Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet GLYCANLIPO (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Glycans, also referred to as carbohydrates, occur as simple or complex structures in free form or in many different kinds of glycoconjugates, which include glycoproteins, glycolipids and proteoglycans. Glycans carry information in biological systems that make them an important source of biomarkers for wide range of diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases, hereditary disorders, immune deficiencies, cardiovascular diseases and many types of cancers. While recognition of glycans by other molecules with high affinity and exquisite specificity is at the heart of the early and accurate detection of such diseases, selective glycan recognition remains a daunting task due to their inherent diversity and complexity. The aim of this innovative Fellowship is to use concepts and tools from lipid membrane biophysics and molecular imprinting to provide synthetic recognition platforms with high sensitivity and specificity for glycans. For the first time, we will exploit (i) lateral mobility of polymerizable lipids functionalized with carbohydrate receptors in a fluid bilayer and, (ii) multivalent interactions between the target glycan and multiple carbohydrate receptors to produce liposome surfaces with high affinity binding sites that can sharply discriminate between different glycans, including tumour-associated glycans that contain sialylation, fucosylation and biantennary structures. Owing to great clinical importance of cancer-associated glycans for early detection and targeted therapies, the work will have significant economic and societal impacts, assisting the meeting of EU Directive requirements whilst providing an exceptional training opportunity for the ER.

Mots clés : liposomes, glycan sensing, molecular imprinting, polymerizable lipids, lipid bilayer, colorimetric assays, polydiacetylene, single liposome analysis

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

Grapevine, with its derived products, is the most relevant fruit crop for the European agro-ecosystems, economy and culture. Even more so than for many other crops, climate change is threatening the sustainability of vitiviniculture. Increasing high temperature and drought episodes experienced in traditional European winegrowing regions have already begun to alter grapevine physiology and grape ripening, which translates into a decline in wine quality, particularly in Southern regions. Somatic variants with improved traits that at the same time maintain the attributes that make a varietal wine recognizable are traditionally selected as new clones of grapevine cultivars. Somatic variation is therefore a socially accepted source of diversity that can be exploited to anticipate and adapt production to changing environments and fluctuating consumer demands using more sustainable cultivation systems. However, for this innovation to become feasible through clonal breeding, it is necessary to identify the genetic origin of this variation to guarantee the protection and commercial distribution of selected clones. In this project, somatic mutations leading to climate change adaptable fruit features will be identified for the first time. This will be done by studying ripening variants selected by clonal breeding in Tempranillo, the most relevant cultivar for the vitiviniculture of the Iberian Peninsula and the third most widespread red wine cultivar in the world. Taking advantage of high throughput-sequencing technologies, I will combine cutting edge genomics and fast-forward genetics to pursue the following specific aims: 1) Produce a de novo-assembled reference genome for the Tempranillo grapevine cultivar, 2) Characterize at the molecular level the somatic variation of Tempranillo clones with ripening phenotypes suitable for quality wine production under warmer climate and, 3) Locate the somatic mutations responsible for climate change adaptable phenotypes in these clones

Mots clés : plant breeding, somatic variation, grapevine, climate change adaptation, fast forward genetics, comparative genomics, genome assembly, transcriptomics, fruit ripening regulation, viticulture

Participants :
- Max Planck Society (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 159460.8 €
Projet GLADIUS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Gravitational lensing is one of the major tools to address the long-standing problems in astrophysics and cosmology, such as dark energy, dark matter, and black hole physics. Progress has so far been limited by the small number of known lensed systems and the intricate nature of the phenomenon, requiring painstaking handcrafted modelling approaches, hard-to-procure high-quality data, and lengthy computations. Upcoming all-sky surveys will revolutionize the field by discovering orders-of-magnitude more lenses and providing adequate information to understand them in depth. Mining these massive troves of data for the new astrophysical discoveries they hold requires a paradigm shift in our analysis approaches, providing high flexibility, automation, and adaptability to a much larger parameter space, in order to determine critical lensing and physical parameters. GLADIUS has the potential to spearhead gravitational lensing science with the next generation of observations by: i) increasing the accuracy and flexibility of the time delay method to measure cosmic expansion ii) disentangling baryonic and dark matter in galaxies through lensing self-consistently and iii) providing accurate predictions of those rare microlensing events, rich in information on quasar structure and black hole environments. To this end, existing state-of-the-art traditional modelling approaches and simulations will be fused with the groundbreaking machine learning framework of Deep Learning and extended through powerful methodologies, like supervised and generative learning, dramatically increasing the scope of gravitational lensing studies. The resulting data-intensive framework will be directly applicable to the high-resolution imaging and monitoring data products of the upcoming Euclid and LSST surveys. GLADIUS is perfectly aligned with the MSCA scope, allowing me to combine my lens modelling expertise with the leading role of EPFL in major global observational and modelling projects.


Participants :
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191149.44 €
Projet HyChanCEs (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Groundwater dynamics and water table level can greatly influence the physiological performance of plant species, composition of vegetation and ecosystem productivity. Understanding ecosystem sensitivity to hydrological changes such as groundwater decline, and the ecophysiological processes involved, are important challenges. This is particularly relevant in seasonally dry semi-arid coastal dune ecosystems of the Iberian Peninsula, where the human pressure is currently high, exacerbating climatic trends of groundwater scarcity. Community-level assessments and integrated trait syndromes that can point out vegetation vulnerability to the reduction of groundwater resources are greatly needed. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the effects of hydrological drought, particularly water table lowering, on semi-arid coastal dune ecosystems, and define their vulnerability to groundwater limitation, helping to mitigate the impact of water-resources’ changes on relevant coastal ecosystems. The project will be based on physiological measures, manipulative approaches, functional diversity, vegetation structure, remote sensing, water-table depth modeling, up-scaling processes and assessment of integrated vegetation responses to groundwater changes. Through a multi-level (plant to ecosystem), cross-scale (local to regional) approach, I will define suitable indicators of the impact of groundwater changes on coastal dune ecosystems and map their vulnerability to hydrological droughts. The outputs of the project will have great implications for water-management plans, by signaling vulnerable and endangered coastal areas to current and future groundwater changes. Ultimately, it will contribute to better outline sustainable management strategies conciliating habitat conservation and water-resources use.

Mots clés : eco hydrology, functional ecology, ecophysiology, water resources, groundwater drawdown, dune ecosystems, water table depth, woody vegetation, remote sensing, hydrological drought, cross scale

Participants :
- Fciencias.id - associacao para a investigacao e desenvolvimento de ciencias (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 159815.04 €
Projet TOPNIN (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2) are strategically positioned at mucosal surfaces, regulating mucosal defense, tissue homeostasis and inflammation. ILC2 contribute to the pathogenesis of allergic airway diseases, and pulmonary neurons have been also implicated in allergic conditions, such as asthma. Interestingly, recent studies demonstrated that ILC2 exert their function in the context of neuro-immune cell units that respond to environmental signals, steering mucosal immunity and repair. Nevertheless, the identity of the neuronal circuits innervating neuro-immune cell units and the nature of the bidirectional neuron-immune signals steering mucosal physiology remain elusive. Here, we hypothesize that pulmonary neuronal circuits provide and receive signals from ILC2, which steer immune responses in airway inflammation and infection. Initially we will use transgenic animals, engineered rabies virus and advanced imaging techniques to functionally map the innervation of neuron-ILC2 units. Sequentially, we will employ a combination of genetic, cellular and molecular approaches to determine how efferent neuronal activity controls pulmonary ILC2 biology and how ILC2-mediated effects impact on neuronal activity to maintain tissue homeostasis in the context of allergy and infection. Under this fellowship, we aim to establish how the interplay between neurons and immune cells steers tissue homeostasis. By identifying these new pathways, this action will contribute to the development of new therapeutic strategies in mucosal diseases that affect millions of people worldwide. Simultaneously, the fellowship will importantly strengthen the experienced researcher’s knowledge, skills and network to allow him to establish himself as an independent researcher.

Mots clés : neuro immune interaction, mucosal immunity, group 2 innate lymphoid cells, asthma

Participants :
- Champalimaud Foundation (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 160635.6 €
Projet GroupsComputability (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Mathematics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Group theory is the study of symmetry in mathematical objects, such as rotations of geometric shapes. Groups help us understand the underlying structure of mathematical objects by revealing their symmetries. To understand groups we need an efficient way to describe them. Some groups admit a finite presentation; a finite set of building blocks, along with a finite collection of rules on when we can substitute one set of blocks for another. These descriptions are convenient. However, results in algebra and logic show that such descriptions are not always suitable to work with, as certain problems (e.g., the word problem, of deciding if two distinct collections of blocks represent the same group element) are incomputable; no computer can be built to always answer this. We can embed incomputable problems from groups into geometry, to show that the homeomorphism problem, of recognising if two geometric shapes are equivalent under smooth deformation, is incomputable in all dimensions above three. Thus we can't computationally classify geometric shapes in higher dimensions; we can't identify the unique distinguishing features of each shape. The study of generic computability (problems which can be computed most of the time) is a useful area in mathematics. Conversely, showing a problem can't be computed most of the time gives rise to applications in cryptography: generically incomputable problems are an excellent tool in the theory behind cryptosystems. This proposal will deal with incomputable and generically incomputable problems. We will investigate certain problems in group theory to determine if they are computable, or generically computable, or neither. We will apply these results to particular classess of higher-dimensional geometric objects, identifying whether certain problems relating to them are computable or not. The project will be carried out at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Dr. Henry Wilton.

Mots clés : decision problems in group theory, higman embedding theorem

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet O2A (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Growing numbers of people are renting rather than owning commodities such as music, films, cars and, crucially, housing. The shift from ownership to access in exchange for a fee is occurring in the context of new socio-economic conditions and digital platforms emerging from crisis-ridden landscapes. Homeownership, the social cement of capitalism in past decades, is losing ground to new access economies in housing, featuring transnational landlords and rental platforms. This entails that new profiles of renters and rentiers are gaining centrality in contemporary urban political economies. Novel forms of income generation have developed, but also novel forms of precariety and inequality. The project seeks to engage with these changing urban conditions and analyse emerging strategies to counter associated power and wealth imbalances. To this end, the project involves an intensive analysis of Barcelona, an ‘extreme case’ in two respects; (1) in the significance of the shift from ownership to access economies in housing, and (2) in how related asset-ownership inequalities, as well as asymmetries in the control of data and digital infrastructures, are being addressed in innovative ways. The project will analyse the development of digital counter-infrastructures and legal and policy innovations that are drafting new ‘social contracts’ for post-homeownership societies. Drawing on and contributing to political-economic urban theories and using qualitative as well as quantitative methods, this in-depth and interdisciplinary approach will generate new knowledge, which can inform theory and action on a pressing contemporary challenge.

Mots clés : rentiership, housing, access, digitalisation, innovation

Participants :
- Uppsala University (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191852.16 €
Projet VASCFORM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Growth rate of ascending aortic aneurysm (AsAA) is a rupture risk marker as it potentially reflects a wall remodeling that leads to fast growth. It is measured as the maximum diameter change over time. However, expansion is not uniform but presents localized growth. We propose to develop a methodology based on deformable surface registration tools that will provide correspondence between aortic surface meshes obtained at consecutive time points and quantify vascular surface growth distribution. The direct application of this methodology in animal and clinical research will answer some long debated questions about AsAA pathology. While a cause and effect relationship between hemodynamics and lesion development is long suspected, exact quantification of the responsible hemodynamic factors has not been performed so far. This is because the geometry changes between baseline (measurement of initiating hemodynamics with computational fluid mechanics) and end stage (lesion development), making it difficult to identify corresponding regions at the microscopic level of lesion size. We will use angiotensin II-infused ApoE-/- mice, a model for AsAA, and apply the developed registration methodology to obtain a detailed correspondence between the 3D images, and co-map the complex initiating hemodynamic microenvironment and the histological findings at sacrifice for the identification of disturbed hemodynamics. Furthermore, the local wall expansion can indirectly provide information about aneurysm state. We will associate maximum local growth with the degree of aneurysm initiation (size of media tear) which will be used as a groundwork and pre-clinical justification to introduce the regional growth measurement in clinical risk assessment. Lastly, clinical data from AsAA patients will be used in order to correlate the maximum regional growth with clinical outcome, which will establish a new metric for a more sensitive aneurysm growth quantification.

Mots clés : non rigid registration, computational fluid dynamics, ascending aortic aneurysm, apoe, mouse, model

Participants :
- Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187419.6 €
Projet HYBRICYL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

HYBRICYL project presents novel preparative methods developed towards the fabrication of organic-inorganic heterojunctions in coaxial geometry using arrays of parallel cylindrical nanochannels. The aim of this project is to provide new experimental insight into the function of photovoltaic (PV) systems and optimize the geometrical parameters to improve their efficiency. The goal structures will be achieved based on three different elements: a) nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) films, b) atomic layer deposition (ALD) of inorganic semiconductors, and c) the use of organic semiconductors as hole transporter materials and bulk heterojunctions. Nanoporous AAO will be used as template due to the great geometrical flexibility achievable, diameter = 20 - 400 nm; interpore distance = 50- 500 nm; length = 0.1 - 10 um, in self-ordered domains of nanopores. The ALD will be used to coat homogeneously the nanochannels of the AAO with electron conductor materials (TiO2) and light absorber (Sb2S3). The thickness of these layers will be ranging from 5 to 50 nm. Finally, organic hole transporter materials and bulk heterojunction will be infiltrated into the nanochannels in contact with the light absorber to form coaxial organic-inorganic heterojunctions in arrays hexagonally ordered nanochannels. The optical and electrical properties of these PV structures will be studied for a better understanding of the physical process involved. In particular, a series of organic semiconductors will be systematically investigated. This will allow us to optimize the geometrical parameters in function of the charge carriers transport distances (hole mobility) and quantity of light absorbed (absorption coefficient). We will identify the limiting factors of the solar cell efficiency. We will be able to fabricate devices with tailor made geometries to improve the charge generation and collection, and reduce the recombination processes at the interfaces, thereby improving their efficiencies.

Mots clés : photovoltaic, extremely thin absorber, polymeric semiconductors, hybrid heterojunction, solar energy conversion

Participants :
- University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159460.8 €
Projet SENet (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Halting biodiversity decline and ensuring food security are urgent and interconnected challenges. I will study how social and ecological structures in interaction generate tradeoffs and synergies between food security and biodiversity conservation. SENet has two aims: A) to identify ecological and socioeconomic structures that benefit or harm food security and biodiversity conservation in a rural, poor study landscape, and B) to develop an integrated network model capable of predicting such effects in similar settings worldwide. Globally, SENet will be the first research to apply (graph-theoretic) network analysis to understand synergies and tradeoffs in the food security–biodiversity nexus. I will develop the integrated model using data from a landscape in Ethiopia, where agricultural expansion and human-wildlife conflicts are driving deforestation. SENet differs from existing approaches that concentrate on increasing agricultural output and overlook that social and ecological outcomes are interdependent and cannot be understood separately. In contrast, my method focuses on the food security of rural villages and on the factors that prompt farmers to clear or to plant forest, to change crops, to migrate elsewhere, etc., i.e., on farmers' decisions that affect both food security and biodiversity. In this context, I will use systematic network analysis to show how farmers are connected through food trade, knowledge exchange and other socioeconomic processes, but also how their crop fields are linked to forests and human–wildlife conflicts. The implementation of SENet will draw on my skills in network analysis and the host’s research excellence on the biodiversity of agricultural landscapes, including their ongoing fieldwork in my study area. This setup ensures a theoretical and empirical foundation for my network models, and a forum for communicating my results to non-academic actors in Ethiopia and Europe.

Mots clés : food security, biodiversity, landscape ecology, network analysis, graph theory, deforestation, agroforestry, landscape connectivity, social ecological system

Participants :
- Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 171460.8 €