Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet SPARk (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Malaria remains one of the most devastating diseases in modern times, with the heaviest mortality concentrated in young children living in resource-poor environments. Plasmodium falciparum causes the most severe form of malaria. The parasites have a complex life cycle, switching between a host and a mosquito vector. Transformation of a subset of parasites into specialized stages capable of sexual development – the gametocytes – is one of the most astonishing, yet not well understood, Plasmodium life cycle phases. As preparatory work for this proposal during my time at Harvard School of Public Health, I identified pathways specifically upregulated at the onset of sexual differentiation, an important gap in our knowledge of gametocytogenesis. Among these, four genes involved in different aspects of post-transcriptional gene regulation were highly upregulated. Studying this aspect of gametocyte biology can add to our understanding of how Plasmodium parasites orchestrate complex genetics switches and modulate the cellular response to developmental signals. The aim of this proposal is to provide insight how these RNA-binding proteins contribute to sexual stage-specific gene expression. This project employs genetic approaches to investigate the role of these proteins during sexual development of P. falciparum. For that I will generate transgenic parasites and analyse the resulting phenotype in detail. Additionally, this study aims at characterisation the splicing activity of recombinantly produced proteins and to determine target RNAs in order to elucidate the underlying mechanism of RNA processing control. This proposal can contribute to improved health conditions in malaria-endemic countries through a better understanding of malaria transmission and new approaches to treat the disease. Completion of the scientific project in combination with the proposed structured acquisition of professional skills will enable me to reintegrate into the European research community.

Mots clés : malaria, gametocytes, transmission

Participants :
- University of Giessen (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 171460.8 €
Projet TheRealCompetition (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Malleable unhealthy behaviors excessively burden global societies. Public health media campaigns could offer cost-effective, large-scale interventions, but affect behavior only minimally. To date, health campaigns are optimized to outperform alternative health campaigns in their effects on behavior (e.g. comparing gain to loss-framed messages). Yet, in real life campaigns face other competitors like campaign-related media and peer-produced content. These sources are amplified by popular social media and thus often presented in close proximity to health campaigns. Each source may favor healthy or unhealthy viewpoints, causing health campaign-consistent or -contradictory updates to an individual’s evaluation of a behavior. Ignoring real-world competitors of public health campaigns is a grave oversight that can reduce or even reverse campaign effects on behavior. I seek to understand and optimize public health campaigns in the context of TheRealCompetition, namely healthy and unhealthy media and peer content on social media. This is non-trivial. Self-reporting media exposure and psychological processes underlying media effects overburdens lay participants who struggle to recall and explain how they integrate multiple competing influences on their behavior. In a game-changing interdisciplinary approach, I connect computational social science and neuroimaging to objectively and unobtrusively quantify daily exposure to campaign-related social media content, and understand the neuropsychological processes that explain campaign effects in the context of other sources of influence. Results offer actionable recommendations for practitioners and ecologically validate basic decision-making models. This action brings my unique dual expertise in media effects and neuroscience to Europe, adds computational social science to my skills, and develops my interdisciplinary team leader skills. I will answer novel questions, broaden collaborations, and significantly accelerate my career.

Mots clés : alcohol consumption, public health campaigns, health behaviour, social media, social influence, decision making, automated content analysis, neural value system

Participants :
- University of Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175572.48 €
Projet PI_Memory_Circuits (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Many animals make direct trips back to their homes after tortuous foraging trips using a navigational strategy called path integration (PI). During PI, sensory information for direction and distance measurements are used to calculate the straightest path back to home. While PI has been well studied behaviorally, the neural basis of vector memory formation is unknown in any animal. Here, I will combine behavior and physiology to demonstrate PI and the neural basis for vector memory formation in bumblebees. First I will develop real-world behavioral arenas to demonstrate that walking bees use PI. Next, I will use virtual reality to mimic the real-world arenas, demonstrating PI behavior in stationary bees. I will also develop electrophysiological methods to record from neural centers of interest in the brains of restrained bees. Finally I will combine the physiology refined in restrained bees and the PI behaviors in virtual reality to physiologically record from the brains of bees actively performing PI. From these experiments, I will ideally be able to measure the buildup of PI memory and observe how PI memory is used for steering during the homebound part of the foraging trip. From the proposed work, the neural basis of PI will be uncovered for the first time. Navigational feats extending past acquiring and following a home vector may be investigated in the future using the same methods. Results from this work have the potential for gains in applications such as robotics. Finally, during my fellowship, I will gain neuroanatomical and functional tools that will aid in my future research plans to investigate the neural basis of navigation behaviors of mantis shrimp, animals which exhibit similar navigational strategies to those of insects, such as bees, while underwater, with the end goal of uncovering the evolutionary origins of complex, widespread navigational strategies in arthropods and potentially other animals as well.

Mots clés : navigation, path integration, insects, central complex, vector navigation, orientation

Participants :
- Lund University (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191852.16 €
Projet CortexVisionBehavior (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Many of our most common behaviors, such as reaching out to grasp an object or turning towards something of interest, require that we transform visual information into a representation that guides action. In humans and other mammals, key steps in this transformation take place in the cerebral cortex, by the cooperative action of multiple cortical areas. How does this cooperation occur? The classical hypothesis holds that cortical areas act in series, each performing a unique step of the transformation and passing on the result, like workers on an assembly line. In an alternative hypothesis the transformation occurs in a distributed fashion, with multiple cortical areas participating jointly in each step. In this hypothesis each area may function more like people lifting a table together by its sides. To test these competing hypotheses, I propose to record simultaneously from populations of neurons in six key cortical areas in mice performing a visual discrimination task. The task is designed to separate and quantify the contributions of each area to visual perception, decision-making, and action. The results will distinguish between the two competing hypotheses and reveal the distinct – or shared – roles of each cortical area. Then, I will put these conclusions to the test by silencing neurons in each of three areas and comparing the effects of inactivation on behavior. Together these experiments will reveal the fundamental mechanisms of how cortical circuits cooperate to produce visually-guided behaviors. I will perform these experiments in the Cortical Processing Laboratory at University College London, led by Kenneth Harris and Matteo Carandini.

Mots clés : vision, cerebral cortex, cortical dynamics, electrophysiology, optogenetics

Participants :
- University of London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet SmartStars (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Many questions remain unanswered regarding the origin and evolution of Black Holes (BHs). One such question concerns how BHs with masses of one billion times the mass of the sun could exist less than one billion years after the Big Bang? How could these objects grow so massive so quickly? Explaining their existence remains one of the grand challenges in astrophysics. The ‘direct collapse’ mechanism provides a compelling solution: if unusually massive stars can form early in the Universe producing large seed BHs (M >= 10000 Msun ) then the existence of massive BHs at early times can be explained. During this fellowship, hosted at Dublin City University (DCU), I will develop, in collaboration with Prof. Downes, novel and innovative techniques (smart star particles (SSPs) - see part B) which will spearhead further development of the direct collapse scenario. My BH expertise will be matched with the expertise in star formation modelling of Prof. Turlough Downes resulting in a unique inter-disciplinary collaboration. This research will allow the direct collapse mechanism to be fully tested, compared against current observational results and used to guide upcoming missions. The SSPs will contain algorithms designed to capture the essential physics of black hole seed formation. Their function will be to allow us to probe the nature of the central object - does a super-massive star form, or perhaps a quasi-star, or does fragmentation dominate resulting in the formation of stellar mass black holes? Answering these questions will allow us to prepare more thoroughly for upcoming missions. In this regard the research proposal is extremely timely, given recent observational progress, where a Lyman-alpha source has been discovered within a metal free region at very early time. The detailed results we will produce will be used to guide and interpret current and future observational campaigns including Chandra (XRay), JWST (infrared), SKA (radio) and Athena (Xray).

Mots clés : black holes, star formation modelling, computational cosmology, cosmology, first galaxies

Participants :
- Dublin City University (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187866.0 €
Projet CISTEM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Staff Exchanges
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Many rare diseases cause chronic health problems or are even life-threatening. The impact on the quality of life of affected patients, of whom many are children, is significant. To date, a limited but increasing number of so-called orphan drugs (drugs for rare diseases) are reaching patients. However, the majority of rare diseases are still without any effective treatment. The development of novel human systems for drug discovery therefore represents a major public health priority. Microfluidic technology-based “Organs-on-a-chip” represents a powerful tool for investigating rare disease mechanisms and testing new drug and treatment due to their ability to mimic tailored micro-environment architecture inspired by organ-level functions in vivo. However, due to the variability in rare disease mechanisms from one patient to another, organ on chip technology needs to be more precise and to convey towards personalized medicine. The human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have a strong potential in engineering organ-on-a-chip since they are derived in a patient-matched manner which makes them a superb source to construct human models for personalized drug screening as well as for understanding patient-specific fundamentals of diseases. To provide novel miniaturized platform for investigation of rare diseases able to address the burning issues in precision medicine today, CISTEM will bring together and synergistically several highly promising research directions which are too often investigated separately at the academic level but also at the industrial level. Based on 4 work packages, the CISTEM RISE project will be implemented by exploiting the complementary expertise of its partners and creating synergies between them through the targeted secondments of staff.

Mots clés : organ on chip, rare diseases, ipscs, microfluidic, cell differentiation

Participants :
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- University of Buenos Aires (Argentine) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Jagiellonian University (Pologne) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 40500.0 €
- BioSense Institute (Serbie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 184500.0 €
- Universidad de Zaragoza (Espagne) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 58500.0 €
- Cherry Biotech (France) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 27000.0 €
- Elvesys (France) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 18000.0 €
- Beonchip sl (Espagne) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 36000.0 €
Projet ASSEMBLY (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Many supramolecular systems have been inspired by nature, but the number of supramolecular systems that are truly functional in water at the low concentrations required for biomolecular studies are very limited. Cucurbiturils are one of a few select supramolecular systems that show great promise for the modulation of protein assemblies in biologically relevant media, but they require better means to control homo- and heterodimerization. In order to effect strong and selective heterodimerization I will design and synthesize a wide range of complementary guest pairs, using chemical and electronic concepts such as π-π stacking and electronic donor−acceptor pairs. After testing these on the cucurbituril host-guest system, they will be assessed on heterodimeric protein assemblies such as split luciferase. As many biological processes require multimeric protein assemblies, I will develop novel supramolecular constructs to gain control over the formation of such assemblies. By constructing protein-coupled cucurbiturils and developing novel double cucurbituril systems, trimeric and tetrameric protein assemblies will be assessable. Development of these advanced supramolecular tools is crucial in order to access synthetic signaling platforms with potential for molecular diagnostics.

Mots clés : chemical biology, cucurbituril host guest chemistry, protein assembly

Participants :
- Eindhoven University of Technology (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175572.48 €
Projet Striking streaks (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Many survivors of childhood chronic disease struggle with early atherosclerosis later in life. As a physician-scientist I am inspired by their lifelong fight, and my research focuses on the etiology and treatment of early atherosclerosis. Here, I aim to unravel the role of invariant Natural Killer T-cells (iNKTs) in atherogenesis. iNKTs are unique for their restriction to lipid antigens presented on CD1d molecules, which underlies their pivotal role in lipid-driven disorders such as atherosclerosis. The exact role of iNKTs however remains elusive, as long as the involved plaque-associated lipid antigens have not been identified. Therefore, I developed CD1d-sortagging as a novel and innovative approach for lipid antigen identification. CD1d-sortagging employs bacterial sortase enzymes for site-specific cleavage and biotin labeling of CD1d-lipid antigen complexes, followed by isolation and mass spectrometry identification of the lipid antigens. At the Cardiovascular Immunology laboratory of Prof. Monaco at the Kennedy Institute of Oxford University, in a unique collaboration with renowned iNKT-glycolipid expert Prof. Cerundolo, I first aim to identify plaque-associated lipid antigens. CD1d-sortagging will be applied ex vivo in a human atheroma model, and in vivo in a CD1d1-sortagging mouse model for atherosclerosis. Upon identification, I secondly aim to unravel the impact of plaque-associated lipid antigens on iNKT cell phenotype and function using Mass Cytometry of plaque-resident immune cells and study the structural and functional aspects of plaque lipid-iNKT cell interaction. Finally, I will explore the therapeutic potential of plaque-associated lipid antigens to manipulate iNKT cell function and atherogenesis in a mouse model for atherosclerosis. Taken together, this proposal combines an innovative approach and excellent research setting with translational impact, an effective work plan, and maturation of a passionate physician-scientist.

Mots clés : lipid antigens, natural killer t cells, atherosclerosis

Participants :
- University of Oxford (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet MariBet (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

MariBet is focused on the activity of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club of New York, founded by Ellen Stewart (1919-2011) in 1961 in order to give voice to artists marginalized by both the institutional theatres of Broadway and the Off-Broadway scene: a theatre conceived as an integration point in overcoming cultural and geo-political barriers and engaging artists in a common artistical research. Nowadays La MaMa produces performances always addressed to current social issues like immigration and welcoming refugees. The topic of the research is then in line with the current European political situation marked by the debate on migration flow. Main objectives are: 1. fill the gap in the field of theatre studies with an in-depth study of the history of La MaMa on which there are no exhaustive investigations yet; 2. analyse its engagement in promoting intercultural dialogues both in the past and in the present. These objectives will be reached through an interdisciplinary research, combining the historical and semiological investigation to the sociological analysis of the issues related to the performances presented by La MaMa. This project is timely because the historical distance from the facts allows a critical objectivity in the study of the subject, the emerging interest on the comparison between Avant-Garde theatre and contemporary theatre, the principles investigated by La MaMa over the years still impact on our society today. The project (36 months) will be hosted at the Department of Cultures and Civilizations (CUCI - UNIVR, Italy) and in the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (MESTC, Graduate Center – CUNY, US), involving the non-academic cultural institution La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club of New York. The detailed research and training program will be supervised by prof. Simona Brunetti (main supervisor) and by prof. Marvin Carlson (in US), both renowned scholars of theatre with expertise in History and Theory of Theatre.

Mots clés : theatre, american avant garde, off off broadway, cross cultural theatre, integration, american culture, migration

Participants :
- City University of New York (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- University of Verona (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 251002.56 €
Projet FUSION2NIGHT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : European Researchers' Night
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Marie Curie once said I am among those who think that science has great beauty. If you wish to explore this beauty you don’t need a PhD, yet very welcome is a great deal of curiosity, imagination and a fine handful of patience. Then, just follow your scientific passion and join us at Fusion2Night and play a researcher for a Night or... more! In September 2016 and 2017 Institute of Animal Reproduction & Food Research, University of Warmia&Mazury, and JR School of Higher Education will change Olsztyn into the arena for bonding of researchers and general public, combination of education and entertainment, partnership of academic and industrial centres, and fusion of science disciplines. The topics will range from cutting edge research to unusual perspectives on science, including technology of 7D cinema, neuroscience behind therapy fairytales and pocket-fitting tests on celiac disease. From the morning hours, in a myriad of edutaining activities spread over the entire City, people of all ages will experience how every aspect of our life is possible thanks to scientific influences. With the rule: Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Let me do and I’ll understand!, we will invite kids to try their hands at mind-exciting experiments and see how cool science is. Young people about to embark on career will have a chance to interact with and have their curiosity ignited by scientists, seeing them as ordinary people with extraordinary job. The stereotypic image of a scientist-alienated and immersed in intellectual puzzles having no bearing on others’ lives-will be confronted with inspiring academic and industry experts, communicating tangible benefits of their research and showing how rewarding science careers are. During face-to-face meetings at EU corner, researchers will promote the MSCA action as a passport to successful scientific career, stimulating pupils to consider their future in science and hence have a chance to co-create the world we all live in.

Mots clés : passion in science, reduction in the stereotypes about researchers, benefits that research brings to society, hands on experiments, edutainment

Participants :
- Olsztyńska Szkoła Wyższa im. Józefa Rusieckiego (Pologne) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 18450.0 €
- Polish Academy of Sciences (Pologne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 81250.0 €
- University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (Pologne) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 45000.0 €