Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet BENEFICCE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Although many efforts have been dedicated to the research and development of sustainable biorefineries, there are still some gaps to cover, especially to make chemicals production energetically efficient and rentable. The proposed route will combine a biotechnological and a thermochemical process, departing from low-cost raw materials like lignocellulosic biomass and environmental microbial communities to produce valuable chemicals. Bioplastics, enzymes, and lipids will be produced in a competitive biorefinery process. The project will be divided into two approaches, Approach 1 will study the fermentation of bio-oil, obtained from pyrolysis of waste biomass, to produce bioplastics, using microbial communities from contaminated environments. The scientific challenge (SC1) is to find a microbial community that can metabolize the chemicals present in bio-oil (including the toxic compounds) and produces bioplastics in one pot. Approach 2 will study the fermentation of lignocellulosic biomass to produce fatty acids and enzymes that degrade the lignocellulose. The scientific challenge (SC2) is to find a microbial community that can degrade the lignocellulosic material without any pre-treatment, and that can metabolize the toxic chemicals produced during biomass fermentation. BENEFICCE project will develop new technology for the sustainable production of bioplastics, lipids, and enzymes. The resulting biorefinery process aims to be competitive by using low-cost raw material and having fewer process steps than other existent technologies. The training-through-research that the fellow will receive during the project, will result in an experienced research leader that will continue developing clean technologies in biorefinery and bioenergy, contributing to two of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations: Sustainable Production and Combat Climate Change.

Mots clés : microcbial communities, bio oil, lignocellulosic biomass, bioplastics, lipids, enzymes

Participants :
- Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 196707.84 €
Projet VETRex4D (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Although microstructural characterization techniques are advancing, they are still inadequate to explain the complex behavior of recrystallization: Unexpected local grain boundary migration may relate to local variations in the deformation microstructure, but 3D quantification is needed. Newer studies suggest that residual stress may affect the boundary migration, but consensus is lacking. Additive manufacturing is becoming popular. Here the formation of pores/voids are observed but their effect on boundary migration is totally unexplored. Various processes and materials parameters are coupled and acting simultaneously, their individual effects cannot be separated experimentally. A novel paradigm is required to quantify the above-mentioned new and critical aspects with the larger longer-term goal to improve properties and design novel materials. I want to show that a virtual experimental toolbox for 3D/4D recrystallization is the way forward to remove the bottleneck. In this toolbox, for the first time ever, quantitative phase-field simulations will be directly coupled with 4D X-ray Microscopy (4DXRM) experimental data. The necessary steps to achieve my goals: 1) Develop expertise in 4DXRM and learn to design the critical experimental studies (supervisor is expert). 2) Develop quantitative 3D phase-field models to capture complex behavior of recrystallization and implementation it in MOOSE Framework software for large-scale simulations (PI is expert) 3) Coupling of 4DXRM data with MOOSE Framework (in collaboration). The vision is that the newly developed virtual experimental toolbox can be used by experimentalists and scientists in industry with minimal training. This fellowship is going to make me a unique expert in the field of phase-field model development and experienced in 4DXRM characterization, which will make me employable at leading European research institutions.

Mots clés : phase field modeling, recrystallization, grain boundary migration, 4dxrm, 3d printed metals, large scale simulations

Participants :
- Technical University of Denmark (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 207312.0 €
Projet PERIL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Although more than 11% of the world’s population lives close enough to an active volcano to be at risk from a potentially hazardous eruption, little research has been done to understand the long-term and often devastating consequences eruptions can have on the local landscape. After a major volcanic eruption, the surrounding landscape is significantly destabilised by the mass of volcanic material deposited on it, which can dam rivers, destroy vegetation, and lie precariously on steep slopes. For example, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines left more than 700 people dead, but only ~50% lost their lives during the eruption itself. The rest were killed in the following months by mudflows and landslides that displaced >150,000 people. There are many other examples where such secondary hazards have proven just as deadly and disruptive as the initial volcanic eruption, and yet little research has been done into how post-eruptive landscapes evolve. Addressing this issue requires a cross-disciplinary approach that combines the fields of volcanology and geomorphology. The specific goal of this research is to create an accessible, user friendly computer model that can predict patterns and rates of landscape response after a volcanic event. The model will be refined from observations of how certain natural volcanic landscapes have evolved after recent eruptions. With this new model, government agencies, non-profit organisations, local businesses, and private citizens will have the capability to predict and mitigate post-eruption hazards in vulnerable communities around the world.

Mots clés : volcanic geomorphology, landscape evolution modelling, secondary volcanic hazards

Participants :
- University of Bristol (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet NanoSiAl (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Alumina and silica nanophases play a crucial role in rock weathering and their formation and destruction controls Earth’s response to global climate change. The presence of various products of aqueous weathering of aluminosilicates points to a complex activity of water, and is considered as the geological indication for the occurrence of life-habitable conditions. In this regard, a more complete picture of the water-alumina-silica interactions would allow for better specifying the molecular-level conditions for early life. Upon weathering the original Al- and Si-containing phases are dissolved at the solid-water interface, undergo hydrolysis and condensation reactions and form new colloidal nanoparticles. However, quantitative and mechanistic understanding of the underlying processes that lead to the formation and types of Al and Si phases is still lacking, due to the insufficient in situ methodology providing structural information about the colloidal species in solution. Therefore, the main objective of the NanoSiAl project is to develop, test and validate the methods for the direct in situ and real-time structural and kinetic characterisation of the alumina and silica colloid formation pathways at the length-scale of < 100 nm. I will achieve this by utilising state-of-the-art in situ liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy (L-C TEM) complemented with synchrotron-based scattering methods. This way I will be able to fully avoid the usual artefacts of sample varying and hard-vacuum conditions, because the L-C TEM and scattering methods allow for direct in situ characterisation of nano-sized objects in solution with a near-atomic-resolution. This combination of novel techniques will provide unprecedented insights on properties of the molecular building blocks for alumina and silica as they nucleate, grow and assembly with each other.

Mots clés : alumina, silica, nucleation and growth, crystallization, electron microscopy, scattering, in situ characterization, saxs, waxs, hexd

Participants :
- Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 171460.8 €
Projet AlzDiabetes (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder affecting about 20 million people worldwide. Although aging is considered to be the most important risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, growing evidence from epidemiological studies suggest that type-2 diabetes (T2DM) increases the risk factor of AD. While compelling evidence establishes a link between insulin resistance and amyloid burden, relationships to tau are far from clear. In a recent study, it was shown that dysregulation of brain insulin signaling in both AD and T2DM, correlates to hyperphosphorylation of tau, a key abnormal tau modification leading to neurofibrillary tangles. Recent reports indicated that AD was associated with brain insulin resistance with significant abnormalities in the expression of genes and activation of kinases that are regulated by insulin and insulin-like growth factor signaling. Although a connection has been suggested between AD and diabetes, the mechanisms that link insulin resistance to AD are still unknown. Insulin resistance also leads to the impairment of autophagic pathway needed for clearance of misfolded proteins in neurodegenerative disorders. The objective of this study is to utilize robust Drosophila models of tauopathy and diabetes to decipher the underlying mechanistic pathways connecting these two devastating diseases. Furthermore, this proposal aims to study the effect of autophagy towards clearance of misfolded proteins in the background of insulin resistance and subsequent treatment of disease models with insulin sensitizing/autophagy activating drugs to ameliorate disease phenotypes. The results from this study will be further validated in post mortem brain samples from healthy and diseased patients for future therapeutic studies.

Mots clés : alzheimer s disease, type 2 diabetes, glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta, extracellular regulating kinase, autophagy, mammalian target of rapamycin

Participants :
- University of Southampton (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet iRhom2 in AD (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia in the elderly, a syndrome characterized by loss of memory and cognitive decline. AD has a dramatic socio-economical impact that is foreseen to worsen in the near future unless a cure is found. The pathology is triggered by the accumulation of Aβ oligomers that begins a cascade culminating with the formation of neurofibrillary tangles within the neuron and cell death. Neuroinflammation is emerging to play a key role in this process and it has been associated with the progression of the disease. The rhomboid-like protein iRhom2 has been recently identified as a genetic risk factor for AD, even though the underlying mechanism remains to be characterized. iRhom2 recently emerged as a novel pro-inflammatory protein required to traffic TACE (tumor necrosis factor-α converting enzyme) towards the plasma membrane and guide its maturation, thereby regulating the release of TNFα, a cytokine implicated in several inflammatory diseases. Consequently, iRhom2-/- mice are protected from sepsis and rheumatoid arthritis, which involve TNFα-dependent inflammation. In addition, the concept is emerging that iRhom2 may regulate trafficking of additional clients other than TACE, thus controlling other signalling events in neuroinflammation. The main objective of this proposal is to characterize the role of iRhom2 in neuroinflammation and in the progression of AD. I plan to cross an AD mouse model with iRhom2-/- mice and evaluate role of iRhom2 in the progression of the disease. In addition, I will use avant-garde proteomic approaches to identify novel iRhom2 clients in primary macrophages. Candidates relevant in neuroinflammation and AD will be further validated using an array of biochemical and functional assays. From this research I aim to identify new targets to develop therapies for treatment of AD, in line with the objectives of H2020 Work Programme to promote healthy ageing of the EU citizens.

Mots clés : neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, secretome, endoplasmic reticulum trafficking

Participants :
- Technical University of Munich (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159460.8 €
Projet Joint-probe analyses (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Among the most pressing questions in physics are the nature of dark energy and dark matter. The former is the driving force behind the current accelerated expansion of the Universe while the latter accounts for the vast majority of matter and is responsible for the growth of the large-scale structure in the Universe. No satisfactory explanation has been put forward for either of these two mysterious substances, however. Future cosmological surveys, such as Euclid, will elucidate the nature of dark matter and dark energy by measuring the distribution of matter and the growth of structure in the Universe to unprecedented accuracy. These high-precision measurements put stringent requirements on the accuracy of the modelling and statistical tools. At small scales, the uncertainty in the modelling of baryonic processes is already restricting the potential of current cosmological surveys and, if not addressed promptly, will preclude future surveys from reaching their mission science goals. During the proposed action, the Fellow will address these challenges by constraining the effect of baryon physics on the matter distribution by performing a joint-probe analysis of the three cross-correlations between weak gravitational lensing from galaxies, lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect. Analysing the joint-probe measurements poses unique challenges on the estimation of the data covariance. To overcome this obstacle, the Fellow will develop novel data covariance estimators based on recent statistical advances in resampling techniques of dependent data. These covariance estimation techniques will be applicable beyond the scope of this project and impact cosmology and astronomy in general by providing crucial new tools to estimate and validate the data covariances of large-scale surveys.

Mots clés : cross correlations, joint probe analyses, gravitational lensing, baryon physics, agn feedback, spatial statistics, resampling, covariance estimation

Participants :
- University of Edinburgh (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 195454.8 €
Projet ExItALS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a rare neurodegenerative disorder that primarily targets upper and lower motor neurons. The progression of the disease is mediated by altered intercellular communication in the spinal cord between neurons and glial cells. Intercellular communication, mainly happening through extracellular vesicles (EVs) is responsible for the horizontal transfer of proteins and RNAs to recipient cells. Recently, I proved that EVs released from ALS mutant astrocytes selectively induced toxicity in wild type motor neuron, thus reinforcing the notion that astrocytes exert toxicity in ALS disease propagation and suggesting EVs as mediators of toxicity. Although, multiple factors can play a role in motor neuron degeneration, recent evidences point toward a fundamental role for RNA and RNA-binding protein dys-homeostasis as crucial players in ALS pathogenesis. Therefore, the overarching goal of ExItALS is to characterize the astrocyte-EVs RNA cargos, -through RNA deep-sequencing (Aim1). This approach will be complemented by the use of high-resolution flow cytometry (secondment) to separate EV populations and determine which one(s) is(are) responsible for motor neuron toxicity (Aim2). The present research proposal is a synthesis of my interests in neurodegenerative diseases and my expertise in biochemistry and neurobiology. At the Host Institution I will greatly benefit from the scientific exchange with several PIs interested in RNA biology, particularly with my supervisor, whose skills in RNA-binding protein biology and bioinformatics analyses will perfectly integrate and consolidate my molecular and biochemical expertise. The MSCA-RI-IF will be instrumental to develop this initial hypothesis into deeper biological understanding of ALS and represent a crucial support to my scientific integration as a competitive, woman investigator in the transition from a researcher position to an independent academic career.

Mots clés : extracellular vesicles, horizontal transmission, rna and rna binding proteins, intercellular communication, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, motor neuron, spinal astrocyte, disease propagation

Participants :
- University of Trento (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 180277.2 €
Projet RescueMoDe (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal disease that progressively causes loss of neuronal and muscle function, for which there is no known cure. Although the genetic causes of ALS vary, the cytoplasmic accumulation of the TDP-43 protein in neurons is highly consistent among patients. Thus, TDP-43 is believed to be a point of convergence in the pathway responsible for ALS progression. However, while many genetic and cellular mechanisms have been linked to ALS, there is still a lack of understanding of the neuro-muscular interactions in ALS. In this project, we will identify neuronal or muscle cell-specific suppressors of motor impairment using an ALS model in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. In this model, transgenic C. elegans overexpress TDP-43 in the neurons, resulting in severe motility defects. We will use optogenetic tools to excite neurons and muscle cells separately in the C. elegans ALS model, contributing to our understanding of how TDP-43 accumulation affects tissue function. In addition, live in vivo microscopy of C. elegans will help us to elucidate the impact of TDP-43 on neuro-muscular interactions over time. Furthermore, novel automated tracking of the nematode worms enables high-throughput analysis of C. elegans mobility. Thus, we can efficiently analyse mobility when TDP-43 is overexpressed, and use this tracking for high-throughput screening of mutants that rescue the ALS phenotype. Once we have identified the mutants that Rescue Motility Defects (RescueMoDe), we will characterize their impact on neuronal and muscular function. Therefore, it will be possible to analyse the tissue-specific role of these candidates, and how they fit into the progression of TDP-43 toxicity in this system. Overall, we aim to further the understanding of ALS progression, which will allow a highly informed continuation of studies in mammalian cell culture or in murine model systems, which may lead to therapeutic research opportunities.

Mots clés : amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease, optogenetics, c  elegans, live imaging, forward genetic screening, protein aggregation

Participants :
- University Medical Center Groningen (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175572.48 €
Projet NMJALS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a late onset, lethal neurodegenerative disease of motor neurons that affects about 2 in 100,000 individuals per year. Different genetic mutations have been described in patients, but the genes involved seem unrelated and the causes of the disease appear complex and are still largely not understood. Of relevance, the destabilisation of neuromuscular junctions (NMJ) may be an early event, preceding neuronal death, making them an interesting therapeutic target to slow down disease progression. The goal of the study is to characterise the molecular organisation and dynamics of NMJ, in particular of cell adhesion molecules, in order to understand the mechanisms of maintenance of NMJ by analysing defects in their organisation in ALS contexts. Technically, we plan to combine neuron biology, quantitative cell biology and computational tools to reach a precise molecular understanding of the dynamic equilibrium of NMJ in zebrafish, an excellent vertebrate model for live imaging. We will develop innovative methods of super-resolution microscopy and of quantification of protein turnover using a fluorescent molecular clock. This precise molecular characterisation of the NMJ will allow detecting subtle early changes in the NMJ that occur before neuronal degeneration starts, in fish carrying mutations described in ALS patients. The project will lead to the identification of key proteins for NMJ stabilisation and enable the analysis of regulatory elements of this stability, especially the cytoskeleton. The innovative multidisciplinary approach of this study will unravel early modifications in the organisation of the NMJ preceding neuronal degeneration in ALS contexts. It will point out key proteins of NMJ maintenance constituting new targets for the development of therapies to counteract destabilisation of neuromuscular junctions, regardless of the genetic specificity of the patient.

Mots clés : neuromuscular junction, neurodegeneration, cytoskeleton, zebrafish

Participants :
- Institut Curie (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 185076.0 €