of-concept for an osmotic diode system and lay the foundation for further commercialization of the process.

Mots clés : nanofluidics, membrane processes, desalination, aqueous separations, electro osmosis, water technology, microfluidics, nanoporous materials, transport phenomena, water energy nexus

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 173076.0 €
Projet DIMCO (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Water splitting is considered as one of the most attractive methods to store renewable energies, especially solar energy. Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a main bottleneck of the water splitting. Although hydroxides incorporating both Ni and Fe have been intensively studied due to their promising activity for OER, the reaction mechanism and active catalysts are still under vigorous debate. We propose to introduce manganese (Mn) into monolayer of NiFe layered double hydroxide (LDH). We expect that Mn-induced synergistic electronic effect with Ni and Fe will lead to enhancement of OER activity. Moreover, we will probe the active sites of these catalysts using operando spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. The project will provide guidance for the design of a novel class of multi-component OER catalysts, as well as revolutionary analytical tools for operando characterization of electrocatalysts. The project includes a comprehensive training program to enhance the career perspectives of the fellow.

Mots clés : water splitting, oxygen evolution reaction, manganese, nanosheet, mechanism, active site

Participants :
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203149.44 €