Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet SPECTROBITS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The rapidly burgeoning field of Quantum Information Science has boosted the efforts to develop materials capable of exploiting the counterintuitive quantum behaviour of matter. Now at the Second Quantum Revolution, the main stumbling block on the route to quantum computers is the lack of quantum materials with ideal properties. Among the wide variety of systems capable to implement qubits in their electron or nuclear spin, carbon-based molecular qubits (MQBs) bring about advantages such as long coherence times, high reproducibility and scalability. However, crucial deficiencies still need to be solved: the lack of single-qubit readout capabilities and the lack of structure-qubit performance relations to exploit the conscious synthesis of MQBs. In this regard, the recent availability of a broad range of stable designs of organic molecules bearing two unpaired electron spins in their ground electronic state, i.e., diradicals, lead an uncharted market for quantum materials. The main selling point of using diradicals as MQBs resides in the possibility of controlling the interaction between the unpaired spins via chemical synthesis. In SPECTROBITS, I will investigate new organic diradicals as MQBs to fill the gap in quantum materials. For this, I will establish a direct relation between the spin-spin interaction in diradicals and their performance as MQBs by developing their initialization, readout and manipulation processes. To this end, I will combine my expertise in (time resolved) spectroscopy of diradicals with the expertise of the host in Electron Spin Resonance and Optically Detected Magnetic Resonance, and with advanced quantum chemistry calculations. SPECTROBITS goes beyond the state of the art by investigating the optical addressability of diradical MQBs spanning the whole range of possible spin-spin interactions and by developing single-molecule readout procedures. The final goal is to use these findings to synthetise tailored diradical MQB architectures.

Mots clés : organic diradicals, molecular qubits mqbs , electron paramagnetic resonance epr , optically detected magnetic resonance odmr , time resolved spectroscopy, spin spin interaction

Participants :
- Université d'Anvers (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191760.0 €
- Donostia International Physics Center (Espagne) — Partner, associated partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet Photochem-RS-RP (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Dramatically increasing cancer cases around the world call for extra research efforts to improve cancer therapies. Radiation therapy or radiotherapy is one of the most common treatment methods. A way to enhance radiotherapy is inserting ‘radiosensitizers (RSs)’ and ‘radioprotectors (RPs)’ into the patient’s body. RSs in tumor cells make them more sensitive to radiation damage, allowing one to use reduced radiation doses, thus minimizing side effects. In contrast, RPs inhibit the damage of healthy cells from radiation. RSs and RPs are actively studied mostly in clinical trials. However, the fundamental mechanisms causing damage or death of cancer cells are not fully understood. Therefore, this project aims at elucidating the elementary steps of radiation damage, their enhancement by RSs, and their inhibition by RPs. The technique combines beams of mixed molecular clusters and doped helium nanodroplets uniquely with synchrotron spectroscopy, electron spectroscopy, and ion mass spectrometry. The main goals are to unravel the photochemistry of selected organic RS compounds (nimorazole, NIMO, bromoadenine, WR-1065 dihydrochloride), metal ions (Mg2+, Ca2+, K+), and gold (RS) and silver (RP) nanoparticles in the state of controlled microhydration and contact with DNA components (thymine, cytosine, tetrahydrofuran). Emission of slow electrons, water fragmentation, and anions formation are observables for radiation damage enhanced by RSs. A time-resolved experiment on the tetrahydrofuran-water complex will elucidate the ultrafast dynamics of intermolecular energy transfer causing dissociation, a mechanism recently identified to play an important role in radiation damage. A better understanding of the radiochemistry of RPs and RSs obtained with this project may help develop new schemes for efficient cancer treatment and identify new types of molecules or nanoparticles with improved RS or RP properties.

Mots clés : synchrotron radiation, radiosensitizers, radioprotectors, electron and ion spectroscopy, biomolecular complexes, radiation damage, disscoation

Participants :
- Université d'Aarhus (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 230774.4 €
Projet PeatCHEM (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Peatlands play a major role in the global carbon cycle storing around 25% of all soil carbon and being the largest natural source of methane to the atmosphere. Their future carbon (and other nutrient) dynamics are poorly constrained given the many environmental and biotic variables affecting them. A crucial parameter, controlling peatlands carbon storage and methane emissions is pH, which is closely related to vegetation and microbial community dynamics. Long term pH measurements are limited to at most a few years to decades, limiting our understanding of the long-term consequences of climate change on peatland pH and hence peatland carbon cycle dynamics. The PeatCHEM project will dramatically change our understanding of the response of peatland pH to long-term environmental change. I will quantify peatland pH across the last 68 million years (Cenozoic), a period characterized by major climatic and evolutionary change, using a unique database of over >450 lignites (fossilised peat) from all over the world. Peatland pH will be quantified using two pH proxies that were recently developed at the University of Bristol based on two distinct family of lipid biomarkers: branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) and hopanes and complemented by vegetation and temperature reconstructions based on n-alkanes, triterpenoids and brGDGTs. This project will identify the main parameters controlling pH variations in peatlands and ascertain the impact of both abrupt and long-term climatic and ecological changes across the Cenozoic on peatland pH. I will constrain the response of peatlands pH to major climatic events such as the Paleocene- Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) and the Eocene Oligocene transition (EOT). This project will produce an unprecedented database of peatland pH covering a large range of environmental settings that will revolutionise our understanding of the vulnerability of peatlands to climate and environmental change.


Participants :
- Université de Bristol (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 260347.92 €
Projet GESTICO (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The GESTICO project will explore the developmental and evolutionary origins of gestural iconicity, by examining the spatial properties of gestures that convey meaning independently of semantic communication. The relevance of different amplitudes and lateralisation of gestures in reference to spatio-numerical and/or emotional magnitudes will be tested in non-human primates (Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Guinea baboons, and Barbary macaques) and preverbal human infants. Observational data from chimpanzees and bonobos will be used to investigate whether the amplitude and laterality of their communicative gestures are meaningful, by testing their correlation with specific social or emotional contexts, and whether they impact the responses of recipients (WP1). Movement analyses, based on newly developed deep learning tools, will be used to enable quantitative measures on gestures. Once the methodology of gesture spatialisation description is established for great apes, similar analyses will be applied to gestures of captive Guinea baboons and Barbary macaques (WP2). Finally, a habituation paradigm measuring looking times will assess the ability of human infants aged 10 to 12 months to spontaneously associate concepts of magnitude (quantities) with metaphorical manual gestures differing in their spatial amplitude (WP3). Collaboration between the host organisation, the Wild Minds Lab (University of St Andrews), the Eco-Anthropology Lab (French National Museum of Natural History), and the Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center (Paris Cité University) will facilitate an interdisciplinary approach, enabling cross-species comparisons around common concepts. The complementary use of innovative observational and experimental approaches will contribute to a better understanding of the emergence of the form-function link in the gestural communication of catarrhine primates (Afro-Eurasian species, including humans), and the associated cognitive mechanisms.

Mots clés : primates infants gestures movement analysis gestural laterality magnitude meaning mental representations emotion referentiality intention

Participants :
- Université de St Andrews (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 260347.92 €
- Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (France) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Sorbonne Université (France) — Partner, associated partner, Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche), subvention : 0.0 €
Projet DIVOBIS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Microorganisms have a central role in soil biogeochemical processes. Essential functions include nutrient cycling, controlling greenhouse gas fluxes and supporting crop productivity. Soil is one of the most diverse habitats in the biosphere. High throughput sequencing has enabled characterisation of microbial communities, and determination of drivers such as climate and land use are well underway. However, we are only beginning to recognise the scale of viral diversity in soil, and importantly, the impacts of virus-host interactions on key soil biogeochemical cycles and subsequent functional consequences on ecosystems are unknown. Viruses have a range of life strategies, including infection and lysis of host cells or integration followed by lysis, facilitating horizontal transfer of genes and augmentation of function. When a host is lysed, cell contents are released into the labile organic matter pool. In marine systems, 40% of prokaryotes are lysed per day, releasing 150 Gt carbon per annum. However, there is a paucity of information about the impact of top-down control by viruses on soil populations nor the scale of the viral shunt of nutrients. It is likely that viruses have a major impact on microbial diversity and nutrient cycling, with consequences for ecosystem processes. Here we propose a research programme that not only aims to characterise active viral communities in situ, but advances the state-of-the-art by identifying actual impacts of viruses on selected key biogeochemical processes. Specifically, using a series of soil microcosm incubations utilising 13C stable isotope analysis, high throughput metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approaches, in combination with measurements of soil N and C fluxes, we will characterise, for the first time, active viruses together with direct measurements of their impact on biogeochemical cycles.

Mots clés : microbial ecology, viral ecology, soil ecology, nitrogen cycling, carbon cycling

Participants :
- Centrale Lyon (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195914.88 €
Projet FiGE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Economic Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The proposed project addresses the growing importance of stringent environmental regulations as tools to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve environmental performance. While there is broad consensus on the need for decarbonization, the economic impact and effectiveness of these policies remain debated. Building on Nunez-Rocha & Silberberger (2021), this project will develop environmental stringency indicators using legal documents from FAOLEX and ECOLEX, focusing on Germany and France. These countries, with distinct energy approaches—Germany favoring renewables and France prioritizing nuclear energy—provide a unique basis for comparative analysis, both operating under EU regulations. The first objective (O1) is to create indicators of environmental regulation stringency for Germany and France. This will enable an in-depth assessment of how stricter regulations impact firms and will also evaluate the effectiveness of these regulations in enhancing environmental performance. The second objective (O2) explores the effect of environmental regulations on trade, focusing on how stricter policies impact imports, exports, and the comparative advantage of firms. The research will investigate the existence of a Pollution Haven Effect, where stricter regulations may push industries to relocate abroad. The third objective (O3) examines the impact of regulatory stringency on firm productivity, considering both short-term compliance costs and long-term innovation gains. This analysis will explore how different industries respond to regulations and whether innovation offsets potential productivity losses. The project aims to provide policy recommendations to design regulations that balance environmental protection with economic stability, enhancing environmental performance without displacing pollution or harming productivity.

Mots clés : environmental regulation, environmental stringency, firm productivity, international trade, environmental quality, firms, pollution haven effect, pollution have hypothesis

Participants :
- Witten Herdecke University (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 202125.12 €
- Université d'Orléans (France) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet ReefCoRe (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Thought to possess a greater trait redundancy across species, more biodiverse systems are considered better able to maintain their stability following disturbances. However, despite ranking amongst the planets most biodiverse ecoregions, tropical rainforests and coral reefs are highly vulnerable to ongoing global change. Meanwhile, the localised arrangement of species assemblages impacts the relative resilience of systems with comparable diversity, such that similar systems exhibit differing responses to the same disturbances. Consequently, predicting the viability of natural systems and implementing effective conservation action, requires a more nuanced understanding of how the local configuration of species traits mediates the effects of diversity on population-, community- and ecosystem-level stability. Through the proposed research project, ReefCoRe, I will evaluate how the spatial arrangement of functional diversity within ecological communities refines population resilience and, therefore, mediates ecosystem stability. I will firstly utilise comparative modelling approaches to explore how the spatial context of trait diversity influences the survival, growth, and recruitment of individuals across the tree of life. Next, I will scale-up these assessments to evaluate how coexistence between functional groups impacts upon measures of population performance and resilience. Finally, I will develop tools aimed at uniting measures of demographic performance and resilience with more established measures of coral reef health, providing a platform for continued research linking the dynamics of coral populations with the wider functioning of their reef environments. By distilling the association between the functional composition of natural communities and measures of population performance and resilience, ReefCoRe will contribute the necessary insight required to forecast the effects of biodiversity change on the future stability and functioning of global ecosystems.

Mots clés : coral reef ecology, functional traits

Participants :
- Fciencias.id - associacao para a investigacao e desenvolvimento de ciencias (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 207183.12 €
Projet HipPiE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The rice weevil Sitophilus oryzae is a pest insect which can cause major damages to cereal crops worldwide. S. oryzae hosts an endosymbiont, the intracellular gram-negative bacterium Sodalis pierantonius, which produces amino acids necessary for the host’s cuticle thickening. This biological interaction, called nutritional endosymbiosis, generally increases the weevil’s fitness, for example as a thicker cuticle protects the host against desiccation. Consistently, the bacterial load in S. oryzae has been shown to fluctuate throughout the development, with a peak in young adults, at the same time as cuticle thickening. However, maintaining endosymbiotic bacteria also constitutes an energetic cost for the host, and after the peak in young adult weevils, S. pierantonius load decreases. As the endosymbiont is present in specialised cells (i.e., bacteriocytes), organised in organs (i.e., bacteriomes), regulation of S. pierantonius load relies on a strong coordination between the two partners. The HipPiE project aims at investigating further the regulation of the endosymbiont dynamic, in order to find new sustainable strategies for pest management, using symbiosis disruption. By using dual transcriptomics at different developmental stages in S. oryzae, a recent study from the host team showed that several genes from the Hippo signalling pathway were differentially expressed in young symbiotic adult weevils as compared to weevils with no endosymbiotic bacteria (aposymbiotic weevils), suggesting a role of this pathway in the endosymbiont dynamic. The Hippo signalling pathway is involved in several biological responses like growth, cell differentiation, cell death, and tissue regeneration. However, its role in endosymbiosis has not been studied yet. During this project, we will study the role of the Hippo signalling pathway in the regulation of the endosymbiont load in young adult weevils, using interference RNA, flow cytometry, imaging and transcriptomics.

Mots clés : endosymbiosis pest insect rice weevil hippo signalling pathway bacterial load

Participants :
- Institut national des sciences appliquées de Lyon (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195914.88 €
Projet ET-SLM neurons (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In the current era of images, spatial light modulators (SLM) are essential building blocks to improve the performance of new photonic devices, all the way from the consumer market, with displays and cameras, to the research and clinic environments with advanced microscopy. However, spatial-light modulation that is capable of generating sub-millisecond phase-shifts without artifacts and polarization dependence is challenging. The ET-SLM neurons project leverages on a concept based on an electro-thermo-optical effect recently introduced by the host laboratory (Institut de la Vision, Paris) in collaboration with the Quidant lab (ETH Zurich), and on a set of innovative know-hows of temporal pulse-shaping and thermal properties engineering developed by the fellow. The proposed approach relies on the temperature dependence of the refractive index of materials (physical effect involved in mirages). By engineering the temperature landscape in a thermo-optical material, one forms a distribution of refractive index associated with a desired optical function like a lens or a more complex free-form element (Nat. Photonics, 2019). However, this concept, coined as Smartlens, is still in its infancy, with limitations in terms of response time and heat confinement. Those problems have been recently overcome by the fellow (Nat. Communication, 2021), taking advantage of the transient heat state and using heat sink. The project aims at combining these innovations by first developing a tunable multiplane focusing and imaging system for microscopy, and applying it to monitor neuronal activities in 3D. Its validation will pave the way to developing an Electrothermal (ET) SLM featuring a sub µs response time. Such performances would particularly improve the domain of wavefront shaping to image through dynamic scattering media such as in-vivo brain cells. In this context, we aim to combine the use of the ET-SLM with advanced microscopy systems to perform in-depth, live neuronal imaging.

Mots clés : neuronal tissue imaging in depth

Participants :
- Sorbonne Université (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195914.88 €
Projet CombGeneTher (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Rod-cone dystrophies are inherited retinal diseases whose clinical course begin with the degeneration of rod photoreceptors and evolve with the progressive loss of cones that, in turn, leads to complete blindness. These diseases affect 1:2500 individuals worldwide with many underlying gene defects. Although gene replacement therapy has been very successful in treating inherited retinal degenerations in the clinic, with one FDA approved product on the market and over 30 clinical trials, it is costly and time consuming to develop a gene replacement therapy for each mutation. Moreover, gene replacement can only be helpful if the underlying mutation is known and recessive. Despite the genetic heterogeneity of these diseases as well as their inherent complexity, all rod-cone dystrophies converge on a common phenotype of rod cell loss, followed by cone cell degeneration first in the periphery and then in the fovea, leading to complete blindness. A gene therapy approach aiming to counteract the symptoms of rod-cone dystrophy rather than the individual genetic causes has the potential to be helpful in the highest number of affected patients. In this action we propose to develop a combination gene therapy to restore light sensitivity in mouse models of rod-cone dystrophies. AAV-mediated expression of optogenetic channels in cone photoreceptors will restore light sensitivity and maintain downstream retinal circuitry processing. The optogenetic therapy will be combined with the AAV-mediated delivery of rod derived cone viability factor (RdCVF), a factor normally secreted by rods to promote cone survival, lost in rod-cone dystrophies; RdCVF expression in combination with optogenetic channel expression will promote survival of newly lightsensitive cones. Furthermore, this action proposes to deliver optogenetic channels and RdCVF to human retinal organoids, showing expression and photoreceptor activation in human tissue in vitro.

Mots clés : optogenetics, retina, aav, viability factors, blindness, retinal organoids

Participants :
- Sorbonne Université (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 211754.88 €