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

With the upcoming high-luminosity phase of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the high energy physics community is gearing up to explore the fundamental building blocks of our universe with unprecedented precision. Consequently, the demand for precise and widely available theoretical predictions is at its highest level. Resummation of logarithmically enhanced terms plays a crucial role in achieving accurate phenomenological predictions, in addition to higher-order fixed-order predictions. During my fellowship, I will to work on the design, implementation, and application of tools dedicated to Next-to-Next-to-Leading Logarithmic (NNLL) resummation, including novel applications, as well as the first complete dipole parton shower with validated NNLL accuracy. Both represent critical tasks to meet the accuracy needs of the next phase of the LHC and of future collider experiments. As a first step, I intend to extend the established CAESAR formalism for NLL resummation to NNLL, inside a comprehensive framework within the Sherpa event generator, one of the major simulation tools used by the LHC experiments. The Sherpa-CAESAR framework will then be extended to accommodate hadron collider environments like the LHC. The integration of this baseline for NNLL resummation serves as a foundation for the following efforts. Subsequently, I plan to enhance the recently introduced Alaric parton shower with inclusion of established Next-To-Next-To-Leading Order (NLO) splitting functions. Ultimately, I will utilise the tools and methods developed in the initial phase to validate the NNLL accuracy of the enhanced Alaric parton shower. By the project’s conclusion, not only will a significant enhancement in NNLL resummation have been realised, but novel novel strategies for NLO subtraction and parton shower matching will emerge. This project stands to make a substantial contribution to the advancement of particle physics and the successful execution of experiments at the LHC and beyond.

Mots clés : collider physics, quantum chromodynamics, resummation, parton showers

Participants :
- Université du Sussex (Royaume-Uni) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 210789.12 €
Projet MalDiProT (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Malaria remains a public health concern, with 247 million cases and 619,000 deaths reported globally in 2021. Despite the increasing prevention and control measures driven by the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly half of the population is still at risk of malaria, with a reported increase in the incidence of imported malaria in European countries. To this end, implementing large-scale, high-coverage, early diagnosis, and accurate prognosis of severe malaria is critical to reducing the impact of malaria in Europe. Due to its high sensitivity, parasite counting by microscopy observation is the current gold standard method. However, it is inappropriate for its application at the point of care (PoC). The rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) based on lateral flow assay are the best option for PoC testing since they accomplish the REASSURED criteria WHO recommends. However, this method doesn't provide quantitative prognostic information and has proved low clinical sensitivity with low parasitemia samples (asymptomatic parasite carriers). With this aim, I propose for the first time the development of a smartphone-powered electrophoretic-driven aptamer paper-based LFA capable of providing a quantitative measurement of 2 parasite (PfHRP2, pan-pLDH) and 2 host (ang-2 and CRP) malaria biomarkers within minutes. Compared to capillarity-driven LFA, the flow control by electrophoresis enables the application of different synergic strategies to increase assay sensitivity, such as integrated incubation steps and purification of interfering biomolecules. Highly specific aptamers will be developed by a fast and cost-effective microfluidic selection approach, used as bioreceptors with stability for electrokinetics. This will enable an early diagnosis and an accurate prognosis of malaria, reducing the risk of developing severe symptoms. Upon successfully validating the device in non-endemic areas (host institution), I expect its use in low-resource, malaria-endemic areas.

Mots clés : malaria, diagnosis, prognosis, electrokinetic, lateral flow assay, aptamers

Participants :
- Université Columbia (Etats-Unis) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- CERCA Institution (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 187858.56 €
Projet HUMALCOR (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Malaria is the most important parasitic disease being a leading cause of death among young children, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In the context of the World Health Organization (WHO) strategic goals for a world free of malaria, there is a strong need of highly efficacious vaccines. Despite the RTS,S/AS01 (RTS) vaccine candidate was recently approved for use in African children, it demonstrated a modest efficacy during phase 3 clinical trials. Hence, a better understanding of the determinants of long-lasting immunity induced by the RTS,S is required to support improved next-generation vaccines aiming to provide the maximum coverage to target populations. In this regard, previous serological analyses demonstrated that high antibody levels and avidity are associated with vaccine efficacy in African children recipients. However, the molecular mechanisms and the cellular immune phenotypes supporting such potent antibody responses have not been fully deciphered. To fill these knowledge gaps, we propose to develop an in-depth humoral immunoprofiling within the large multicenter RTS,S phase 3 clinical trial, using already collected samples from African children participants. By generating a collection of antigen-specific monoclonal antibodies, I will investigate the molecular features of the RTS,S-induced memory B-cell response and the most relevant target epitopes. In parallel, I will identify the lymphocyte populations mobilized upon highly responding serological profiles, to subsequently develop a multivariable analysis integrating clinical-epidemiological, serological and cellular datasets to elucidate hallmarks of potent antibody responses and vaccine efficacy.

Mots clés : humoral immunology memory b cells monoclonal antibodies systems immunology malaria

Participants :
- CERCA Institution (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 165312.96 €
Projet LIVER-X (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

LIVER-X addresses an important question: how does the environment impact the developmental origins of liver health and disease? Poor liver health in childhood represents a major public health problem with long-term consequences. Elevated alanine aminotransferase, a marker of liver injury and screening tool for pediatric non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) risk, is increasingly reported at young ages, currently being detected in almost one out of ten children living in Europe and the western world. Although it is well known that an obesogenic diet and genetic predisposition play a role in the development of liver injury and disease, the contribution of the complex environment in which we grow up and live remains unclear. LIVER-X addresses this knowledge gap. The project will leverage the resources of the population-based HELIX and Generation R cohorts and follow an exposome-wide approach to the study of environmental impact by using rich biomonitoring and geospatial exposure data collected at the vulnerable early stages of the lifecourse (pregnancy and childhood). Advanced analysis techniques will be used to provide novel evidence on the individual and combined effects of a wide array of early-life ubiquitous environmental factors, including industrial chemical pollutants, toxic metals, air pollution, and characteristics of the urban natural and built environment, on liver injury markers in childhood and adolescence. The project will also assess whether children’s diet quality and polygenic risk for NAFLD modify vulnerability to environmental impact, and thus aid in identifying susceptible subpopulations and environmental priorities. LIVER-X fosters research cooperation across disciplines and knowledge transfer. The project aligns with urgent challenges related to environmental pollution, the urban environment and the health of future generations, and thus its results are expected to be of high relevance for researchers, policy makers, and European citizens.

Mots clés : exposome, early life, environmental pollutants, urban environment, pregnancy, childhood, child health, liver injury, nafld risk, gene environment interactions, diet quality

Participants :
- Université Érasme de Rotterdam (Pays-Bas) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- CERCA Institution (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 181152.96 €
Projet RELIGHTS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Indirect New Physics searches are becoming increasingly important in the quest for physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). Since these heavily rely on the precision that can be obtained both in theory and in experiments, being able to achieve good control over non-perturbative effects, which are usually the main source of theoretical uncertainty, is of utmost relevance. With this postdoctoral fellowship, I will perform a comprehensive study of non-factorisable soft-gluon contributions in B-meson decays, focusing on the tree-level non-leptonic decays like $\bar B^0 \to D^+ K^-$, and on the rare semileptonic decays like $B_s \to \phi \ell^+ \ell^-$. In fact, for both types of processes, several tensions have been observed between the SM predictions and the corresponding data, and for both types of discrepancies, the dominant source of theoretical uncertainty stems from hadronic effects. Specifically, the computation will be performed using the well-established framework of light-cone sum rules (LCSR), employing the light meson (\pi,\phi, K^{(*)}) light-cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs). The proposed project will represent the first calculation of these hadronic effects within this method and will make it possible to circumvent current challenges that arise when using B-meson LCDAs. Furthermore, particularly for the rare semileptonic decays introduced above, this approach will lead to a significant reduction of the theoretical uncertainties, as local and non-local form factors will be computed within LCSR using the same inputs. Therefore, the proposed research will be of considerable help in assessing the nature of the observed tensions and ultimately in exploiting the rich amount of future data available.

Mots clés : b physics, light cone sum rules, hadronic effects

Participants :
- Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 292118.88 €
Projet PROFIT (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

General relativity (GR) has led to remarkable scientific progress, most notably with the recent detection of gravitational waves (GW). This success has prompted efforts to build new GW experiments (e.g. Einstein Telescope, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) and as a result, it is now time to refine theoretical models and implement precision tests of gravity. However, despite these advances, GR falls short as it fails to provide a complete description of a quantum theory of gravity. To probe new physics, at higher energy scales as quantum gravity dictates, it is essential to work beyond GR. This is achieved by introducing certain types of modifications, in the formalism of effective field theories (EFT). A complete scheme to constrain the EFT is not known and in turn, the physical consequences of a given EFT is limited. Moreover, modified theories of gravity become increasingly challenging to study from a computational perspective. As a result, there is limited access of solutions in EFT extensions of gravity, highlighting the need to develop new technical and mathematical methods to learn about these theories and their solutions. Therefore, the objective of this action is twofold. First, I will investigate modified theories of gravity, implementing a unique physical constraint, understanding how this constraint dictates a unique form of the EFT and as a result, compute the observations consequences, relevant to GW. Second, having comprehensively studied such EFTs and identified their key features, I intend to search for novel solutions of these theories. I will compute the quantum signatures of these solutions, connecting them to quantum gravity. As a fellow, this action allows me to conduct research on current challenges at the forefront of theoretical physics, enhancing my scientific expertise. As a result, I will increase my visibility in the field, fostering my independence and setting the stage to lead my own research team.

Mots clés : gravity, modified theories of gravity, black holes, holography, effective field theories, quantum corrections, quasinormal modes, string theory, higher derivatives, dualities, general relativity

Participants :
- Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 292118.88 €
Projet SAMPL-QCD (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The goal of SAMPL-QCD (Scattering Amplitudes for Multi-hadrons Processes in Lattice-QCD) is to compute, with a novel method, exclusive scattering amplitudes involving multiple hadrons in the final state, such as J to ππ or J to πππ, with J=B,D,e+e-,...from Euclidean correlation functions computed in lattice QCD. The motivation is to provide new theoretical predictions to compare with experimental data that already exists, and that will keep being produced, with the ultimate goal of finding evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model. The state-of-the-art for theory predictions of multi-hadron processes is the K→ ππ study from the RBC/UKQCD collaboration. The methodology employed there is based on the Lellouch Lüscher formalism, which appears hard to generalise to processes where many inelastic thresholds can open simultaneously. A different strategy that does not suffer the same complications is now possible, because of two factors: on one side, a mathematically-robust relation between Euclidean correlators (available from lattice QCD) and scattering amplitudes was given by A. Patella & N. Tantalo in terms of an inverse problem. On the technical side, progress made by my collaborators and I in the last few years in solving the inverse problem with reliable estimates of its systematics, paves the way for first QCD calculations of this kind, potentially opening the way to a new generation of lattice calculations. In this project, we intend to explore the level of precision that can be reached, within this formalism, for scattering amplitudes, given the current state-of-the-art lattice simulations.

Mots clés : lattice qcd, lattice simulations, scattering amplitudes, s matrix, precision physics, hadronic physics, hadronic decays, computational physics

Participants :
- Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 292118.88 €
Projet INTERCONNECTIONS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by gastrointestinal tract inflammation, being Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, the most clinically abundant. IBD affects around 6.8 million people all over the world, being Europe the continent with the highest prevalence. Although anti-TNF-α monoclonal antibodies are a breakthrough therapy, almost 40% of IBD patients do not respond to therapy or acquire resistance. This leads to uncontrolled inflammation that, prolonged in time, constitutes a higher Colorectal Cancer risk. This justifies the current efforts to identify innovative therapy targets for IBD understanding of the molecular processes behind (personalized medicine). The fact that an increased intestinal permeability precedes the onset of inflammation possesses epithelial disruption as a potential etiological factor in IBD. Moreover, in recent years, several publications have highlighted that an impaired epithelial barrier is linked to resistance to therapy. Nevertheless, how altered epithelial mechanics can influence the structural properties of the extracellular matrix and immune cells migrating through it is not fully understood. On the other hand, the role of neutrophils as resistance-to-therapy players has emerged very recently. Then, we hypothesize that an alteration in epithelial cell mechanics constitutes a primary event that impacts the proliferation and behavior of the first immune cell responders: neutrophils. This would further contribute to ECM remodeling and fibroblasts polarization to IAFs (another mechanism implicated in therapy resistance). Then, INTERCONNECTIONS aims to elucidate how an altered epithelial dynamics constitutes a primary event that directly (through an altered transepithelial migration) or indirectly (affecting the mechanical framework) could promote the accumulation of activated neutrophils.

Mots clés : epithelial dynamics, neutrophils, extracellular matrix, resistance to therapy

Participants :
- University Hospital Erlangen (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 173847.36 €
Projet CAFE (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

In current "conventional" agricultural practices, most farmers depend on synthetic fertilizers and nutrients extracted during harvests are seldom brought back to the soil. This open-circuit organization of food systems induces the prospect of phosphate shortage and consumes large amounts of abiotic resources and energy to generate fertilizers or process nutrients once they end up in sewage. Such a linear and extractive system, together with current fertilizer application methods, has incurred great social and environmental costs around the world, leading to significant biodiversity loss, soil erosion and salinisation as well as nutrient leaching. Finally, animal-based diets in the largest economies further increase the pressure on food systems as feeding animals inflates land and nutrient use.  Source separation of organic matter and its recovery are likely to be critical for the long-term sustainability of the agri-food and waste-management systems in an increasingly urban world. Indeed, the transformation of kitchen or green waste and human excreta can provide invaluable resources such as compost, fertilizers, or energy and eventually remove the need for synthetic fertilizers.  This project will develop prospective scenarios for nutrient recovery and assess how far they can bring the agri-food system on the path to circularity. Using complex networks and systems methods, we will convert and analyze existing datasets to generate logistics networks associated to these scenarios. These networks will model the fluxes of organic matter between sources (habitations), processing or storage locations, and sinks (parcels). We will also assess the impact of dietary changes and low-fertilizer or agro-ecological practices compared to business-as-usual situations. This will enable us to evaluate the technical feasibility of these recovery scenarios and quantify how much they improve agri-food sustainability and can help local actors tackle their socio-ecological transition.

Mots clés : source separation, biowaste, nutrients, agri food systems, urban networks, urban metabolism, human excreta, fluxes, logistics, urban planning, circular economy

Participants :
- École nationale des ponts et chaussées (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 264693.6 €
- Institut d'amenagement et d'urbanisme de la region ile-de-france (France) — Partner, associated partner, Autres, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet AstroScope (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

To build a coherent representation of the world, the brain combines inputs from different sensory modalities in a process named multisensory integration. Multisensory processing involves computations distributed across brain areas and cell types and it is profoundly shaped by neuromodulation. Correct perception of our multisensory environment is highly beneficial for survival as it enables accurate responses to external stimuli. Sensory neocortical areas continuously encode, integrate and elaborate multisensory information even at the primary sensory level. In these areas, multisensory neurons respond to multimodal stimuli aligned in time and space. Astrocytes integrate signals coming from neuronal populations. In turn, astrocytes can modulate neuronal activity. These cells are thus ideally placed to integrate and mediate multisensory information. Yet, if astrocytes regulate sensory perception is unclear. Additionally, due to technical limitations, most studies of multisensory processing focused on single areas separately. With this project, I will reveal the role of astrocytes in encoding multisensory stimuli across sensory areas. This will be achieved by performing, for the first time, two-photon mesoscopic imaging on both neurons and astrocytes. With advanced computational methods, I aim to decipher if information about multisensory perceptual behaviour encoded by astrocytes is complementary to that in neurons. Additionally, stimulus detection relies on external input, but is also influenced by internal states, such as attention. Acetylcholine (ACh) is correlated with attention and affects neuronal circuit responses. Hence, I will test if astrocytes are behavioural state regulators by investigating if ACh release correlates with astrocytic responses during task engagement. In conclusion, I will combine state-of-the-art molecular and optical approaches with analytical methods to understand the role of astrocytes multisensory perception influences at the mesoscale.

Mots clés : astrocytes, association cortices, somatosensory cortex, visual cortex, information theory, two photon mesoscope, acetylcholine, attention, neuromodulation, calcium imaging, genetically encoded sensor

Participants :
- Italian Institute of Technology (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 185994.08 €
- Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf (Allemagne) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €