Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet RE-FRACTURE2 (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Doctoral Networks - Industrial Doctorates
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Population growth is combined with unprecedented improvements in standards of living for developing countries so that a massive demand for steel is expected for the construction of new infrastructures. This is going to produce a massive waste of energy and CO2 emission which cannot be tolerated by the world’s ecosystems. Indeed, steel production requires enormous amounts of energy and resources and consequently is a major source of pollution in terms of CO2 emission and waste production. Therefore, improvement and optimization of steel production targeted to sustainability and to the reduction of its eco-footprint are of crucial importance, if Europe is to maintain on the one hand its own steel industry and the environmental challenge on the other. In this sector (and others which deal with high-temperature liquids, e.g. aluminium, glass, molten salts in thermal solar power stations) the performance of refractory materials and related components plays a key role in energy efficiency, waste reduction and processing times. In order to drastically reduce the overall CO2 emissions from the production of steel, the development of breakthrough technologies is crucial. The overarching objective of the RE-FRACTURE2 project is to derive new computational models for refractory materials, which will make possible for the first time to simulate in-silico their behaviour over the whole of working temperature range. These models will be a breakthrough in the design of components like refractory nozzles, plates, ladle and tundish slide gate systems, which will directly translate to energy savings, waste reduction and decreases in pollution and CO2 emission, together with safety improvements. This goal will be achieved by the training of a new generation of “environment enthusiast designers” who will keep Europe to be the leading country in sustainable growth for a low carbon society.

Mots clés : emission reduction, sustainability of steel production, energy saving

Participants :
- Caemate srl (Italie) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 261499.68 €
- Vesuvius (Belgium) (Belgique) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 512640.0 €
- University of Trento (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 261499.68 €
- University of Belgrade (Serbie) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 435651.12 €
Projet MEANINGFEEL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Positive and negative affect are two components of experienced emotions that are the foundation of our subjective well-being, with important influences on mental and physical health. Self-report measures have been developed to quantify positive and negative affect, which can then be statistically compared within or across groups. They are used as indicators of subjective well-being in large surveys of European populations and as outcome measures in thousands of research studies. We can establish whether there has been a statistically significant change in affect over time, or whether there is a statistically significant difference between people. But, using the results of surveys and research to shape social policies or medical treatments requires the answer to a crucial yet unanswered question: How much do measurements of change in affect reflect people’s meaningful experiences? One way to gauge the meaningfulness of a statistical change in affect is to determine whether people subjectively perceive the difference in their emotional experience—whether they feel different. The proposed project addresses this question using the just noticeable difference approach, from psychophysics, in a first ever application to estimate the minimum change in positive and negative affect that meaningfully impacts people’s subjective experience of emotions, also examining potential cross-cultural variability. Researchers, policy decision makers, and the public can use this project’s results to evaluate findings from surveys and research studies in terms of meaningfulness. The methods may be adapted for other fields interested in people’s subjective experience and used to estimate the smallest change in an outcome measure that may be considered meaningful. The researcher has relevant expertise in the project’s domain and the host provides the perfect environment for the successful implementation of the research and training activities, ensuring the researcher’s career advancement.

Mots clés : subjective experience of emotions, positive and negative affect, affective science, emotions

Participants :
- University of Cologne (Allemagne) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 105847.47 €
- TU Dresden (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 68958.93 €
Projet M-DrivE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Post-translational chemical modifications to histone proteins – the storage units of DNA – influence gene expression electrostatically and through specific protein-protein interactions, the study of which is known as epigenetics. Although many enzymes have been identified which add, remove or recognise these modifications, the implication of metabolism in the induction of epigenetic states is a recent development – particularly highlighting acetyl coenzyme A (CoA) as the sole donor for acetylation. Due to the lack of appropriate biochemical tools, this emerging field has not yet been exploited, however Acies Bio’s leading work on the efficient synthesis of 4’ phosphopantetheine (4-PPT), a natural precursor of the prolific substrate CoA, places us in a unique position to realise the novel approach of metabolically inducing epigenetic modifications. In progress towards therapeutic use bypassing faulty metabolism in a rare genetic disorder, we have shown that 4-PPT is cell permeable, serum-stable, tolerated at high doses without side-effects, and can also upregulate histone acetylation. This presents a previously unexplored route to develop 4-PPT as a novel vehicle for the delivery of diverse intracellular acyl-CoA species, and subsequent histone modification. Taking advantage of the interplay between metabolic and epigenetic states, and the complementarity of backgrounds that Acies Bio and Dr Sekirnik can provide through an international partnership combining expertise in both fields, our proposed work would illuminate recently characterised histone acylations. By synthesising novel 4-PPT derivatives, and demonstrating their activity on a cellular and model organism level, we will develop new tools to enable rapid enrichment of rare endogenous modifications to probe their function. This would form the first demonstration of use of native enzyme substrates to affect epigenetic states, affording new European research opportunities in both metabolomics and epigenetics.

Mots clés : chemical biology tools, metabolic induction, enriching natural epigentic modification

Participants :
- Acies Bio (Slovenia) (Slovénie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 157287.6 €
Projet PyroPhosphoProtein (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) occur on nearly all proteins in eukaryotic cells to diversify their proteome. These chemical modifications of various amino acids side chains can influence protein association with other biomolecules, or control cellular signal transduction networks and the activity of enzymes. Reversible protein phosphorylation is one of the most common PTMs. It is considered as a signalling mechanism involved in almost all cellular processes. On the other hand, protein pyrophosphorylation mediated by the inositol pyrophosphate messengers was discovered recently and its function on proteins is completely unknown. Up to date, direct evidence of its role in vivo is still missing. Exploring the potential role of protein pyrophosphorylation is limited by lack of a robust method of installing pyrophosphate residue in desired position of full length proteins. Here we propose chemical site-specific pyrophosphorylation of proteins using “tag-and-modify” approach. It relies on expression of protein bearing cysteine in the position of interest. The cysteine is then chemically converted to dehydroalanine (“tag”), which reacts with various sulphur or carbon nucleophiles under mild conditions to introduce pyrophosphate PTM mimics (“modify”). The method allows preparation of not only pyrophosphorylated proteins, but also their phosphatase resistant analogues. These will be invaluable for mechanistic studies of pyrophosphorylation reversibility and its biological role. As a proof of concept, well defined chemically pyrophosphorylated transcriptional factor GCR1 will be prepared by proposed strategy. The influence of GCR1 pyrophosphorylation on interaction with GCR2 will be explored, since this is assumed to control transcription of glycolytic genes in yeast. Our new technique for the site-specific chemical synthesis of pyrophosphoproteins will provide long awaited tool to gain a better understanding of the physiological role of this novel PTM.

Mots clés : pyrophosphorylation, post translational modification, protein protein interactions

Participants :
- University of Oxford (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet TorCrop (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Potato tubers are nutrient storage organs that develop from underground stems called stolons through a process called tuberisation. This process is under the control of extrinsic and intrinsic signals, however, little is known about how these signals initiate and maintain tuber growth. We know that the first step is the initiation of cell division at the subapical region of the stolon, however, how this cell division is promoted and coordinated through developmental programs has not yet been studied. The TorCrop project will build on knowledge accumulated through fundamental research in model organisms to gain molecular insight in tuber initiation and growth. For this purpose, we will induce tuber growth by sugar and characterise the cell proliferation and cell growth during tuber formation. As next step, we will explore how the nutrient sensing Target of Rapamycin (TOR) pathway contributes to this and is there any hierarchical connection between TOR and the “tuberigen” signal. Then, we will identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that define tuber size, size distribution which is connected to enhanced TOR activation. We will also analyse allelic variations in identified candidate genes and link these to phenotypic variations available from breeding companies and in public databases. Finally, we will create predictive mathematical models that describe cell size, number and changes throughout tuberisation in relation to tuber size and ultimately yield. Therefore, the project will provide a better understanding on organ development and ultimately yield in crops by providing knowledge at molecular and systems biology levels.

Mots clés : plant biology, crop science, storage organ development, potato tuberisation, cell cycle regulation, cell growth, qtl mapping, bioinformatics, transcript profiling, systems biology, target of rapamycin

Participants :
- Wageningen University & Research (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187572.48 €
Projet DataLocAbstractions (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Power efficiency has emerged as the primary design constraint for the next generation of computing systems and the dominant source of energy consumption has shifted from computing elements to the movement of data. This shift will make locality of data the new programming challenge of the decade. However, current programming environments take a compute-centric approach and do not reflect the realities of the architectural trends. For performance and energy efficiency reasons, there is a critical need for a new data-centric programming paradigm that takes data locality as a primary criterion. Moreover the next generation of high performance systems (Exascale Systems) will be equipped with 2048-core chips, requiring applications to expose over a thousand-way concurrency. For a smooth transition to these advanced technologies, this project proposes a theoretical foundation and programming abstractions; embodied in an API (Application Programming Interface) that provides a rich interface to address the dual challenges of data locality and increased on-chip parallelism for emerging parallel computing systems. The ultimate goal of the project is to integrate the proposed API into real-life applications that are of great interest to Europe. The project will study Turbulent Combustion as a motivating application class because of its importance in energy production. The proposed research, by reinventing the programming environment to better reflect the realities of future platforms, will facilitate the transition to Exascale of applications that are critical for strengthening European leadership in HPC.

Mots clés : high performance computing, exascale computing, parallel programming models, parallel languages and libraries, compilers, computational fluid dynamics, turbulent combustion

Participants :
- Koç University (Turquie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 145845.6 €
Projet SplicEcomplex (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Pre-mRNA splicing is the major step of RNA edition in eukaryotes. It consists on a catalytic process that removes non-coding sequences (introns) and ligates the coding ones (exons), creating the RNA sequence that codifies the final protein. This process is highly regulated and gives rise to a great variability of proteins, expanding the versatility encoded in the human genome. In the early stage of splicing, RNA 5’ and 3’ splice sites must be brought within proximity to correctly assemble the active spliceosome (cross-intron arrangement) and perform the excision and ligation reactions. Many elements participate in the assembly of the early spliceosomal complex (E complex) through different protein-protein, protein-RNA and RNA-RNA interactions, leading to the formation of a very dynamic association. Several factors regulate the correct assembly, defining the RNA sequences that should be excised and controlling the production of alternative spliced transcripts. The full comprehension of the E complex formation will allow a deeper understanding of the splicing mechanism at molecular level which is essential in human health as aberrant processes are the basis of many diseases. Currently, the structures of cross-intron arrangement factors in the early spliceosome are not known and there is a lack of structural data of the complete E complex. In this project, I propose a novel, integrative and multidisciplinary study of the structure and regulation of the early spliceosomal assembly. I will analyse the different cross-intron interactions, elucidate the high-resolution structure of the whole association and study the effects of protein post-translational modifications in the structure and complex assembly. This will lead to the discovery of new structural insights for the first step of the spliceosome formation having an impact on our understanding of the fundamental mechanism of splicing regulation and forming the basis for future innovative therapeutic approaches.

Mots clés : spliceosome, e complex, pre mrna splicing, early spliceosomal assembly, splicing regulation, alternative splicing, integrative structural biology, cryo em

Participants :
- Helmholtz Zentrum München (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 171460.8 €
Projet IONIC BARRIER (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Precious metals (PMs) including Au, Pd, Pt are naturally occurring elements of high economic values. However, they face future supply-chain risks due to their limited abundance in the earth’s crust. Meanwhile, frequent replacements of electrical and electronic devices are leading to accumulated amounts of e-wastes, with PM contents gradually superseding natural ore deposits. Urban mining is the act of recovering PMs from e-wastes. This technique is important from economic and environmental remediation viewpoints, owing to the prospects of generating income through recycling and protecting the environment from pollution dangers. This proposal aims to utilize the properties and advantages of adsorption and hydroxide precipitation to design internal pH-driven ionic barrier-based protocols to recover PMs from urban mines (e-wastes). The proposed techniques will involve the fabrication of polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) capsules using poly(diallyldimethylammonium), PDADMA and poly(styrenesulfonate), PSS. Here, a new concept of “ionic barrier” will be combined with metal-hydroxide formation to help retain high internal pH within the PEC capsules. The capsules will create ionic barriers that will promote selective passage of PMs and reject heavy metals such as Cd, Pb, Hg etc., whilst the high internal pH will induce hydrolysis and metal hydroxide formation between OH ions and the penetrated PMs within the capsules. For further improvement of the recovery efficiency, the functional polymer, polyethyleneimine (PEI) will be immobilized. Strategic recovery techniques will be designed via sequential desorption and adsorption-coupled incineration to obtain elemental PMs. Consequently, these protocols are expected to enhance separation and recovery of PMs, and eliminate the hydroxide sludge and sulfide gases that usually accompany the precipitation process. Moreover, it will help to salvage the supply-chain risk associated with PMs, and keep their continuous supply to industries.

Mots clés : ionic barrier, precious metal, selective recovery, polyelectrolyte complex capsule, e waste, urban mining

Participants :
- Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (Finlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 202680.96 €
Projet DyNAmics (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Precise control of macroscopic properties at molecular level is one of the biggest challenges of modern science. Nature accomplishes this by adding information to matter, and organizes chemical system of nonliving components into living, biological systems. Achieving a deep knowledge on the appropriate manipulation of the intermolecular non-covalent interactions, will allow chemistry to be not only the science of the structure and transformation of matter, but also an information science, involving the storage of information at the molecular level. Inspired by the most fascinating nature’s information system, the DNA, “DyNAmics” will perform a modular and highly flexible synthesis of novel information carrying monomers, able to self-organize in duplex structure, through both covalent and non-covalent bonds formation. The reliability, robustness and the dynamic formation of H-bond based duplex, together with the template ability in a dynamic combinatorial system, will be deeply investigated. By quantitative assessment of multivalent recognition of complementary sequences and imperfections in the duplex formation of non-complementary and defective sequences, valuable information on the structural features and fidelity of supramolecular assembly formation of various sequences will be obtained. Reliable formation of dynamic synthetic duplexes would allow precise control over supramolecular interactions and will lay the foundation for formation of smart advanced materials with unprecedented properties, such as innovative data storage materials and new Constitutional Dynamic Materials. Furthermore this will be crucial for the development of efficient template directed synthesis for information encoding molecules, and it will provide information to answer to important questions regarding the formation of duplex encoding information, in a enzyme free system, such as the prebiotic word.

Mots clés : duplex, dynamic combinatorial chemistry, molecular recognition, self assembly

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet PNMS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Precise structural, conformational, as well as chemical information of biological molecules forms the basis for comprehension and control of biological processes, including metabolism, pathological processes, and drug targeting. Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has evolved into one of the leading methods for structural characterisation of folded proteins and protein complexes reaching atomic resolution through averaging. Thus, the unambiguous assignment of thousands of images to different oligomers, conformers, and fragments is a key requirement for high-resolution single particle cryo-EM. However, reliable preparation of homogeneous cryo samples remains one of, if not the, most important challenge in cryo-EM. Native mass spectrometry (native MS) allows to retain proteins in a near native state in an ultrapure gas-phase molecular ion-beam, providing complementary information on mass, composition, conformation and ligand binding sites. Preparative mass spectrometry (prep-MS) is able to generate ultrapure samples by soft landing of mass- and conformation selected molecules on surfaces for subsequent analysis. Here, we propose to implement preparative native mass spectrometry (pnMS), combining the strengths of native MS, prep-MS, and cryo-EM, to establish a new versatile pathway for comprehensive structural analysis of biological systems. We will design ion optics to couple a mass selected molecular ion beam from a commercial high-performance MS and a landing stage to add deposition capability. Initial experiments will focus on benchmark systems such as BSA and GroEL, before approaching more challenging proteins, including heat shock proteins (HSPs) and G-Protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Ultimately, pnMS should enable the structural biology community to obtain a comprehensive understanding of structural variety (proteoforms), protein interactions (interactome), and synthetic structures, e.g. needed for customised medicine.

Mots clés : cryo transmission electron microscopy ion beam deposition soft landing scanning probe, microscopy mass spectrometry mambrane proteins heat shock proteins g protein coupled receptors

Participants :
- University of Oxford (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €