Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet MitoQuant (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Mitochondria play a vital role in the cellular machinery, hence it is little surprising that their dysfunction has been linked to many diseases, from diabetes to neurodegeneration. However, as many studies on the interplay of organelles and molecular dynamics often employ fluorescence microscopy, a continued worry overshadowing findings and deductions is the possibility that the transfection-induced overexpression of fluorescent proteins skews the obtained results. A recent approach, the gene editor CRISPR-CAS9, which modifies rather than adds DNA sequences, circumvents this issue, but in turn often reduces the available signal levels. To counter low signals and yet offer highest resolution and specificity, MitoQuant aims to image contextual mitochondrial information with label-free superresolution, while simultaneously enhance image quality of specific but sparse fluorescently labelled proteins of interest through recently presented de-noising routines based on machine learning. Therefore, the development of a novel instrument to provide adequate resolution and contrast, matching label-based live-cell superresolution techniques like structured illumination microscopy, is the first main goal of this project. The proposed microscope will work in the deep UV range and employ dedicated optics originally developed for material science to provide high numerical apertures at short wavelengths, thus enabling live-cell imaging in the 100nm range. Concurrently, a neural network will be compiled and trained to enhance signals under low-light conditions and to extract and classify cellular organelles based on their quantitative phase and autofluorescence information. Building on an excellent track record of developing application-tailored microscopes as well as advanced image reconstruction and processing algorithms particularly suited for live-cell superresolution, the researcher strives to start with first live-cell experiments in good time after establishing the technique.

Mots clés : superresolution, quantitative phase microscopy, autofluorescence, deep uv, neural networks, mitochondria, cell organelles, neurodegeneration

Participants :
- UiT The Arctic University of Norway (Norvège) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 202158.72 €
Projet VolThinSens (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Modern society is evolving to a scenario in which all daily activities will be monitored using smart sensors. The provision of rapid, reliable and decentralized data is crucial and chemical sensors are current candidates for this purpose. VolThinSens puts forward an innovative sensing strategy from the ground up for reliable detection of ions addressing problems that constitute the bottleneck for the final application of electrochemical sensors in real contexts. To achieve this, the research methodology of VolThinSens involves the exploration of thin ion-sensing membranes based on new materials by using voltammetry and innovative techniques that the project will put forward for the study of the membrane robustness. The developed sensors will be interrogated using coulometry towards a calibration-free technology based on counting charges of the ion analyte that are implied in the electrochemical process. VolThinSens will provide a solution for these two challenges offering robust ion sensors with a wide application perspective within EU priorities such as “citizens’ welfare” and “protecting nature”, among others. The final demonstration of the concept is conceived as the integration of the developed voltammetric sensors for the detection of two ions with pharmacological/clinical and environmental relevance as proof-of-concept: lithium and ammonium. Thus, lithium will be detected in urine, serum and dissolution testing of pharmaceuticals and ammonium in aquatic systems. Interestingly, in situ sensing is aimed through the implementation of the ammonium sensor into a custom-built profiler ion analyser and its deployment in a lake for levels mapping in depth and time axis. VolThinSens will enhance EU excellence and competitiveness in pharmacological/clinical control as well as water issues through the provision of trustable relevant data.

Mots clés : electrochemical sensors, thin membranes, ion transfer, lithium detection, ammonium detection

Participants :
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 185857.2 €
Projet 2D-HETERO (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Moore’s law has enabled the $4 trillion worldwide IT industry to nearly double the performance and functionality of digital electronics roughly every two years within a fixed cost and area. However, the International Semiconductor Technology Blueprint (ITRS) predicts that the technological underpinnings for Moore’s law will end by 2025. IRTS points out that two-dimensional (2D) materials will bring new opportunities for the Post-Moore Era, especially for the CMOS technology beyond 5 nm node. However, very few 2D materials based electronic products are available commercially over the decades of study. With the scaling-down of the electronic devices, it is urgent for academia and industry to seek ways to integrate 2D materials in practical and commercial electronic devices. Introducing 2D materials in the structure of commercial electronic devices is challenging due to their complex synthesis and manipulation. The 2D-HETERO project will explore large wafer-scale (from 2-inch to 300 mm) and uniform growth of different 2D materials by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. Van der Waals heterostructures based on different 2D materials will be developed by stacking 2D materials through the direct growth or through clean and large wafer-scale transfer methods. The developed high quality and wafer-scale van der Waals heterostructures will be integrated in different nanoelectronics (mainly field effect transistors), with the goal of enhancing the device performance, yield and uniformity. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines materials science, physics, electrical engineering, industry-relevant nanofabrication and characterization, 2D-HETERO will pave the way to industrialize 2D materials based nanoelectronics. The combination of learning through research and a comprehensive training plan, including both scientific and technological as well as soft skills, will strongly enhance the profile of the applicant and provide a boost for her future scientific career.

Mots clés : 2d materials integration in cmos, wafer scale, van der waals heterostructure, nanoelectronics, field effect transistor, memristor

Participants :
- IMEC (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 166320.0 €
Projet PDA_TGFb (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

More than 50% of all pancreatic cancer patients suffer of metastasis either at the time of diagnosis or as recurrent disease after therapy. During metastatic dissemination, cancer (stem) cells shed into the blood stream and seed the liver as isolated entities. Genetic alterations underlying these processes have not been identified thus far. Therefore, it is currently not possible to discriminate which patients are at higher risk of developing metastasis or to design targeted therapies to prevent this process. Interestingly, a broad subset of pancreatic cancers (PDAs) are characterized by high TGF-beta superfamily ligands (TGFB_SLs) levels (TGFβ1, Nodal and Activin) and by prominent TGF-beta signaling in tumor stromal cells. The main goal of this project is to unravel how the microenvironment of the primary tumor helps tumor cells to colonize a distant organ. Specifically, PDA_TGFB aims to: 1) Identify and characterize the cancer (stem) cells and stromal cells involved in the crosstalk responsible of the tumor progression; 2) Define the role of TGFB_SLs during the tumor-stroma crosstalk and Identify the signaling pathways involved in the crosstalk; 3) Determine whether the metastatic cells activate the TGFB_SLs-driven stromal response at the metastatic site. By using a multidisciplinary approach that includes the use of cell culture models and animal models, in which TGF-beta signaling (and/or target genes) is selectively induced or abolished, we expect to identify additional factors involved in the metastatic process as well as to identify ways to interfere with the metastatic niche within the liver. Overall, this study will clarify the role of TGF-beta signaling in the metastatic process, thus opening novel avenues for the development of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for PDA.

Mots clés : tgf beta, cscs, microenvironment

Participants :
- National Research Council (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 180277.2 €
Projet POM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Morris dancing is a historical dance form which has been practiced in an almost uninterrupted tradition since c.1458 in the British Isles and on the European continent. This origin date for the English tradition has been traced in royal court records by historian John Forrest, who describes Morris dancing as being deeply connected to public celebration in early modern England. Forrest presents an extensive picture of historical references to Morris dancing as it survives in primary source documents. What is lacking, however, is a more practical examination of Morris dancing and its accompanying music, as it was performed during the early modern era. Due to a recent resurgence in the popularity of Morris dancing in the UK, modern musical publications focus on dance tunes only from the eighteenth century or later. There is, consequently, a lack of knowledge amongst current practitioners about music used for Morris dancing in the period 1550-1700. This is a time when Morris dancing was deeply connected to public life, as dancers and their accompanying musicians were supported by rural parishes for fundraising events during regular festivals that aligned with traditional harvest-time and farming practices. This project will have a focus in performance alongside traditional research outputs for dissemination, to share the work with local creative industry groups and the general public. The research will trace and document music used for Morris dancing in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England and its relationship to the wider European tradition. It will explore the ways in which the accompanying music was performed through musicological and practice-based research techniques including archival and textual study and rehearsal on period instruments. This study will provide academics, practitioners and the general public with a performance framework for Morris dancing during its most prolific period of participation in early modern England from 1550-1700.

Mots clés : historical performance, renaissance music, morris dancing, early modern history

Participants :
- Newcastle University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 224933.76 €
Projet SNAPCAT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Most heterogeneous catalysts take the form of catalytically active nanoparticles dispersed over a support medium. To improve catalytic function and reduce waste, researchers are increasingly seeking to improve the homogeneity of these nanoparticles, whether it be their size, shape or composition. One of the difficulties facing researchers is that the techniques used to obtain quantitative information are typically averaged over ensembles of billions of nanoparticles. Measurements of individual clusters require access to expensive instrumentation such as a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM). The proposed research will apply scanning probe energy loss spectroscopy (SPELS) to study the composition, size and shape of individual size-selected Pt-based binary alloy nanoparticles for fuel cell applications, deposited using an inert gas-aggregation source. In SPELS, a STM tip is used as a highly localised source of field-emitted electrons to stimulate surface excitations such as plasmons. The energy of inelastically backscattered electrons from the surface is analysed with a spectrometer, so that spectroscopic mapping of the surface can be obtained as the tip is rastered across the surface. This comparatively low-cost method is capable of producing a spatial resolution of 1-10 nm, so that the composition of individual nanoparticles can be sampled. SPELS will be used, in conjunction with STM, to study the composition and surface structure of bimetallic clusters before and after reaction. This data will be correlated with data on the reactivity of the clusters, probed by CO temperature programmed desorption measurements. These measurements will be used to tailor nanoparticle composition and improve homogeneity, resulting in more efficient catalysts.

Mots clés : scanning probe energy loss spectroscopy, plasmons, nanoparticles, alloys, catalytic activity, heterogeneous catalysis, fuel cells

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

Most of phenotypic variation comes from variation in DNA sequence. However, a number of studies have clearly shown that phenotype variation and diversity can also be the result of epigenetic changes. The major goal of this proposal is to develop a novel methodology for robust production of epigenetically stable plant variants, in order to increase epigenetic and phenotypic diversity. A key element in the project will be a recent breakthrough in the generation of clonal individuals from different tissue types using inducible overexpression of the embryonic regulatory protein RKD4. Preliminary work shows that plants regenerated from roots inherit many aspects of root specific methylation and gene expression patterns, even in the leaf tissue. Importantly, these features are stably transmitted across generations. For this project, I propose to: (1) evaluate physiological consequences of altered epigenomes in RKD4 regenerated plants; (2) compare (epi)genomic and phenotypic variation between plants regenerated using hormones and RKD4 overexpression; (3) compare epigenomic and phenotypic consequences in regenerants of different Arabidopsis thaliana accessions and close A. thaliana relatives Arabidopsis lyrata and Capsella rubella. The program, which will be carried out under supervision of Detlef Weigel, a world leader in plant genetics and genomics, will substantially contribute to increasing the toolkit for plant breeders to generate meaningful phenotypic diversity.

Mots clés : arabidopsis thaliana, regeneration, epigenetic variations, natural variations, phenotype diversity

Participants :
- Max Planck Society (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 171460.8 €
Projet XQCR (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Most of the known organic compounds exist in crystalline form, and their stability, electronic properties and reactivity depend upon the electron density distribution in the molecules and the intermolecular interactions. This project aims to develop methods in the field of quantum crystallography to estimate accurate electronic and chemical properties of molecular crystals from a combination of ultra-high resolution X-ray /neutron diffraction experiments and quantum chemical calculations. Experimental X-ray wavefunctions will be derived by fitting against high-resolution diffraction data, and hence they are expected to be superior to the wavefunctions from pure quantum chemical calculations. These X-ray wavefunctions will be exploited to derive not just the accurate electron density distribution but also the energies in crystalline materials. The results from the X-ray wavefunctions will be compared against those from the conventional X-ray charge density multipolar modeling and high level density functional theory calculations. Intended outcomes of the action include experimental values for intermolecular energies, crystal lattice energies, electronic band gaps and ionization energies. The band gap energies for known organic semiconductors will be calibrated against available spectroscopic data. The fundamentally novel approach proposed in the action will represent the first attempt to derive the energy levels in crystals from diffraction data. These descriptors will be applied to study unexplored types of chemical bonding, intermolecular interactions, and the electronic structure of molecular crystals. Thus a subatomic-level understanding of how molecules bind to each other, and their energetics in crystals will help the rational design of new crystal forms, leading to 'crystal engineering' of pharmaceutical drugs with better efficacy, and functional organic materials with useful properties as opposed to trial-and-error based approaches.

Mots clés : crystallography, charge density analysis, intermolecular interactions, crystal engineering

Participants :
- Aarhus University (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212194.8 €
Projet sharpEDGE (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Most phases of matter can be understood using the concept of symmetry breaking. For example, the organization of water molecules in an ice crystal breaks the continuous translational symmetries that are preserved in liquid water. The discovery of the quantum Hall effect triggered a revolution of this concept. It was the first example of topological order, a type of order that cannot be detected with any local measurement and supports exciting new properties. A striking example is the universal transport properties which are so robust that metrologists use them to define the quantum of conductance. Additionally, exotic particles with fractionalized quantum numbers called anyons may emerge as collective excitations of these systems and could provide a route to fault-tolerant quantum computing. Despite the increasingly good theoretical understanding of fractionalized phases, there is a strong need to relate the theories to experimentally relevant models. sharpEDGE will build new bridges between the effective and microscopic descriptions of fractionalized phases of matter. This requires us to solve a cumbersome quantum many-body problem. Numerical methods are essential here: they have accompanied the progress of the field since its early days, and the most recent developments give hope to solve some long-standing issues. We will thus apply a multidisciplinary approach combining the latest advances in topological quantum field theory, quantum information, and material science. Fractionalization may occur in gapped systems such as the fractional quantum Hall effect, lattice topological insulators or frustrated magnets, but also in exotic metallic phases. In this context, we will explore the microscopic relation between the edge and the bulk of gapped topological phases, and develop new characterization tools for gapless phases.

Mots clés : topological phases, fractionalization, spin liquids, non fermi liquid, fractional quantum hall effect

Participants :
- Technical University of Munich (Allemagne) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 215699.4 €
Projet COLOURFUL DARKNESS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Most vertebrates, including humans, cannot ‘see colour in the dark’ because the retinal rod photoreceptors that mediate vision in dim light usually come in a single spectral flavour (“green”), precluding spectral comparisons. But frogs and some salamanders have an additional ”blue”-rod type, potentially allowing for purely rod-based colour discrimination. Using behaviour, I recently demonstrated that this is indeed the case: frogs do make spectral comparisons down to the absolute visual sensitivity threshold. However, the ecological relevance of nocturnal colour vision and the structure and function of the retinal circuitry underlying rod-rod spectral comparisons, and enabling the simultaneous preservation of sensitivity and spectral resolution, have not been explored. Thus, this proposal seeks to establish the purpose as well as the underlying retinal physiology and circuit implementation of frog colour discrimination near the visual threshold. For this, we will combine natural scene imaging, high-throughput multi-electrode array recordings from 1,000s of retinal ganglion cells and synaptic-resolution serial section electron microscopy of the blue-sensitive rod circuitry. This will enable unraveling which visual information is available to be used, and how it is processed, to reach the low-light limits of colour discrimination performance available to the vertebrate eye. Our research will also provide a link between the more intensely studied retinal circuits of fish and mammals, providing important insights about the evolution of vertebrate retinal networks’ architecture and computations. Finally, the topic of ‘colour vision in the dark’ is one that attracts considerable public interest, so this project will create valuable opportunities for public engagement with the research supported by the European Commission.

Mots clés : retina, photoreceptors, colour vision

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