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

The Arctic region has undergone profound transformations in recent decades due to a rapid decline in sea ice extent. These shifts impact the interplay between sea ice, the atmosphere, and the ocean, involving complex thermodynamic and dynamic processes. Understanding these interactions is crucial for addressing the repercussions of Arctic climate change. However, existing models used for climate projections struggle to capture fine-scale processes at the ocean-sea ice boundary, necessitating parametrizations. Unfortunately, these parametrizations are grounded in empirical rather than theoretical foundations, limiting their applicability across diverse ocean conditions. Recent studies highlight the increased role of wind-driven mixing at the ocean-sea ice interface and the lack of studies that include the joint effect of double diffusion convection, two fundamental processes occurring in sea ice-covered regions. The Ocean-Sea Ice Interaction (OSII) project seeks to bridge this critical gap by employing highly efficient direct numerical simulations (DNS). This innovative approach promises a more precise comprehension of ice melting rates and boundary-layer dynamics resulting from the complex interplay of internal waves/tides and double diffusion convection. The OSII project is committed to: 1) Quantify the influence of tides on double diffusion convection within a homogeneous fluid flow. 2) Explore the interplay between internal waves induced by a wave-maker and double diffusion convection in stratified flows. 3) Enhance the vertical mixing parametrization within the NEMO-SI3 general circulation model through insights derived from DNS outcomes. OSII will enable the candidate fellow to produce impactful research results for the research community, policymakers, and the public. Moreover, it will provide her with top-tier training from world-renowned institutions in fluid dynamics and oceanography, enhancing her prospects of obtaining a permanent research position.

Mots clés : ocean sea ice interaction, ocean turbulence, ice melting, salty water, stratified ocean, polar regions, direct numerical simulation dns , arctic climate change

Participants :
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 211754.88 €
Projet OvaCTool (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Personalized treatments are considered major challenges in clinical practice. They become particularly critical for diseases with poor prognoses diagnosed at later stages, such as ovarian cancer. Here, the vague symptoms, the lack of reliable screening tools and the treatment resistances have made this cancer the most lethal gynaecological malignancy (40% 5-year survival rate; 50-90% recurrence rate). Thus, ovarian cancer patients would certainly benefit from improved therapies and appropriate treatment choices. In this regard, the present OvaCTool project aims at developing a highly sensitive mass cytometer-based tool for the prediction of treatment response against newly designed targeted nanocarriers for platinum (Pt)-based chemotherapy in ovarian cancer. Specifically, diverse iron-based nanocarriers for Pt (IV) prodrugs targeting ovarian cancer cells will be evaluated. Such assessment will also include the understanding of ovarian cancer proteome changes after therapy. All this information will then be integrated to define biomarkers of treatment response which will be combined in a mass cytometry panel (up to 50 markers) together with proteins to identify other cells from the tumour microenvironment aiming at the stratification of patients into responders vs non-responders to the newly designed drugs. Likewise, protein corona formation on the nanostructures will be investigated to recognize potential challenges after intravenous injection of the drug in the clinical setting. In summary, this project will provide potential enhanced anticancer drugs and a prediction tool for targeted treatment choices which will help towards better survival rates for this malignant disease.

Mots clés : ovarian cancer, platinum nanodelivery system, treatment response prediction tool, biomarkers, mass cytometry, personalized treatment

Participants :
- Université d'Oviedo (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 181152.96 €
Projet MosqBedTiming (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Mosquitoes transmit malaria parasites by feeding on humans, claiming approximately half a million lives each year. Insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) have been an effective method to reduce malaria mortality by protecting people from mosquito bites at night. However, mosquitoes are now changing their host-seeking behavior, biting before nightfall reducing ITN effectiveness. This project aims to understand the origins of these behavioral shifts using innovative methodologies. Two mechanisms are hypothesized to drive this shift: genetic evolution or phenotypic plasticity. ITNs may select for mosquitoes genetically hardwired to bite early, or mosquitoes might adapt behaviorally without genetic changes. These mechanisms have different implications for long-term ITN effectiveness and require different countermeasures. We currently lack the tools to accurately test these hypotheses. I recently developed a behavioral assay to longitudinally monitor mosquito activity in the lab continuously over weeks. I now aim to adapt this method for field deployment to investigate temporal shifts in mosquito behavior in malaria-endemic regions with varying levels of ITN use. I will merge lab and field research through three objectives: (1) Develop an assay to monitor mosquito host-seeking rhythms and environmental variables in the field. (2) Deploy the assay in malaria-endemic areas with varying ITN exposure. (3) Dissect the genetic and environmental factors driving host-seeking shifts in lab experiments. The project combines my experience in biophysics and hardware development with Prof. Teun Bousema's expertise in malaria fieldwork, and Dr. Felix Hol's expertise in mosquito behavior to address the urgent issue of mosquito behavioral resistance to ITNs. This work will help design next-generation vector control strategies by understanding the factors driving behavioral shifts that diminish the effectiveness of ITNs.

Mots clés : behavior mosquito host seeking malaria vector control anopheles behavioral resistance

Participants :
- Radboud University Medical Centre (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 217076.16 €
Projet SeDiBone (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Osteoporosis, a widespread disease that causes bone fragility, currently afflicts over 32 million Europeans, with rapidly increasing prevalence expected due to population aging. The costs of therapies for osteoporotic fragility fractures total more than €50 billion per year in the EU. Postmenopausal females are at especially increased risk for osteoporosis, and the regenerative capacity of healthy bone also differs between the biological sexes. Although biomaterials have been developed to aid bone regeneration after injury, the influence of biological sex and osteoporotic disease have not been taken into account for such biomaterials design. Excitingly, the advent of machine learning (ML) offers the potential to unravel the effects of sex and osteoporotic disease on biomaterials’ bone regenerative capacity, and to apply these insights to design biomaterials optimized to these characteristics. Therefore, the SeDiBone project will – for the first time – exploit ML to elucidate the influence of sex and osteoporotic disease on bone regeneration, and to translate these insights towards design of an entirely new class of biomaterials with sex and osteoporotic specificity. By enabling automated localization of tissue defect sites and detailed tissue, cell, and interface identification, SeDiBone will deliver an Analysis Tool that efficiently and reproducibly quantifies bone regeneration outcomes in male or female and healthy or osteoporotic preclinical animal models (Aim 1). These in-depth insights will then serve as inputs for a Design Tool to determine the biomaterials designs correlating to optimal regenerative success based on sex and osteoporosis, with validation through ex vivo demonstration (Aim 2). SeDiBone will thus crucially synergize and advance efforts to design a new generation of patient-specific biomaterials, and accordingly inform therapeutic solutions for regeneration of bone tissue in the unexplored areas of sex- and disease-based specificity.

Mots clés : bone, regenerative medicine, osteoporosis, histology, histomorphometry, in vivo, orthopedic, craniofacial, dental, surgery

Participants :
- Radboud University Medical Centre (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 203464.32 €
Projet SIGSbyBEVs (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Fungal plant diseases are responsible for yield and quality losses in agroecosystems, and also threaten the sustainability of forest ecosystems worldwide. The management of fungal diseases in agroecosystems often relies on the intensive use of chemical fungicides, which have negative impacts on the environment and may lead to the emergence of resistant strains. At the same time, fungal diseases are rarely managed in forest systems due to the scarcity of viable options. Spray-Induced Gene Silencing (SIGS) is a novel management approach based on the ability of certain organisms, including plant pathogenic fungi, to take up double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) from the environment, which can induce gene silencing in the target organism. Thus, essential or virulence-related genes can be specifically targeted by dsRNAs in SIGS, preventing or reducing disease development and providing a bio-based alternative to chemical fungicides in agroecosystems, and a promising option for forest systems. However, the easy degradation of dsRNA under environmental conditions is a major hurdle in adapting this technology for widespread use. Here, we propose to use bacterial extracellular vesicles (BEVs) as dsRNA delivery vehicles in SIGS. My previous research experience has shown that artificial vesicles can encapsulate and protect dsRNAs that target fungal genes through spray applications, inducing gene silencing in several plant pathogenic fungi. In this proposal, we plan to develop a technology based on dsRNA encapsulation into bacterial extracellular vesicles (BEVs) to target two fungal species in the genus Fusarium, one that infects high-value horticultural crops and one that infects forest pine trees. Through a carefully designed plan based on my research background and the expertise of my host institution, we aim to develop SIGS technologies based on BEVs that will contribute to the sustainable management of fungal diseases in agricultural and forest systems.

Mots clés : spray induced gene silencing, rnai, cross kingdom rnai extracellular vesicles fungal plant pathogens fungal diseases, fusarium circinatum fusarium oxysporum agriculture forestry pine tomato

Participants :
- Université de Valladolid (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 166654.96 €
Projet TraFICa (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Heart failure is a major global public health problem affecting over 23 million patients worldwide. There are no effective therapies for heart failure that regenerate the damaged heart muscle following injury such as a myocardial infarction. The adult mammalian heart has an extremely limited intrinsic capacity for regeneration due to the fact that mature cardiomyocytes are unable to proliferate. To date, attempts to re-induce proliferation in mature cardiomyocytes of the adult heart have not yet been translated into the human clinical context. Much remains to be learned about molecular mechanisms controlling cardiomyocyte proliferation in humans if the therapeutic potential for cardiac regeneration is to be realised. With my extensive training and expertise in molecular and stem cell biology I plan to generate and exploit an innovative live cell cycle reporter-based screening platform to identify Transcription Factors (TFs) that can be induce cardiomyocyte proliferation. The three major objectives of this research proposal are: 1. Develop a high-content screening system to monitor cardiomyocyte proliferation in 3D human cardiac organoids, which will then be used to: 2. Identify (combinations of) TFs that drive the human cardiomyocyte cell cycle. 3. Assess the therapeutic potential of TF activation for cardiac regeneration in a pre-clinical human cardiac model system. I will receive extensive training in the ex vivo cardiac tissue culture system (objective 3), which will complement my proven expertise in the generation of (genetically modified) 3D cardiac organoids and knowledge on cell cycle regulation (objective 1 & 2). Altogether, the tool development, results and training obtained during this project will put me in the forefront of the cardiac regenerative field.

Mots clés : stem cells, 3d cardiac organoids, cardiomyocytes, proliferation, cell cycle

Participants :
- Leiden University Medical Center (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet M4Liver (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disorder worldwide, which affects to around 25% of the population. It is associated with obesity and diabetes and may lead to chronical liver diseases and cancer. Its diagnosis and prognosis involve a liver biopsy that entails certain unavoidable risks and errors and present a high cost. The determination of biomarkers in biological fluids, particularly metabolomics, is one of the most promising tools as an alternative to these more conventional invasive procedures. Thus, it is important to develop a platform to monitor and diagnose the disease in a wider population as well as to track the disease evolution. The aim of M4Liver project is to design and fabricate an effective microextraction device for the development of a simple and non-invasive bioanalytical method suitable for the early diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of fatty liver diseases. The method is based on the identification and quantification of biomarkers in plasma samples. They will be extracted and preconcentrated using a small device coated with a hybrid material with anti-fouling properties, which is composed of a metal-organic framework (MOF) and a polymeric phase. With the aim of ensuring scalability and reproducibility, the MOF particles will be prepared using microfluidics. Overall, the combination of the preconcentration technique, the impressive MOF sorption capacity and polymer stability in this analytical method will contribute to gain insight into the role of biomarkers in NAFLD. Moreover, given the simplicity and the possibility of carrying out parallel and fully automatic analysis with this approach, its implementation in routine clinical laboratories as a simple and economical platform is feasible.

Mots clés : fatty liver disease, biomarker, metabolomics, diagnosis, microextraction, metal organic framework, microfluidics, diagnosis

Participants :
- University Medical Center Groningen (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet P2XSACat (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

High efficient Power-to-X technologies such as hydrogen production by water splitting, the electrocatalytic reduction reaction of carbon dioxide to fuels, and nitrogen reduction to ammonia are the cornerstones for building sustainable future energy and economy. P2X technologies are a direct tool for achieving carbon neutrality and reducing the negative effects of anthropogenic climate change, as well as, dramatically reducing the role of fossil fuels in energy and industry, making it impossible to use the fossil fuels supply as an instrument of political pressure. The Proposed project is aimed at the development and complex study of the electro- and photo-electro active materials based on single-atom-modified 2D flakes of MXenes and MBenes, aimed at significant improvement of the energy efficiency of Power-to-X technologies. Optimization of the composition and structure of catalytic sites, including the simultaneous decoration of material by two or several atoms of different elements, controlled by electrochemical atomic-force spectroscopy will be used for the preparation of efficient catalytic materials with outstanding properties. Novel methods of decorating 2D materials by laser and microwave exposure, as well as, general patterns of controlling the catalytic MXenes and MBenes activity by SA (SA ensemble) structure will be also developed.

Mots clés : mxene, mbene, single atom site, carbon dioxide reduction reaction, nitrogen reduction reaction, oxygen reduction reaction

Participants :
- Université de Potsdam (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 165976.44 €
Projet SAVETHEHEART (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death worldwide, with half of CVDs deaths being caused by coronary artery disease. Myocardial infarction is the most common cause of cardiac insufficiency, leading to fibrosis and ultimately heart failure. Since current therapies for cardiac fibrosis have limitations, there is a need for more effective strategies. Gliflozins (e.g., Dapagliflozin and Empagliflozin), hypoglycemic agents and SGLT2 inhibitors usually used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, have been shown in recent clinical trials (i.e., DAPA-HF, DELIVER, EMPEROR-Reduced, EMPEROR-Preserved) to reduce the combined risk of cardiovascular death or hospitalization for heart failure in patients with reduced and preserved ejection fraction, regardless of diabetes status. They have also been shown to ameliorate myocardial fibrosis post-ischemia. Nevertheless, most of the underlying mechanisms of these benefits remain elusive and the potential adverse effects of the systemic administration of gliflozins must be recognised. In this regard, the use of liposomes as in situ injectable drug delivery systems offers many potential advantages for the therapy of myocardial infarction. Therefore, the SAVETHEHEART project aims to develop a new therapeutic approach for the efficient treatment of cardiac fibrosis by using liposomes, produced by microfluidics to encapsulate Dapagliflozin (DAPA). Their effect will be studied in a 3D model of cardiac fibrosis, that will be obtained by bioprinting a biomimetic type I collagen hydrogel, bioengineered with human induced pluripotent stem cells-derived cardiomyocytes, myofibroblasts and endothelial cells, and cultured under perfusion and hypoxic conditions to better mimic a fibrotic response. Understanding cell behaviour in the proposed setting, this work opens perspective to the optimization of injectable DAPA-liposome formulations, intended as an innovative therapeutic strategy for the treatment of cardiac fibrosis.

Mots clés : microfluidics, liposomes, dapagliflozin, bioprinting, multicellular 3d in vitro models, human primary cells, perfusion bioreactor, hypoxia, myocardial infarction, cardiac fibrosis, tissue engineering

Participants :
- University Medical Center Groningen (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187624.32 €
Projet ROAD-SiM (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

European industry increasingly focusses on recycling, pushing towards circular economy as part of EU Green deal. This offers enormous energy savings and CO2 reductions. However, there are several problems hindering the metals recycling. Effective solution to counter these problems is the development of new alloys, recycling-friendly by design. One of the rising problems during recycling, is the progressive accumulation of impurities in alloys produced from scrap metal. Elements such as tin cannot be effectively removed during manufacturing alloys from scrap. Therefore, the next generation of alloys will have be able to tolerate more impurities (therefore inclusions) than current alloys. Such materials also have to be more resistant to fracture, due to the potential damage nucleation at inclusions. However, impurities cause significant changes of properties and induce considerable complexity even in simple alloy systems. Therefore, the development of the recycling-oriented alloys based on understanding of changes caused by various compositional deviations require a significant volume of research. Concentrated solid solution alloys, including some of the established compositions of austenitic steels have the attributes essential for recycling-oriented alloys. They show enhanced tolerance to compositional deviations due to the extended compositional space with desired microstructures. and intrinsically high ductility levels. In this project, we first aim to analyze the consequences of the compositional changes and impurities to the changes of mechanical properties and damage-tolerance of said materials. Ultimately, scrap-compatible alloys for sustainable metallurgy will be prepared. Special attention will be placed on the effects of the elemental partitioning and their interactions with defects. The project outcomes will contribute to the development of recycling-oriented alloys on the global level, for future green metallurgy with reduced environmental impact.

Mots clés : metals alloys green metallurgy recycling green deal microstructure structure property mechanical testing fracture toughness in situ testing, toughness, ductility, damage tolerance

Participants :
- Université de Leoben (Autriche) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 199440.96 €