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

Nitrogen (N) pollution contributes to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. Sustainable nitrogen management is, therefore, urgently needed. To this end, nitrogen removal from wastewater plays a key role. Current N removal technologies suffer from high energy consumption and greenhouse gas (nitrous oxide) emissions, underscoring the need for more sustainable and efficient nitrogen removal technologies. The UniCoN project aims to unlock the potential of recently discovered complete ammonia oxidizing (comammox) bacteria for more sustainable and efficient N removal from wastewater. To achieve this, I will employ a multidisciplinary approach of integrating engineering principles with multi-omics analyses and advanced modeling techniques to 1) first provide a comprehensive physiological and kinetic characterization of diverse comammox bacteria; 2) foster their synergistic partnership with other microorganisms to develop a novel process in biofilm reactors; and 3) identify optimal system configurations and operational strategies to harness the potential of comammox bacteria in future and existing wastewater treatment plants. The anticipated results will 1) enable novel sustainable biotechnologies with the potential of complete N removal and zero nitrous oxide production, 2) improve existing engineered applications of biological nitrogen removal, and 3) deepen our understanding of the importance of comammox bacteria both in natural and engineered systems. This project’s interdisciplinary nature will also allow me to expand my expertise in molecular biology while combining my expertise in process engineering and mathematical modeling with the host.

Mots clés : wastewater treatment, nitrogen removal, anammox, nitrogen cycle, microbial ecology, biofilm, nitrous oxide, bioprocess modeling

Participants :
- Université de technologie de Delft (Pays-Bas) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université Radboud de Nimègue (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 232916.16 €
Projet AGEOFAGE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Modern Western societies have coalesced around one way of thinking about human age: Calendar age (i.e. the number of years since birth), which shapes both how we think about age-related behavioural norms and how we define, for example, access to retirement benefits. Despite its unrivalled importance, calendar age has come under critical scrutiny amid recent debates on ageism. In line with historical notions of gender or class, it becomes increasingly clear that calendar age is not a 'neutral number', but an impactful social category.  When did calendar age rise to become such ubiquitous category and which factors contributed to this? How did ‘early modern age consciousness’ function before the rise of calendar age? The project studies these two questions at the example of southern Germany and northern Italy between 1650 and 1850. Based on a sample of burial records, it shows how between the early Enlightenment and the onset of the Industrial era reporting one's age in calendar years became increasingly common, as calendar age grew into a category to identify people. Driven by Enlightenment notions of accuracy, a significant share of early modern populations could report their age in calendar years. This rise of calendar age supplanted an early modern age consciousness, in which alternative ways of age reporting coexisted, and whose degrees of accuracy depended on the specificities of context. The project studies one such context to show how early notions of accuracy were culturally motivated and how information about birthdates and baptisms could actually be retrieved. To enter guilds in early modern Italy and Germany, young men had to prove their legitimate birth, forcing them to research its circumstances and provide written documentation. This production of 'birth certificates' will be analyzed by comparison of an German and Italian city. By historicizing calendar age, the project contributes to the fight against ageism and reflections on age-based norms.

Mots clés : early modern history europe age life cycle age consciousness youth old age age reporting

Participants :
- Université Harvard (Etats-Unis) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université Radboud de Nimègue (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183174.24 €
Projet QuJuTC (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Discrete time crystals (DTC) in many-body systems are a prominent example of a many-body non-equilibrium state of matter. There have been many theoretical proposals on how to achieve a many-body DTC and they were realised in several experiments. An underlying framework for all different types of DTC models is lacking. My first main goal is to study the DTC phase in many-body systems with a novel framework, namely through their quantum jump behaviour induced by an environment. My second main goal is to go beyond the Lindblad description required for the first goal and consider also the case where Lindblad rates can go negative. Usual jump methods do not work in this case and I will rely on a novel jump method that I co-developed specifically for this situation. To deploy its full power, the method requires further development which will be the first objective of the project. I will study three systems with a DTC phase. The first is a toy model, a driven anharmonic oscillator, a good test case for the method which will provide new insight in the dynamical phase. Next, I study two true many-body systems. The first is a collection of spins where the DTC phase relies on many-body localisation (MBL), inspired on experimentally implemented protocols. My aim here is to distinguish the DTC phase from the ordinary MBL and ergodic phase by the jump statistics. Beyond this, I will explore how many sites must be monitored to detect and distinguish different phases. Finally, I will study a large ensemble of spins that can show the DTC phase, like the experiment in Nitrogen-Vacancy centres, which does not rely on MBL realise the DTC phase. It would be extremely elucidating to compare the nature of the phase to the one that does rely on MBL. I will compare the results from both cases in hopes unifying both realisations or finding clear distinctions.

Mots clés : time crystals, condensed matter, open quantum systems, non markovianity, quantum jumps, nitrogen vacancy centres

Participants :
- Université d'Ulm (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 173847.36 €
Projet muscleTDP (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor neuron degeneration that leads to progressive muscle atrophy. Currently only a few FDA-approved drugs are available for ALS, which merely extend patients’ life by a few months. Thus, there is an urgent need for new and more effective disease-modifying treatments. Although ALS is characterized by selective motor neuron degeneration, extensive evidence indicates that other cell types contribute to both onset and progression of ALS. An unresolved question in the ALS field is whether skeletal muscle fibers are merely bystanders or rather active contributors to motor neuron degeneration in ALS, and if so, through which biological pathways. Previous and ongoing work by the host laboratory has demonstrated the contribution of skeletal muscle in FUS-ALS, (1-2% of ALS cases). As TDP-43 cytoplasmic inclusions are a universal feature in nearly all ALS patients, assessing whether mutant TDP-43 toxicity in muscle contributes to ALS may be relevant to the broad community of ALS patients. I hypothesize that TDP-43 toxicity in skeletal muscle contributes to motor neuron degeneration and ALS-related phenotypes through specific molecular programs. I will use genetic and viral approaches to modulate mutant TDP-43 levels specifically in skeletal muscle in a TDP-43-ALS mouse model, and assess the effects on ALS-related phenotypes. Moreover, I will use single-nucleus RNA sequencing, a cutting-edge technique that became recently available, to determine – for the first time – the biological function of TDP-43 in skeletal muscle in the context of ALS, and to potentially identify novel therapeutic targets. Indeed, if mutant TDP-43 expression in skeletal muscle would influence the age of disease onset and/or disease progression, this would imply that therapeutic strategies for ALS should not only target motor neurons but also skeletal muscles, potentially improving ALS treatment approaches.

Mots clés : amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, tdp 43, skeletal muscle, neurodegenetation, single nuclei rnaseq, mouse genetics, transcriptomics, molecular neuroscience

Participants :
- Université Radboud de Nimègue (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet VisualNarrative (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Humans constantly generate expectations of what will happen in the future. Such expectations allow us to quickly absorb incoming data. For example, the visual system takes advantage of the world’s relative stability over space and time to anticipate upcoming input. However, most of what we currently know about predictive visual processing comes from studies using arbitrary associations between simple stimuli, such as gratings or abstract objects, which do not reflect the richness of daily life events. It is largely unknown how more complex, meaning-based expectations influence visual processing. To overcome this barrier, the proposed project will use an ecologically valid paradigm, using picture books, and investigate how such more complex, narrative-based expectations shape visual processing. I hypothesise that narratives will elicit strong expectation signals that impact even the earliest levels of sensory processing. To test this hypothesis, I will first quantify narrative-based expectations derived from the picture stories using state-of-the-art computational modelling. Then, I will assess whether these expectations shape the processing in visual cortical regions of adult human volunteers, using neuroimaging. I will inspect whether such signals become anticipatory as viewers become familiar with the narrative – in line with the idea that upon construction of a world model, the brain predicts upcoming stimuli. Moreover, I will also investigate what brain regions shape such learning of narratives. In a separate eye-tracking experiment, I will explore how narratives influence gaze behaviour, providing another assay into how meaning percolates to visual processing. This project will allow me to conduct creative, original and important research, which will propel my scientific career. More broadly, these lines of inquiry will push the envelope of understanding of human perception and learning, bridging from higher-order cognition to low-level visual processing.

Mots clés : cognitive neuroscience, vision, predictive coding, learning, functional magnetic resonance imaging, eyetracking, artificial neural networks, naturalistic stimuli

Participants :
- Université Radboud de Nimègue (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet NLQG (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The formulation of a consistent theory of quantum gravity is one of the most outstanding unsolved problems in Theoretical Physics, which has attracted interest since the middle of the last century. In the past decades several promising approaches to quantum gravity have been proposed. Despite their intrinsic differences, many of them seem to predict the emergence of nonlocality at the microscopic level, i.e. at short distances and high energies, indicating that the gravitational interaction is nonlocal in nature rather than point-like. This feature could be the key to solving open issues in gravitational physics - such as classical curvature singularities and quantum divergences - as nonlocality naturally introduces a physical cut-off scale. Nonlocal physics is expected to manifest through specific non-polynomial form factors in the quantum gravitational Lagrangian whose derivation, however, is still pending in all known approaches. The aim of the proposed project is to derive and use fundamental consistency requirements of causality, stability, unitarity, and healthy high-energy behaviour to constrain the viable form factors, and thus the space of allowed quantum field theories of gravity. The study will be model-independent but its implications can severely limit the feasibility of various quantum gravity programs. This project will take the field of nonlocal gravity beyond its current state-of-the-art by deriving novel causality constraints, constructing for the first time the Hamiltonian for infinite derivative Lagrangians, and pioneering a complete one-loop computation of the quantum effective action. The unique scenario to test new physics beyond general relativity provided by the new era of precision cosmology and gravitational-wave astronomy makes this project highly timely. Achieving the proposed goals can place nonlocal theories of gravity on firmer ground and lay the foundation for future phenomenological applications in cosmology and astrophysics.

Mots clés : quantum gravity, higher derivative gravity, nonlocal theories of gravity, modified theories of gravity, quantum effective actions

Participants :
- Université Radboud de Nimègue (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet PredictiveBrain (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

To successfully navigate our dynamic environment, our brain needs to continuously update its representation of external information. This poses a fundamental problem: how does the brain cope with a stream of dynamic input? It takes time to transmit and process information along the hierarchy of the visual system. Our capacity to interact with dynamic stimuli in a timely manner (e.g., catch a ball) suggests that our brain generates predictions of unfolding dynamics. While predictive processing theories assume an internal representation of future external states, empirical research typically employs neural measures that capture an indirect consequence of prediction. The representational nature of predictions remains largely unexplored. One approach for investigating neural representations is representational similarity analysis (RSA), which typically uses models of static stimulus features at different hierarchical levels of complexity (e.g., color, shape, category, concept) to investigate how these features are represented in the brain. I have recently developed a novel dynamic extension to RSA that uses temporally variable models to capture neural representations of dynamic stimuli. A proof-of-concept MEG study unveiled predictive neural representations of naturalistic dynamic input. These promising initial results open the door for addressing important outstanding questions on how our brain represents and predicts the dynamics of the world. In this project I aim to answer these questions. I will execute the project at the prestigious Donders Institute in the lab of Floris de Lange, a leading expert in the field of predictive processing. The proposed project is unique as it tackles the rich dynamics of predictive processing in terms of neural representations. It will allow me to conduct creative, original and important research, which will propel my scientific career, and strengthen my competitiveness as a scientist.

Mots clés : predictive coding, dynamic neural representations, representational similarity analysis, meg, visual attention, predictive action observation, naturalistic dynamic stimuli

Participants :
- Université Radboud de Nimègue (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet NeuroProClick (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Neurodegenerative disorders are characterised by the progressive deterioration and loss of certain neuronal populations. Distinct clinical features are associated with different diseases, but common fundamental processes have been identified. One example of this is injury via oxidative stress. The production of oxidative species is linked to mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammation, which have been demonstrated to occur early in these disorders. Identifying the proteins that are involved in the response to these species is of critical importance to understanding these diseases. This will provide opportunities to identify novel biomarkers and develop treatments that are effective at these early stages. The use of genetic code expansion to functionalise proteins with clickable amino acids is an emerging protein engineering technology with many potential applications in neurobiology. Recently, it has been demonstrated that any of the 20 natural amino acids can be replaced with a non-canonical amino acid (ncAA) on a proteome-wide scale. However, the application of this technology in complex cells, such as neurons, is still in its infancy. I aim to establish a novel proteome-wide ncAA incorporation methodology to monitor changes in the neuronal proteome in response to oxidative injury. This will be achieved using ncAAs that have been optimised for an inverse-electron-demand Diels-Alder click reaction, which is highly biorthogonal and has extremely rapid kinetics. Adding a clickable biotin handle will facilitate protein enrichment in a highly time-resolved manner. Subsequent proteomic analysis will be applied to identify changes within the whole proteome or subsets of the proteome. Monitoring changes in protein expression in this way will provide valuable information about neurodegenerative disorders and allow for precise investigations of potential new drug targets and biomarkers.

Mots clés : quantitative proteomics genetic code expansion neurons oxidative injury click chemistry

Participants :
- Université Eberhard Karl de Tübingen (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 173847.36 €
Projet BROOC (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

A human model of neocortical development to understand neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders or intellectual disability is urgently needed. Neural 2D cultures derived for example from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) have been used for many years but lack the complexity of the tissue environment essential for the functionality of the developing neocortex. A promising approach to provide controlled microenvironments that generate physiological conditions and allow controlled 3D spatio-temporal structuring is the use of Organ-on-chip (OoC) technology. This BROOC proposal aims to establish a new generation of Brain Organoid-on-Chip. To study neocortical development and test pharmaceutical interventions, this project will construct new cerebral organoid model with multi-layered cortical structures on microfluidic chip system within integrated electrode array. Moreover, the Brain Organoid-on-Chip platform has the potential to transform the field and will have many applications especially for studying neurodevelopmental disorders. By overcoming several drawbacks of currently available cerebral organoid models, it will impact on the emerging field of organoids in general spanning from organoids used as alternative methods for animal experiments to cerebral organoids generated from diverse species used as a tool to study the molecular mechanisms of brain evolution.

Mots clés : organ on chip, brain organoid, 3d cell culture, hydrogel

Participants :
- Université Eberhard Karl de Tübingen (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 189687.36 €
Projet VoluFaTE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Engineering living tissues is expected to revolutionize pharmacological screenings, fundamental biological studies, cruelty-free meat production, and engineered organ replacements. Historically, the functional performance of the living cells within engineered tissues is controlled exclusively via chemical (e.g., growth factors or cell binding peptides) or mechanical (e.g., stiffness/stress relaxation) properties of the biomaterial. All these approaches are united in their shared grand limitation: the cell’s (in)ability and (in)sensitivity to any given signal. This imposes strict design constrictions and associates with donor variation, which has hindered clinical translation and commercial valorisation. In recent years, it has become known that cell volume dictates sensitivity and responsivity of cells to their microenvironmental cues. Indeed, pathophysiological microenvironments induce alterations in cell volume, which underpins the aetiology of numerous diseases. Although it is anticipated that controlling cellular volumes thus can program the behavior of engineered tissues, especially when implanted in diseased sites, currently no strategy to realize this in 3D tissues is available. This proposed VoluFaTE project aims to leverage a cutting-edge single-cell microgel technology to overcome this grand challenge by providing the world’s first platform to program cell volume in a scalable, widely-applicable, and translatable manner. Healing of cartilage defects is chosen as a model system.

Mots clés : chondrocytes, cartilage biology, molecular crowding, cell volume, cell fate control enabling microtechnologies

Participants :
- Mass General Brigham (Etats-Unis) — Partner, associated partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université de Twente (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 296296.32 €