Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet DEEPSEA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The DEEPSEA project aims to harness the unique properties of High entropy alloys (HEAs) to address the critical challenge of efficient and sustainable hydrogen production through seawater splitting. HEAs, composed of five or more metal elements, exhibit exceptional mechanical strength, corrosion resistance, and stability. These characteristics make them promising candidates for advanced electrocatalysts. The DEEPSEA project focuses on predicting novel HEAs using density functional theory, evaluation of thermodynamic quantities and active sites responsible for water oxidation, and guiding practical synthesis. Structural and electrochemical characterization of newly synthesized HEAs will be carried out to confirm the phase formation and electrochemical activity. The primary objective of this project is to study the water-splitting activity of HEAs for green hydrogen production via seawater splitting. The key electrochemical performance metrics including overpotential, Tafel slopes, and long-term stability, will be evaluated to identify the most efficient compositions of HEAs. Various HEA compositions and structures will be optimized to enhance the bifunctional seawater-splitting activity. The project's expected outcomes include the development of HEAs with lower overpotentials than commercial HER/OER catalysts at high current densities and excellent electrochemical stability. This research project will not only contribute to the advancement in clean hydrogen production technologies but also provide valuable insights into the design and optimization of advanced materials for energy applications. By addressing the pitfalls of clean hydrogen production, this project aligns with global efforts to move towards a carbon-emission-free future, offering a promising roadmap for the development of scalable, and efficient clean hydrogen production systems.

Mots clés : seawater splitting, hydrogen evolution reaction, oxygen evolution reaction, density functional theory, high entropy alloys

Participants :
- University College Cork (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 268568.64 €
Projet Expand Flow (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

With ever-increasing costs for the development of new drugs, the call for the development of more cost-effective and efficient methodologies to streamline the access to new drug candidates is imperative. To access new chemical space, the ring-distortion strategy – late-stage modification of rings to a variety of different functionalized cyclic and acyclic motifs – has proven a particularly successful approach. Recently, numerous ring-expansion and functionalisation protocols to cyclopentanones, tetralones, γ-functionalized butanones from cyclobutanols have been developed using classical batch processes. Despite the advances, the translation to pharmaceutically relevant applications is still outstanding; mainly due to three factors: 1)The application of heterocycles in these protocols has been very limited or even impossible 2)The two-carbon ring expansion has only been successful on aryl-substituted analogues, yet not on alkene-substituted analogues & 3)Scale-up to practical quantities is often difficult due to the requirement for conditions difficult to realise using batch processing. Expand Flow presents a multidisciplinary project that lies in the intersection of flash chemistry and synthetic photo-catalysis with microfluidic engineering and computational chemistry for the development of a selective, sustainable and applicable methodology for the ring deconstruction and functionalisation of heterocycles. Ultimately, its applicability to the pharmaceutical industry will be proven by the total synthesis of THC and its hitherto unexplored heterocyclic analogues. Overall, this project will add a valuable tool to the synthetic chemist’s repertoire for the rapid, environmentally-friendly and cost-effective development of new drug candidates by the versatile functionalisation of various heterocycles. This innovative approach will have a high scientific, technological and societal impact, reinforcing the European competitiveness in the development of life-saving drugs.

Mots clés : flash chemistry, photochemical flow chemistry, ring expansion, tetrahydrocannabinol

Participants :
- Université de Bari (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 172750.08 €
Projet DeepForMaP (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Over the last decade, the Earth has witnessed significant climate change and global warming, largely as consequences of rapid industrial development. To combat this, the management and preservation of forests have become increasingly essential, given their homeostatic role in regulating the global climate. Point clouds (PCs) obtained from LiDAR mapping offer vast amounts of data, which have proven invaluable for forest mapping. In our research, DeepForMaP, we leverage PC data and utilise advanced deep learning techniques to monitor forest patterns across both space and time. One of the primary challenges in processing PC data arises from its unstructured nature. To address this, we employ recent feature extractors such as Mamba and Kolmogorov Arnold Networks (KANs) to process the data, extracting meaningful and discriminative representations that result in more accurate classification and detection. Furthermore, given the high point density of PCs (often in billions), data annotation is limited. To overcome this, we employ self-supervised learning and zero-shot learning techniques. The former capitalises on the inherent structure of PCs to design specific tasks that train feature extractors, while the latter leverages semantic information from the corresponding PC descriptions to manage data scarcity. Our trained models are applied to classification and change detection tasks, and we also evaluate their performance in cross-domain settings, where training and testing occur in geographically disjointed areas. This project is expected to result in efficient deep learning models, deployable in practical forest mapping scenarios. DeepForMaP will be hosted at IRISA laboratory at Université Bretagne Sud Vannes under the esteemed supervision of Prof. Sébastien Lefèvre and Dr. Minh-Tan Pham. This will offer the candidate invaluable exposure to cutting edge scientific development in earth observation and and equip him to become an independent researcher in the future.

Mots clés : deep learning, point clouds, forest mapping

Participants :
- Université Bretagne Sud (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 226420.56 €
Projet NUTROME (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The human gut microbiome is recognized as an essential element in human health and disruption of the homeostasis between the host and gut microbiome has been associated with the development of various diseases. Diet plays a major role in modulating the gut microbiome, but understanding the exact relationship and its effect on health remains a key challenge in microbiome research. NUTROME aims to develop nutraceuticals (food components with health benefits) based on key dietary components of the Mediterranean diet that are capable of modulating imbalances (or dysbiosis) on the human gut microbiome of two relevant population groups (the elderly, and people with irritable bowel syndrome). Understanding how key dietary components and gut microbiome interact in the context of dysbiosis will require insight of the taxonomic and functional composition and relevant ecological dynamics of the microbiome by cutting-edge microbiome manipulations and multi-omics approach. Joint analyses of metagenomics, metabolomics and metaproteomics data, together with measures of mechanistic experiments in in vitro (cells) and an in vivo (germ-free mice) model will allow me to provide a framework for the understanding of the potential molecular mechanisms behind these modulations. Other original aspects of NUTROME will be the evaluation of not only the impact of pure compounds, but also the development of new forms of presenting them (by encapsulation and/or immobilisation) to guarantee that they reach the target site and microbial population of interest in the gut. Collectively this will allow to design nutraceuticals for dietary intervention in the form of enriched foods or dietary supplements. NUTROME provides an exceptional opportunity to the researcher to gain state-of-the-art expertise in microbiomics along with other relevant research and transferable skills to strengthen her competitiveness for becoming an independent researcher.

Mots clés : nutraceutical, human gut microbiome, modulation, key dietary components, multi omics, elderly, irritable bowel syndrome, dysbiosis, formulation, encapsulation, immobilisation, mediterranean diet

Participants :
- University College Cork (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 199694.4 €
Projet QueerPsych (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Since their inception in the early 1970s, radical LGBTIQ movements and scholarship in France have developed a multi-faceted critique of normative psychoanalysis and its role in shaping public debates about gender and sexuality. Today, in light of rampant transphobic ideologies endorsed by leading French psychoanalysts, this research project responds to an urgent need to better understand the historical role of psychoanalysis in the pathologisation of LGBTIQ communities in Europe while shedding light on new approaches that embrace gender and sexual diversity.  Through innovative qualitative methodologies, QueerPsych will critically examine the historical relationship between psychoanalysis, queer thought and LGBTIQ politics. Focusing on the French context, it will offer the first comprehensive study of the queer critique of psychoanalysis, bridging existing scholarship on the politics of kinship, the reception of American queer theory in Europe and queer psychoanalytic theory. By doing so, the project will offer a new comparative framework while introducing previously-untranslated French materials to Anglophone scholarship.  Under the supervision of leading Gender Studies and Intellectual History scholars Eric Fassin (Université Paris 8) and Emily Apter (New York University), this project will benefit from the dual locations of its hosts to develop a comparative approach that bridges American queer theory and French intellectual history. Thanks to this Fellowship, I will acquire new methodological skills and teaching qualifications while disseminating research findings in both American and European contexts. The project’s publication plan includes four peer-reviewed articles, a monograph and various conference papers. Beyond academia, it will engage with international LGBTIQ communities, archivists, policy makers, clinical practitioners and the general public.

Mots clés : french studies queer theory franco american intellectual history poststructuralist philosophy

Participants :
- Université de New York (Etats-Unis) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université Paris 8 (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 300441.6 €
Projet ToolTag (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Security systems based on luminescent signatures are the most widely used for the development of anti-counterfeiting technologies, authentication, and interactive marketing. These systems, when combined with physical unclonable functions (PUFs) produced using cost-effective and reproducible techniques, can offer an effective solution for a drastic reduction in the circulation of pirated products worldwide. The "Tuneable Luminescent Signatures Based on Bio-based Carbon Dots for High-Security Encryption Tags" (ToolTag) project aims to develop an efficient, configurable, and scalable protocol for creating anti-counterfeiting systems. This will be achieved by modifying carbon quantum dots (CDs) through electron irradiation (EI) to create PUFs. Since the luminescent signature of CDs can be influenced by the chemical environment, these tags are also expected to be used for evaluating the quality control of food products. To achieve this goal, two approaches will be adopted to modify the CDs using EI: the first involves the modulation of the luminescent signature of CDs in the liquid state for subsequent ink fabrication and PUF printing, while the second consists of the insitu generation of CDs on polymeric substrates through the in-situ printing of PUFs via EI. For the final development of the anticounterfeiting technology, an algorithm will be designed to convert the raw luminescent signals from the CDs into a unique digital signature. This multi-disciplinary approach, combining nanotechnology, materials science, and data processing, positions ToolTag as a groundbreaking solution in the fight against counterfeiting, offering a scalable and configurable protocol that can be tailored to various industries. By leveraging the latest advances in EI, this project pushes the boundaries of current anti-counterfeiting technologies, providing a novel, efficient, and consumer-friendly tool for verifying product authenticity and quality.

Mots clés : carbon dots, electron irradiation, food packaging, encryption tags, physical unclonable functions please

Participants :
- International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 191343.12 €
Projet HOLOSPONGIA (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The Mediterranean Sea is a climate-change hotspot, which is often considered a miniature model of the world ocean. Therefore, it may allow foreseeing some of the expected global effects of climate change. Sponges hold numerous key roles in benthic ecosystems functioning. In the Mediterranean Sea, they create complex habitats serving as spawning and nursery grounds for fish and invertebrates, and their filter-feeding activity affects entire food webs and bentho-pelagic couplings. These keystone organisms are frequently suffering disease outbreaks and mass mortalities that are mostly triggered by marine heatwaves. Sponges are well-known holobionts that host complex symbiotic microbial communities. While some members of these communities offer adaptive advantages, others may contribute to disease outbreaks when environmental conditions change. This interdisciplinary research aims to discover the complex mechanism of thermal-stress-related necrosis and mortality of the sponge holobiont by studying the effect of heatwaves on the Mediterranean bath sponge Spongia officinalis through a holistic approach that includes morphological, transcriptomic, metagenomic, and metabolomic responses of the holobiont. To study causative as well as correlative disease events, the experimental setting of this project will combine in situ sampling of healthy and diseased individuals, as well as exposure of individuals kept in aquaria to simulated marine heatwaves. These will provide the first insight, not only to the change in the microbial community composition but also to the functionality of its members during thermal stress. It is imperative to understand the mechanism of disease prevalence and mortality and to likely suggest ways to mitigate this phenomenon. The expected increasing frequency of marine heatwaves can cause irreversible damage to entire ecosystems that rely on sessile invertebrates such as sponges and thus to numerous ecosystem services provided to human societies.

Mots clés : sponge, metagenome, spatial transcriptomics, transcriptome, heat waves, climate change, metabolome, gene expression, microbiome, microbial community, holobiont

Participants :
- Aix-Marseille Université (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 211754.88 €
Projet ELECTRONEUROSTIM (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Techniques to deliver electricity to the human brain have been applied in an attempt to restore brain functions or modify behavior. Yet, many fundamental questions remain. First, it is unclear how to design stimulation protocols that lead to reliable stimulation outcomes. Second, it is challenging to define a stimulation protocol that could modify behavior without a clear understanding of the dynamic interplay between brain regions during complex behaviors. Finally, one of the goals of stimulation is to induce effects that outlast the stimulation period but whether and how lasting effects are induced is still unclear. As a first step to tackle some of these issues, the proposed project aims at understanding how electrical stimulation affects the activity of neuronal population in-vivo and whether behavioral states modulate such effects. Here I plan to use mice to bridge neuronal and behavioral levels combining highly controlled behavioral paradigms with recordings of neuronal activity at high spatial resolution during electrical stimulation applied using cutting-edge technologies. I will also implement computational models to understand the mechanisms of action of electricity on neuronal activity and to guide further experiments. Insights from this work will shed light on the realm of possible effects of electrical stimulation, and on how brain activity could be shaped to achieve specific behavioral outcomes. Ultimately, this knowledge may lead to the rational design of stimulation protocols that could be applied in humans, ideally non-invasively, to restore brain functions.

Mots clés : electrical stimulation, calcium imaging, electrophysiology, behavior, mouse

Participants :
- Institut Mines-Télécom (France) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Aix-Marseille Université (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 211754.88 €
Projet HySoBatt (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Electrification is one of major pathways to the decarbonisation of Europe’s transport and energy sectors, which will allow Europe to address the ambition to become the world first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Rechargeable batteries will help decarbonise transport sector and enable a higher uptake of renewable energy, and are therefore strategically important to Europe. The HySoBatt project aims to develop a hybrid solid electrolyte comprising aligned NASICON-type inorganic nanofiber networks embedded in sodium (Na) conducting polymer electrolyte, which can be used in rechargeable solid-state Na batteries and to markedly improve battery’s energy density and safety. Such solid-state Na batteries will be a promising, low-cost alternative to the current widely used lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), without the need for any Critical Raw Materials that may bring potential supply risks for upscaling. The low-cost and improved safety of solid-state Na batteries will also promote their wider adoption in the battery market in the future. The applicant has extensive hands-on experience in sodium-ion battery research, and he will be able to extend further the breath of his research and gain a holistic view about the R&D of rechargeable Na batteries. The host institution will arrange a number of training activities helping the applicant gain new competences and skills not only in scientific research but also in project management & reporting, proposal preparation, IP protection, and science communications. The proposed research is aligned with both the SRIA of Batt4EU and the national and the host institution’s strategies on batteries. Both the applicant and the host institution will benefit from the two-way knowledge transfer. All research and training actions will significantly enhance the applicant’s future career prospects, helping him move towards a higher career path after the project. The project results will be disseminated to different target groups.

Mots clés : rechargeable sodium batteries, hybrid solid electrolyte, solid state batteries, electrospinning, materials characterization, electrochemical testing

Participants :
- International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 172618.56 €
Projet PervasiveTranscript (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The human genome is pervasively transcribed, producing RNA from ~ 80-90% of its DNA, yet only a small fraction of transcripts result in the generation of functional RNAs. Instead, the majority of transcription initiation events are prematurely terminated and the resulting RNA is targeted by decay pathways. How cells ‘determine’ which RNAs to degrade vs. which to prepare for functional tasks, is a central question. Interestingly, new data from my host laboratory, that motivates this application, suggest that non-productive transcription events are correlated with low transcription initiation levels; i.e. lowly transcribed RNAs appear to be more susceptible to early termination and ensuing rapid degradation. Transcription termination in these instances is conducted by either Integrator (INT) complex or components interacting with ARS2 transcription termination factor. In the present project, I will investigate the mechanisms underlying this relationship, which could possibly rationalize how cells keep their spurious transcription under control. Considering the association of INT and ARS2 mutations with cancer and neurological diseases, my results might also pave the way for therapeutic interventions. Previous approaches utilizing targeted transcription repression/activation by CRISPRi/a approach are based on absolute On/Off transcription from the selected loci without the ability to fine-tune the transcription at a predicted level. Here, I will utilise newly reported mismatch guide RNA/CRISPR-dCas9 to manipulate initiation to defined levels and hereby establish a tuneable system to assay the fate of RNAs expressed from weaker vs. stronger promoters. I will then exploit this system to address the molecular mechanism, dictating genome control based on transcription initiation levels. The findings of my project will be of interest to many disciplines of the scientific community in that it might help explain how genome expression is sorted at a higher order level.

Mots clés : early transcription termination, pervasive transcription, rna decay

Participants :
- Université d'Aarhus (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 214934.4 €