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

Interactions among plants and floral visitors determine the outcome of many important processes, such as pollination, plant reproductive success and, in the longer term, plant evolution. Recent evidence shows human-induced pollinator declines and in consequence plants are experiencing new “pollinator environments”. These changes can be detrimental to plant populations, or alternatively, they could be resilient by adapting to the new environments. This project will use a multidisciplinary combination of field studies and genome sequencing to investigate the resilience and potential for evolutionary change of plant populations when faced with changes in pollinators. For this I will use the recent large-scale range expansion of a European insect-pollinated herb, Digitalis purpurea, as a natural experiment to compare pollinators, floral traits, and estimates of heritability in native versus naturalised populations in the New World. The naturalised populations are pollinated by different animals, and could harbour lower genetic variation. Dense molecular marker panels will be used to estimate heritability in the field. The results will provide important insight into 1) the evolution of plant traits in conditions that could favour innovative change, and 2) the consequences of human-induced environmental changes on plant and pollinator populations in the long term. The main novelty is the combination of the study of changed natural selection regimes with the estimation of trait heritability in the same wild populations. This project will increase my competitiveness for academic consolidation through training a critical period in my career. Working at the University of Sussex will provide excellent training in insect evolution and conservation, bioinformatics, and teaching and mentoring students in a top-class research environment. In turn, I will contribute my knowledge on plant biology through teaching and collaborations in a mostly animal-oriented group.

Mots clés : plant pollinator interactions, pollinator declines, genomics, heritablity

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

Interdisciplinary research shows that our lineage survived while all other human species went extinct because our ancestors used their creative capacity to reshape the threats and opportunities of their environments, in turn reshaping themselves. As our world and working environments become increasingly dynamic, uncertain, and knowledge based, organizations and social challenges depend on creative ideas and creative resilience from employees, young people and entrepreneurs. As Teressa Amabile posits “only by using multiple lenses simultaneously, looking across levels, and thinking about creativity systematically, will we be able to unlock and use its secrets. What we need now….is to tie together and make sense of the diversity of perspectives found in the literature – from the innermost neurological level to the outermost cultural level”. A growing body of empirical work suggests that giving to others and perceiving that we, as humans, have positive impact though our work is beneficial for own resilience, well-being and creative nature (Martela & Ryan, 2016, Eshel et al., 2017). MUSES is aiming to moving away from the cognitive-behavioral dichotomy and by adopting a more systemic approach focus on the rewarding/motivational effect of perceived social impact and aims at capturing patterns of proactive & creatively resilient behavior of different samples where rewards are not absolutely institutionalized and thus are of lower importance whereas motivation is the key & dominant element. Thus, MUSE aims to research the relationship between prosocial & autonomous motivation (perceived social impact & affective commitment to the welfare of the beneficiaries), and resilience creativity in different contexts (employees, students, doctors, artists & volunteers). Our research aims at offering insights and important practical implications on how contextual factors can boost autonomous and prosocial motivation and thus lead to a more creatively reliant workforce/organisation

Mots clés : psychology and history of arts, social and organisational psychology, social impact and motivation

Participants :
- Université du Québec (Canada) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Anotati scholi kalon technon (Grèce) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191896.96 €
Projet DeepBias (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Intergroup prejudice gives rise to some of the darkest aspects of human behavior, including discrimination, violence, and inequality. In recent years, the harmful repercussions of intergroup prejudice have become increasingly evident, with the global rise of populist, far-right political movements centered largely on the exclusion of ethnic and religious minority groups. But what factors shape an individual’s degree of prejudice, and why do some people generally tend to develop greater animosity toward social outgroups? The state-of-the-art typically explains individual differences in prejudice via complex attitudinal and motivational factors (e.g., political conservatism, need for closure). However, the deeper cognitive and physiological underpinnings of prejudice remain largely unexplored. This gap in our theoretical understanding also has important practical implications: recent analyses suggest that most prejudice-reduction interventions – based on the current leading theoretical perspectives – have little or no effect, and can at times even increase prejudice. Taken together, these trends reveal that there is a pressing need for research that can provide a deeper understanding of the sources of prejudice, to fill this theoretical gap and help develop effective prejudice-reduction interventions and other means of countering bias. In this Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action, called “DeepBias,” I take a fundamentally different approach to the study of intergroup prejudice, examining how individual differences in implicit (i.e., nonconscious, uncontrollable) sensitivity to threat shape an individual’s prejudice. In this work – building on recent pilot data I have collected in preparation for this MSCA – I utilize cutting-edge cognitive and physiological measures to advadvance our understanding of the sources of individual differences in prejudice beyond abstract beliefs and motivations to identify the lower-level biological and psychological sources of prejudice.

Mots clés : prejudice, social cognition, physiology, implicit attitudes

Participants :
- Leiden University (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187572.48 €
Projet IberusTalent (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Cofund Doctoral programme
Statut du projet : SIGNED

International Doctoral Programme for Talent Attraction to the Campus of International Excellence of the Ebro Valley (IberusTalent) is a step forward from the Campus Iberus aimed at boosting the R&I capacity and high quality human resources of the University in the field of Agrofood and Health technologies. IberusTalent is a Doctoral Programme for Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) aimed at attracting 36 pre-doctoral excellent researchers to develop individual and freely selected project in the field of Agrofood and Health Technologies in order to produce a positive effect in terms of excellent science and talent attraction, especially at the regional level. IberusTalent will offer attractive conditions for doctoral training based on the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers, as well as the EU Principles for Innovative Doctorate Training. The IberusTalent Programme will be based on the scientific and technological capabilities of the four Recruiting Universities (UdL, UPNA, UR & UNIZAR) within Agrofood and Technologies for Health, and the participation of their excellent research groups with investigation lines related to these areas. Additionally, the involvement of international Universities and non-academic participating organisations (companies, research centres and hospitals) with strong expertise on the Programme specific areas will guarantee attractive ecosystem for incoming researchers by offering secondments, short stays, and training at industry.

Mots clés : talent attraction, campus of international excellence, campus iberus, doctoral programme, phd programme, health tech, agrifood, health technologies

Participants :
- Consorcio campus iberus (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 2825280.0 €
Projet East-West (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

International comparative studies (e.g., TIMSS or PISA) found that East Asian students outperformed their Western counterparts, which raised the interest in comparative studies between ‘‘Eastern’’ and ‘‘Western’’ cultures significantly. Educational policies in many countries have been revised referring to the results. However, the question how to explain students’ achievement differences referring to the professional competence of the teachers and the teaching-and-learning processes provided by them has not been in the focus of studies. In view of this, the proposed project aims to investigate differences and similarities of mathematics teachers’ professional competence and the relation to students’ learning outcomes in Eastern and Western cultures with Germany being the Western protagonist and China serving as protagonist for Eastern cultures. Approximately 300 mathematics teachers and their students (about 8,500) in China and in Germany will participate in the study. Mathematics teachers’ professional competence will be evaluated using adapted instruments in a previous international comparative project on teachers’ knowledge (TEDS-M) and a follow-up study (TEDS-FU) through the means of web-based and video-based testing. Students’ mathematics achievements and their achievement progress over one year will be evaluated using regular achievement tests at national level in China and at Federal level in Germany. Similarities and differences of Chinese and German mathematics teachers’ professional competence and its connections to students’ mathematics achievements will be analyzed. Social and cultural influences will be further explored for a mutual understanding of the differences and similarities. Based on these results recommendations for the change of German and Chinese teacher education and teacher-in-service-training will be formulated and concrete suggestions will be disseminated broadly. Long-term collaboration with China is in planned following the fellowship

Mots clés : mathematics teachers  professional competence, students  achievement, comparative study, eastern culture, western culture

Participants :
- Universität Hamburg (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159460.8 €
Projet SYNMAT FOR ORGANOIDS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Intestinal bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic immune-mediated disorder characterized by a complex spectrum of multifactorial disorders, which affects 2.5-4 million people in Europe with a total annual healthcare cost of €4.6-5.6 billion. The unknown aetiology of IBD, along with its heterogeneous and multifactorial nature, make essential the development of novel disease model platforms that enable the fundamental understanding of the disorder. My project aims to develop the next generation of human intestinal organoids (HIOs) in reproducible and high-throughput fashion by microfluidics encapsulation in synthetic niches. This scalable technology will provide a well-controlled mass production of HIOs for disease modelling, drug screening of novel therapeutic targets, and regenerative medicine applications, filling the translational gap with organoids research. I will co-culture HIOs with immune cells and microbiota to obtain native physiological similarities and to develop the next generation of HIOs, which can effectively recapitulate the complex multifactorial spectrum of IBD and allow the identification of new insights into the pathophysiology of the disorder. MSCA Fellowship will provide me with a unique opportunity to exploit my diverse skill set and take fully advantage of available facilities and partnerships of Prof. Andrés García and Prof. Abhay Pandit, who are uniquely positioned to maximize the output of this project and benefit my future career. I will be trained in both discipline-specific and complementary technical training and generic and complementary transferable skills training through an inter-sectoral secondment on a CÚRAM’s industrial partnership to translate this innovative therapeutic technology to the clinic. The disruptive technology developed through this proposal will represent a step change in our understanding of intestinal disorders and advanced therapies, entailing a great contribution to the European knowledge-based economy and society.

Mots clés : microfluidics, synthetic materials, intestinal organoids, inflammatory bowel disease, regenerative medicine

Participants :
- National University of Ireland (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 257561.28 €
- Georgia tech research corporation (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet Virus RePro IEL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Intestinal epithelial resident CD8+ T lymphocytes, such as intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs), are located at epithelial barriers. They play a key role in tissue protection by promoting the elimination of infected cells, while producing antimicrobial factors and epithelial growth factor. Due to the positioning of IELs underneath the single epithelial layer and their potential involvement in modulating intestinal pathology, the activation status of IELs is intensively studied. Viruses modify CD8 T cells in many ways. Murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) belongs to β-herpesviruses and is often used as an animal model to study the pathogenesis of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). MCMV specific resident memory CD8 T cells has been described in intestine. Memory CD8 T-cell in the gut epithelium induced by persistent viruses such as MCMV has a distinct quality from both conventional memory and “inflationary” memory CD8 T cells, which may be relevant to protection against mucosal infections. The outcome for patients with HCMV reactivation appears worse than for patients without reactivation. It is not absolutely clear whether HCMV is a contributor or a bystander cause of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In this proposal we aim to define the possible mechanisms by which virus impact IELs at the intestinal epithelial barrier in comparison to virus impact on circulating CD8 , and how they then behave in different challenges to which intestine could be exposed such as DSS triggered colitis, antibiotic treatment and high fat diet. For this, we will use sequencing approaches and data analysis of gene in different conditions in IELs. How the IELs “reprogram” their gene composition due to combination of the challenges will be our main goal additionally to classical approaches to with the immunological and biochemistry techniques. These findings can potentially lead to new diagnostic methods and therapeutic targets in mucosal conditions that are major public health burden.

Mots clés : reprogramming, viral infection, metabolism

Participants :
- University of Rijeka (Croatie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 147463.68 €
Projet evoDISFOLD (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDPs) are characterized by their inability to spontaneously fold into a defined 3D structure. Nonetheless, many IDPs are able to undergo disorder-to-order transitions upon binding to interaction partners, in a process known as coupled folding and binding. Although different mechanisms have attempted to rationalize this process, technical limitations have prevented from deciphering the underlying principles of coupled folding and binding. Here, I will tackle this biological problem by introducing a novel, highly interdisciplinary approach integrating, for the first time, optical tweezers (OT) and single-molecule FRET (smFRET) to resolve the microscopic steps in coupled folding and binding; and Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction (ASR) as a rational strategy to guide protein engineering. For this purpose, I will study the nuclear co-activator binding domain (NCBD) and its multiple polypeptide binding partners (both intrinsically disordered and structured) as a model to resurrect, using customized ASR methods, the sequences of interacting pairs at multiple divergence nodes along a wide evolutionary scale. Then, I will characterize their intermolecular binding and intramolecular conformational dynamics with OT/smFRET. This cutting-edge project will result in the determination of mutational trajectories defining i) the emergence of coupled folding and binding, ii) the evolution of this process, and iii) the impact of promiscuous binding to multiple partners on its evolution. This data will allow to extract the essential determinants of coupled folding and binding.

Mots clés : intrinsically disordered proteins, disorder to order transitions, single molecule biophysics, protein protein interactions, protein evolution

Participants :
- University of Zurich (Suisse) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175419.6 €
Projet DEEPCONSTRUCT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) are pervasive in eukaryotic proteomes despite their poor evolutionary conservation. IDRs have recently gained considerable interest as drivers of the formation of biomolecular condensates, representing a novel fundamental principle of eukaryotic subcellular organization. However, a detailed mechanistic description of how intra and intermolecular interactions drive the formation, stability and physical properties of condensates is lacking. In this project, we will apply deep mutagenesis scans (DMS) to gain insight into sequence-function relationships of IDRs using the remarkable yeast [SMAUG+] non-amyloid prion as a model system. [SMAUG+] is induced through transient overexpression of the RNA binding protein Vts1, leading to the formation of gel-like condensates that are epigenetically inherited through cell divisions. In addition, [SMAUG+] condensates can act as protein-based infectious agents that transform naïve cells. We propose to massively mutagenize Vts1 IDRs and measure the individual and combinatorial effects of IDR mutations on [SMAUG+] formation and stability. This will allow us to gain insight into the mechanisms of condensate formation and prionogenic activity of [SMAUG+], and potentially uncover the structures of condensed [SMAUG+] through analysis of the genetic interactions (epistasis) between mutations. Finally, we will use automated microscopy of selected mutants to understand how mutations affect the inheritance of the prion. The insights obtained from this DMS analysis will be combined with information from previous genome-wide prion formation assays in order to build predictive models of non-amyloid prionogenic activity from protein sequence. The ultimate goal is to translate these models into metazoan proteomes, including human, in order to define novel non-amyloid prion candidates and begin to characterize their functions in non-genetic protein-based inheritance in normal development and in disease.

Mots clés : prions, deep mutagenesis scans, intrinsically disordered regions

Participants :
- Centre for Genomic Regulation (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 160932.48 €
Projet GEMS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Introduction-state of art of the problem: The main goal of the present proposal is to devise a chemical sensor capable of gluten detection in food. Gluten is the allergen that triggers autoimmuno reactions in people suffering of celiac disease (CD). CD is an autoimmune disorder, characterized a variety of genetic assets, which is estimated to affect the 1-2 % of the European population with direct costs on the healthcare estimated as 3 bn Euros/year. According to the state of the current knowledge gluten-free diet is mandatory in CD. Food shall contain less than 20 mg/kg gluten of to be considered as “gluten-free” and to be eaten safely. Scientific part of the project: To face the problem of CD we are coming with the idea to devise a chemical sensor capable of fast gluten detection in food. To complete this task, we will design a recognition unit using the technology of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), which allows to produce synthetic receptors by a template assisted synthesis. Being gluten a mix of proteins (prolamins) the design of the MIPs will be rationalized by the aid of the epitope imprinting methodology, that complements protein 3D- and linear sequence-databases, so to find distinctive portions of the protein to be used as templates. The next step is an electrode-MIP preparation based on thiophene monomers that will proceed through a foregoing rational design of the monomers selection by computational methods. In the third step we will focus on the study of the performance of the sensor both in model solutions and in real samples. Finally, validation on true samples will be performed by comparing our results to independent analytical methods. Expected outcomes and impact of the work: As result of the proposed project, the laboratory model of the working gluten chemosensor will be developed. Such model will be useful to devise a prototype of a gluten detector ready for commercialization.

Mots clés : allergen, celiac disease, chemical sensor, diet, epitope, food, gluten, health, molecularly imprinted polymer  mip, peptide, protein

Participants :
- University of Verona (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 180277.2 €