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

Hawksbills and Loggerheads are two endangered sea turtles species that separated approximately 30 million years ago. Despite this very long divergence time, they are currently hybridizing on the Brazilian coast. Among nesting females morphologically identified as Hawksbills, 42% are F1 hybrids. Hybrids can backcross with both parental species and produce viable offspring. This appears to be a beautiful natural experiment, possibly driven by population decline that favour interspecific mating, to study and understand species hybridization under the extreme conditions of secondary contacts between highly divergent genomes. Here I propose to study causes and consequences of the hybridization in Loggerhead and Hawksbill sea turtles using both whole genomes and RAD sequencing data. I will a) infer timing and intensity of putative ancient hybridization events that may have also occurred in the past, and their relationship with the population size dynamic. Then I will b) dissect the current hybridization event occurring in Brazil, looking for genomic regions associated with reproductive isolation and incompatibilities, and for segregation distortion along the genomes in hybrids parents and hatchlings. The amount of data generated will be unprecedented for sea turtles, will be helpful to identify risks and evolution opportunities of the hybridization process in these turtle species, and will contribute to the general understanding of species hybridization and its genomic aspects. The proposal includes transfer of knowledge to the host institution and the training of the candidate in innovative genomic and statistical techniques. Results will also strengthen the collaborative network of researchers in Europe and the Americas studying sea turtles and their hybridization. This project is in line with current European guidelines to increase knowledge of marine wildlife to protect the environment and adapt to climate change.

Mots clés : sea turtles, hybridization, genomes

Participants :
- University of Ferrara (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183473.28 €
Projet RSCHD (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Head direction (HD) cells provide directional information during spatial navigation and thus act as an internal compass. The goal of this study is to understand how the HD circuit creates a lasting neural trace of transient directional changes. Cells selective for HD have been identified in several brain regions, including the retrosplenial cortex (RSC), and display persistent activity in response to transient vestibular turning cues. Although a well-established theoretical framework proposes an elegant circuitry for achieving this self-sustaining activity, biological evidence for such a circuit is lacking. Studies of HD circuitry have faced significant challenges due to the necessity of functional monitoring at large and small scales in vivo, and precise stimulus control. This study will take advantage of recent advances allowing the targeting of specific cells and their inputs for chronic two-photon imaging in the awake, head-fixed, and passively rotated mouse. Experiments will aim to (1) determine the spatial and temporal organization of HD-tuned responses in RSC, and (2) functionally characterize the presynaptic inputs of HD cells. This information will validate or reject a prominent theory of neural network organization, and provide unprecedented insight into a poorly understood but critical brain function.

Mots clés : navigation, calcium imaging, neural coding

Participants :
- University of Oslo (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 196400.4 €
Projet HEADS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Doctoral Networks
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Head injury is the most severe injury caused by motorcycling, bicycling, snowsports and equestrian activities, and it is the leading cause of death within these activities. Linear acceleration has been used extensively to determine head injury risk, but it has been found that brain injury is actually influenced by angular kinematics. This is ignored by current injury criteria and product certification tests. To date, there is no consensus in terms of head injury due to angular kinematics and this represents a significant gap in the state of the art. The scientific goal of HEADS is to improve the understanding of head impact injury and to design new helmet standard test methods that recognise the influence of rotational kinematics. This will lead to improved helmets and a reduction in the severity of injuries and the numbers of fatalities. This objective will be achieved through a combination of computational simulations of real-life accidents, experimental and computational investigation of injury thresholds, and design of new helmet certification tests. Another major objective of the network is to train a group of highly specialised doctoral graduates who are equally cognisant of head impact biomechanics and helmet design technologies as well as being aware of commercialisable market opportunities. The ESRs will work in world-class facilities with highly qualified experts, and will benefit from the training scheme developed based on the expertise of academic and industrial partners. This project will reach a new level of understanding of head injury and how head injury should be prevented, with directly applicable results to European industry. It will develop a well-networked group of young engineers and scientists into world class researchers and innovators with numerous career paths open to them, who will advance technology for the benefit of society and maintain Europe as a global leader in industrial development.

Mots clés : safety technology, biomaterials engineering, design engineering, simulation engineering, passive safety, helmets, head injury, standard testing, impact biomechanics

Participants :
- Charles owen & company (bow) limited (Royaume-Uni) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 273287.88 €
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Suède) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 790977.96 €
- National University of Ireland (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 1062698.4 €
- Agv spa (Italie) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 258061.32 €
- Lazer sport nv (Belgique) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 250560.0 €
- KU Leuven (Belgique) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 751680.0 €
Projet NEURO-SWARM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Hearing in mosquitoes is crucial for mating partner recognition. Within mating swarms, males hear the wing beat of females and chase them to copulate. Despite the importance of this behaviour, very little is known about the molecular mechanisms involved. I and my co-workers have recently discovered an auditory efferent system innervating the mosquito hearing organ, the Johnston's Organ (JO) that releases the biogenic amines octopamine and serotonin and modulates the auditory function. However, we still do not know how this efferent system modulates hearing in the context of swarming. Given the intimate connection between hearing and swarming in mosquitoes, and considering that biogenic amines have been described in other insects to induce swarming, I hypothesize that biogenic amines induce mosquitoes to aggregate into swarms and upregulate their auditory sensitivity to increase male mosquito attraction to females. My objectives are to use a multidisciplinary approach, including molecular biology, physiological and behavioural methods, to study if biogenic amines increase the auditory sensitivity during swarming and to assess the potential of disrupting biogenic amine signalling to impair mosquito hearing and swarming. To this end, I will first study temporal variations of biogenic amine signalling pathways in the mosquito JO during the swarming period. I will then generate mosquito mutants to impair biogenic amine signalling and subsequently use these mutants to assess their auditory function and swarming behaviour phenotypes aiming at defining a direct involvement of biogenic amines in mosquito hearing and mating. We believe that our work will lead to developing novel mosquito control tools. Firstly, improving our knowledge on mosquito hearing can lead to develop novel acoustic traps. Secondly, the characterization of biogenic amine receptors could directly identify new insecticide targets. Thirdly, altering swarming behaviour can disrupt mosquito mating.

Mots clés : vector biology, mosquito, swarming behaviour, hearing, biogenic amines, serotonin, octopamine, mechanotransduction, vector control, efferent modulation, mating, malaria, anopheles gambiae, insecticide

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet CMRPredict (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Heart failure (HF) is a progressing disease currently affecting 2% of the population in the developed world with a mortality rate of 50% within the first five years. While HF with reduced ejection fraction, primarily associated with myocardial infarction, can be detected with sufficient accuracy, HF with preserved ejection fraction is far more difficult to diagnose. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to better diagnose these patients to ultimately guide and improve treatment. Among the clinical imaging modalities, Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR) is the gold standard for assessing cardiac mass and ejection fraction, and is capable to assess local cardiac mechanics and tissue properties. Beyond these established methods, cardiac diffusion tensor imaging has emerged as a new tool to enable insights into the microscopic morphology of the beating heart. Unfortunately, due to scan time limitations during clinical routine, compromises in spatial resolution and coverage have to be made. To overcome practical limitations of clinical in vivo CMR imaging and to enable prediction of disease progression for individual patients, additional tools are required. To this end, biomechanical models have attracted considerable attention. Once adapted sufficiently to in-vivo imaging, these models promise patient-specific insights into causes and progression of disease and, help guiding treatment. It is the objective of the present fellowship proposal to significantly advance patient-specific, image-guided modelling of HF by incorporating the most recent developments in both CMR imaging and biophysical modelling. The proposed framework will address limitations of current approaches, which impose generic assumptions about cardiac tissue properties and structure. With recent innovations in CMR imaging, as developed by the applicant, data on local changes of myocardial microstructure will be obtained to achieve the next level of diagnostic and predictive cardiac modelling of HF.

Mots clés : heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, patient specific biomechanical models, model based heart failure prediction, advanced cardiovascular magnetic resonance, personalized treatment planning

Participants :
- University of California System (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 0.0 €
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 247840.2 €
Projet HEGNAT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Hegel's theory of social interaction, recognition and freedom supplies us with a very perspicuous conception of cooperation and social organization by which the individual is understood as freely embedded in an institutionalized context of cooperation and self-identification. Sociality is explained as emerging from natural prerequisites of human beings and as counterpart of nature. The main target of this research is to investigate Hegel's theory of society by considering the relation he establishes with the natural prerequisites of individual human beings. In fact, individual cognitive capacities and shared practices are the outcome of the unfolding of an interpersonal substance called spirit determining the role of the individual in the social space. The notion of spirit is introduced by Hegel as both emerging and different from nature. As the nature of an animal is characterized by its autonomous interaction with the environment, so the nature of a rational being is characterized from a peculiar form of interaction, i.e. the reflexion on its own natural substratum. This speculative attitude is the premise for defining the ideal of freedom, whose achievement is the final end for human beings. This programme aims to investigate the mutual dependence between nature and spirit by updating Hegelian readings and by promoting the interdisciplinary dialogue with other fields of knowledge investigating the human cognitive dispositions. In order to achieve these objectives the ER will undertake an outgoing phase in the US under the supervision of a leading Hegelian. During the fellowship he will be also seconded to the Max Planck institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. This secondment aims to improve the exchange and the dialogue between different disciplines and to enhance the ER’s capacities to manage intersectional projects of research. The ER will also organize two international conferences, edit a collection of essays and publish a book.

Mots clés : nature, freedom, social recognition, natural prerequisites, cooperation, personhood, mind body problem, free will

Participants :
- George Washington University (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- University of Parma (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 244269.0 €
Projet CHLAMYS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Hellenistic Egyptian history has been described as a 'tale of two cultures'. This duality is manifest in the differences between the textile cultures of the two ethic groups that came into contact during the time of the Ptolemies. The fundamental differences concern: a/ the traditional fibre used (linen in Egypt–wool in Greece); b/ the colour preference for garments (white for Egypt-a variety of vivid colours in Greece; c/ the loom used for weaving (horizontal in Egypt-vertical in Greece). When Alexander the Great first came to Egypt, he decided to leave his mark on the territory, and founded the first city that would bear his name: Alexandria. Descriptions of the city detailed by such later ancient authors as Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny the Elder and Plutarch report that the city had the shape of a chlamys, the typical woollen cloak of Alexander and his cavalry. The first chlamys-shaped wold map was also produced in Alexandria by Eratosthenes, head librarian at the famous library under the third Ptolemy. The founding of Alexandria inaugurates systematic cross-cultural interactions between Greeks and Egyptians, two ethnic groups with distinct languages, cultures, ways of life, and, naturally, dress. The garment chlamys becomes the garment of Ptolemaic royals, while it continues to be the garment of the army. The make-up of this largely mercenary army, though, had since become ethnically diverse, and included local Egyptians. A host of sources (e.g. papyri, iconography on temples, tombs, ostraca, coinage) testify to the fact that the chlamys becomes widespread in both Alexandria and the rest of the Egyptian territory. This project investigates the garment chlamys both as a material object and as a cultural symbol, thus capturing multiple glimpses of everyday life in Hellenistic Egypt, while providing a reassessment of the ongoing discource on dress, ethnicity and identity in cross-cultural cont

Mots clés : hellenistic egypt, alexandria, ptolemaic dynasty, alexander the great, chlamys, archaelogical textiles, ancient geography, eratosthenes of cyrene, hellenistic polis

Participants :
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212194.8 €
Projet COCLICAN (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Staff Exchanges
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Hepatitis B (HBV) and C virus (HCV) are the most important etiologic agents of Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which is the second leading cause of tumour related death in the world. The burden of HCC in developing countries represents a major challenge in global public health for the oncoming decades. Clinically, HCC patients have a very poor prognosis and high 5-year mortality rate except when detected early. As a result, HCC early detection is a critical parameter to anticipate the initiation of a tumour process, but affordable and discriminant diagnostic tools are lacking. A consortium of European and Third Countries institutions (Peru and Laos) gathered within the project COCLICAN proposes to tackle this issue through the analysis of metabolomics serum profiles of a large cohort of HBV-HBC infected patients to delineate a bunch of molecules predictive of the emergence of liver cancer. The performance of a low-cost and open-source echo-stethoscope connected to a smartphone will also be assessed, to allow early detection of tumorogenesis in health care underserved areas. This will be possible, thanks to the construction of a sustainable scientific and academic network of engineers, researchers and clinicians mobilised to exchange expertise, skills, technologies, biological material, deployed in three continents: Europe, South America and Asia. COCLICAN has been designed to improve research collaborations, to reinforce capacities, to enhance knowledge of partners and students involved in the project, but also to raise awareness of policy makers and to participate to the innovation potential improvement at the European and global levels. COCLICAN will therefore respond to the health needs of left behind populations, all around the world.

Mots clés : liver cancer, hepatitis, metabolomics, diagnostic imaging, developing countries

Participants :
- Université de Toulouse (France) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 92000.0 €
- Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (France) — Partner, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 41400.0 €
- Kaunas University of Technology (Lituanie) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 36800.0 €
- Fondation merieux (France) — Partner, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 55200.0 €
- Ministry of Health (Laos) — Partner, organization partner, Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche), subvention : 0.0 €
- Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgique) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 50600.0 €
- Institut de recherche pour le développement (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 174800.0 €
- Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplásicas (Pérou) — Partner, organization partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet mini-liver SCCS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is among the most lethal and prevalent cancers in the human population. But at present, there are no good in vitro models for HCC. Thus, there is only an elemental understanding of the molecular, cellular and environmental mechanisms that drive HCC pathogenesis and there are only limited therapeutic options. In this project, our aim is to establish and characterize physiologically relevant 3D-liver cancer stem cell models and use them to increase our understanding of the mechanisms behind liver cancer with the final goal to develop anti-cancer strategies.

Mots clés : liver cancer, stem cell, 3d organoid culture, crispr, cas9

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet PolyBact (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Here, we will identify how polymer chemistry and composition affects the microbiology of a model pathogen, Vibrio cholerae. To this end, we will explore the chemical space that mediates bacterial adhesion because this bacteria activates complex signaling networks that regulate its physiology following binding to surfaces and hosts. Three main research objectives are: a) To identify what is the role of charge: Electrostatic interactions are critical in the initial attachment of bacteria to hosts and surfaces. Here we will explore how cationic polymers with different degrees of protonation under model conditions affect the behaviour of V. cholerae b) To identify what is the role of hydrophobicity: Early stages of adhesion to hosts and surfaces are also mediated by hydrophobic interactions. Here, we will evaluate a series of cationic polymers carrying similar degrees of protonation but different hydrophobicities. c) To identify the role of selective binding: We will prepare polymers carrying mannose and N-acetylglucosamine, carbohydrates that are involved in the selective binding of V. cholerae to hosts. To achieve these research objectives, we will use a modular strategy that relies on the controlled synthesis of a poly(acryloyl hydrazide) scaffold, its post-polymerisation functionalisation under aqueous conditions, and the in-situ evaluation of activity using phenotypic and transcriptional assays (Part B, Section 1.1.1). We will focus on identifying how non-toxic polymers affect three critical responses in V. cholerae. 1) Clustering and motility; 2) Biofilm formation and maturation, and 3) Virulence and toxicity against a model of the human gut. The main scientific challenge lies in developing new knowledge of how polymer chemistry affects microbial physiology and behaviour, and this knowledge should underpin the future development of new polymers for antimicrobial therapy and microbial biotechnology, research priorities of the European Commission

Mots clés : polymer synthesis, post polymerisation modification, microbiology

Participants :
- University of Birmingham (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €