Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : CSI.interface (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : TU Bergakademie Freiberg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : TUBAF
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 352875.0 €

After decades of truly transformative advancements in single molecule (bio)physics and surface science, it is still no more than a vision to predict and control macroscopic phenomena such as adhesion or electrochemical reaction rates at solid/liquid interfaces based on well-characterized single molecular interactions. How exactly do inherently dynamic and simultaneous interactions of a countless number of interacting “crowded” molecules lead to a concerted outcome/property on a macroscopic scale? Here, I propose a unique approach that will allow us to unravel the scaling of single molecule interactions towards macroscopic properties at adhesive and redox-active solid/liquid interfaces. Combining Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) based single molecule force spectroscopy and macroscopic Surface Forces Apparatus (SFA) experiments CSI.interface will (1) derive rules for describing nonlinearities observed in complex, crowded (water and ions) and chemically diverse adhesive solid/liquid interfaces; (2) uniquely characterize all relevant kinetic parameters (interaction free energy and transition states) of electrochemical and adhesive reactions/interactions of single molecules at chemically defined surfaces as well as electrified single crystal facets and step edges. Complementary, (3) my team and I will build a novel molecular force apparatus in order to measure single-molecule steady-state dynamics of both redox cycles as well as binding unbinding cycles of specific interactions, and how these react to environmental triggers. CSI.interface goes well beyond present applications of AFM and SFA and has the long-term potential to revolutionize our understanding of interfacial interaction under steady state, responsive and dynamic conditions. This work will pave the road for knowledge based designing of next-generation technologies in gluing, coating, bio-adhesion, materials design and much beyond.

Mots-clés : atomic force microscopy,single molecule force spectroscopy,surface and interface forces,scaling,electric double layers
Projet ERC : Aftermath (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Autonomous University of Barcelona — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UAB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1426801.24 €

Aftermath seeks to understand the legacy of the East Asian War of 1592-1598. This conflict involved over 500,000 combatants from Japan, China, and Korea; up to 100,000 Korean civilians were abducted to Japan. The war caused momentous demographic upheaval and widespread destruction, but also had long-lasting cultural impact as a result of the removal to Japan of Korean technology and skilled labourers. The conflict and its aftermath bear striking parallels to events in East Asia during World War 2, and memories of the 16th century war remain deeply resonant in the region. However, the war and its immediate aftermath are also significant because they occurred at the juncture of periods often characterized as “medieval” and “early modern” in the East Asian case. What were the implications for the social, economic, and cultural contours of early modern East Asia? What can this conflict tell us about war “aftermath” across historical periods and about such periodization itself? There is little Western scholarship on the war and few studies in any language cross linguistic, disciplinary, and national boundaries to achieve a regional perspective that reflects the interconnected history of East Asia. Aftermath will radically alter our understanding of the region’s history by providing the first analysis of the state of East Asia as a result of the war. The focus will be on the period up to the middle of the 17th century, but not precluding ongoing effects. The team, with expertise covering Japan, Korea, and China, will investigate three themes: the movement of people and demographic change, the impact on the natural environment, and technological diffusion. The project will be the first large scale investigation to use Japanese, Korean, and Chinese sources to understand the war’s aftermath. It will broaden understandings of the early modern world, and push the boundaries of war legacy studies by exploring the meanings of “aftermath” in the early modern East Asian context.

Mots-clés : japan,korea,china,east asian history
Projet ERC : LIFE (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : École des hautes études commerciales de Paris — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HEC Paris
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 875000.0 €

Against a backdrop of population aging and secular decline in interest rates, traditional state and occupational pension systems are under stress, forcing households to increasingly rely on their own savings and to bear financial markets risk. Financial intermediaries increasingly take up the role of collecting and investing households’ long-term savings. In the EU, household savings intermediated by life insurers amount to 8 trillion euros or 22% of aggregate household financial wealth. Moreover, life insurers are not pass-through intermediaries: They actively provide households with insurance against market risk through intergenerational risk sharing mechanisms and return guarantees. I will use a combination of unique regulatory data, empirical designs grounded in theory (existing and that I will develop), and careful identification strategies, to understand the role of life insurers in intermediating households’ long-term savings and providing them with insurance against financial markets risk. I will study how savings products embedding such insurance share aggregate risk between households and intermediaries, and between different cohorts of households. I will analyze the impact of these risk sharing arrangements on the supply of capital to the real economy. I will assess the impact of competition between financial intermediaries and the impact of capital constraints on the provision of insurance against aggregate risk and on the build-up of systemic risk in the insurance sector. On the way, I expect to contribute to the policy debates on the financing of retirement and the regulation of financial intermediaries.

Mots-clés : long tem savings,european life insurers,intergenerational risk sharing
Projet ERC : EAGER (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : University of Erlangen-Nuremberg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 80356.44 €

Ageing is one of the most critical risk factors for neurological and psychiatric diseases. However, the biological links between physiological ageing and pathological development are still largely unknown. A solid understanding of the biology of brain ageing will thus be a key to developing the means to treat these diseases. Since neurons in the brain are mostly generated during development with limited capacity of replacement after birth, they need to maintain their identity and function throughout our lives. This project aims at seeking a link between the fundamental mechanism underlying the long-term maintenance of neural identity and effects of ageing on that. We recently discovered that a cell type-specific nuclear architecture organized by nucleoporins in cooperation with a key transcription factor (TF), work as a structural gatekeeper for the maintenance of neural progenitor cells (NPs). Strikingly, nucleoporins are the most long-lived proteins in a cell and are known to be damaged during brain ageing. Thus, the proposed experiments will test a specific hypothesis that the nucleoporin-TF directed nuclear architecture is a fundamental principle governing cell type-specific gene regulation, and that pathological ageing impairs that critical relationship. To test this hypothesis, we will use interdisciplinary approaches. First, the changes of molecular constituents of nucleoporin-TF partnerships from NPs into the post-mitotic neurons are probed. Second, the roles of identified partnerships in the maintenance of neuronal identity and function will be investigated using biochemical, imaging, genome-wide and behavioural approaches. Efforts will be directed toward studying the effects of ageing and Alzheimer’s diseases on the identified mechanisms. The successful completion of this research will uncover a novel aspect of regulation in the maintenance of cellular identity and open up a new field of research in neuroscience.

Mots-clés : nuclear pore complex,nucleoporin,cellular identity,transcription factor,nuclear architecture,ageing,neurological diseases,cellular memory,neuronal plasticity
Projet ERC : MetaFlex (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Amsterdam University Medical Centers — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499446.25 €

Aging has long been considered a passive process. More recently studies have defined an important, active role for metabolic pathways in aging and age-related diseases. I have previously demonstrated a marked dysregulation of fat metabolism in aged mice that contributes to their overweight and glucose intolerance. Here, I propose a model that links healthy aging to efficient processing of nutrients, a state termed metabolic flexibility: reducing protein or carbohydrate metabolism will strongly stimulate fat breakdown. I suggest that improved metabolic flexibility will thus prevent the accumulation of lipids and protect against its detrimental effects. In this project, I aim to elucidate how nutrient breakdown is regulated and can be adapted to improve metabolic flexibility and promote healthy aging. I will use C. elegans, as well as mammalian models and human population studies. Specifically, I aim to (1) dissect the molecular actors of metabolic aging pathways; (2) identify genes that translate nutritional cues to lifespan variation; (3) find novel genetic regulators that prevent toxicity and accelerated aging caused by fat-rich diets; (4) identify associations between variants in genes involved in metabolic flexibility and aging phenotypes in humans. This set of experiments should clarify the role of nutrient breakdown and metabolic flexibility in aging. Better understanding of these processes can lead to a prolonged healthy state of aged individuals.

Mots-clés : mitochondria
Projet ERC : AIR-NB (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : CERCA Institution — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CERCA;I-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2152777.5 €

Air pollution is the main urban-related environmental hazard. It appears to affect brain development, although current evidence is inadequate given the lack of studies during the most vulnerable stages of brain development and the lack of brain anatomical structure and regional connectivity data underlying these effects. Of particular interest is the prenatal period, when brain structures are forming and growing, and when the effect of in utero exposure to environmental factors may cause permanent brain injury. I and others have conducted studies focused on effects during school age which could be less profound. I postulate that: pre-natal exposure to urban air pollution during pregnancy impairs foetal and postnatal brain development, mainly by affecting myelination; these effects are at least partially mediated by translocation of airborne particulate matter to the placenta and by placental dysfunction; and prenatal exposure to air pollution impairs post-natal brain development independently of urban context and post-natal exposure to air pollution. I aim to evaluate the effect of pre-natal exposure to urban air pollution on pre- and post-natal brain structure and function by following 900 pregnant women and their neonates with contrasting levels of pre-natal exposure to air pollutants by: i) establishing a new pregnancy cohort and evaluating brain imaging (pre-natal and neo-natal brain structure, connectivity and function), and post-natal motor and cognitive development; ii) measuring total personal exposure and inhaled dose of air pollutants during specific time-windows of gestation, noise, paternal stress and other stressors, using personal samplers and sensors; iii) detecting nanoparticles in placenta and its vascular function; iv) modelling mathematical causality and mediation, including a replication study in an external cohort. The expected results will create an impulse to implement policy interventions that genuinely protect the health of urban citizens.

Mots-clés : air pollution,brain,connectome,cognition,fetal neurosonography,infancy,neonatal mri,noise,motor,particles,placenta,pregnancy
Projet ERC : ARCTIC (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Spanish National Research Council — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1297024.0 €

Air transport has by and large been studied as a transportation process, in which different elements, e.g. aircraft or passengers, move within the system. While intuitive, this approach entails several drawbacks, including the need for large-scale simulations, the reliance on real data, and the difficulty of extracting macro-scale conclusions from large quantities of micro- scale results. The lack of a better approach is in part responsible for our inability to fully understand delay propagation, one of the most important phenomena in air transport. ARCTIC proposes an ambitious program to change the conceptual framework used to analyse air transport, inspired by the way the brain is studied in neuroscience. It is based on understanding air transport as an information processing system, in which the movement of aircraft is merely a vehicle for information transfer. Airports then become computational units, receiving information from their neighbours through inbound flights under the form of delays; processing it in a potentially non-linear way; and redistributing the result to the system as outbound delays. In this proposal I show how, as already common in neuroscience, such computation can be made explicit by using a combination of information sciences and statistical physics techniques: from the detection of information movements through causality metrics, up to the representation of the resulting transfer structures through complex networks and their topological properties. The approach also entails important challenges, e.g. the definition of appropriate metrics or the translation of the obtained insights into implementable policies. In the main text of the proposal I present a number of preliminary results that point towards a radically new way of thinking about the dynamics of air transport. ARCTIC’s methodology will be used over the next five years to characterize and model delay propagation, as well as to limit its societal and economic impact.

Mots-clés : complex networks,functional brain networks,air transport,machine learning
Projet ERC : TransCTNeurodev (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1496132.5 €

Alarming statistics in a recent report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights suggest that 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence in childhood. The sequelae of childhood trauma (CT) exposure include psychopathology, altered stress physiology, obesity, and increased likelihood of exposure to violence in adulthood. Also, emerging evidence suggests the long shadow cast by CT may be transmitted to the offspring of exposed individuals, who have a higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders. To date, potential pathways of transgenerational transmission have focused on the offspring’s exposure to unfavorable conditions in postnatal life (i.e., suboptimal parenting behaviors). However, it is likely that transgenerational transmission of the effects of maternal CT may start during fetal life. It is well established that CT produces endocrine and immunological dysregulation, and the persistence of such dysregulation during pregnancy may affect fetal brain development to confer increased risk for psychopathology. Despite its plausibility, fetal programming has not yet been studied as a potential transmission pathway of the effects of CT from mother to child. In this proposed prospective, longitudinal study, 200 mother-child dyads will be followed from early gestation till the neonatal period. Serial measures of stress-related endocrine (CRH, cortisol) and immune (CRP, IL-6) biology will be collected in early, mid and late gestation. At birth newborn MRI scans will be acquired to quantify volumes and connectivity of fronto-limbic brain regions. The proposed study will address specific hypotheses about the transgenerational transmission during gestation of the effects of maternal CT on her child’s brain and the role of maternal-placental-fetal endocrine and immune biology as a mediator of this effect. Study findings may suggest new avenues for development of prevention and intervention strategies to limit the transgenerational perpetuation of poor health.

Mots-clés : physical and sexual violence against girls and women,stress physiology,pregnancy,fetal programming,transgenerational transmission
Projet ERC : AMAREC (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : University of Münster — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WWU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1596017.0 €

Algebras of operators on Hilbert spaces were originally introduced as the right framework for the mathematical description of quantum mechanics. In modern mathematics the scope has much broadened due to the highly versatile nature of operator algebras. They are particularly useful in the analysis of groups and their actions. Amenability is a finiteness property which occurs in many different contexts and which can be characterised in many different ways. We will analyse amenability in terms of approximation properties, in the frameworks of abstract C*-algebras, of topological dynamical systems, and of discrete groups. Such approximation properties will serve as bridging devices between these setups, and they will be used to systematically recover geometric information about the underlying structures. When passing from groups, and more generally from dynamical systems, to operator algebras, one loses information, but one gains new tools to isolate and analyse pertinent properties of the underlying structure. We will mostly be interested in the topological setting, and in the associated C*-algebras. Amenability of groups or of dynamical systems then translates into the completely positive approximation property. Systems of completely positive approximations store all the essential data about a C*-algebra, and sometimes one can arrange the systems so that one can directly read of such information. For transformation group C*-algebras, one can achieve this by using approximation properties of the underlying dynamics. To some extent one can even go back, and extract dynamical approximation properties from completely positive approximations of the C*-algebra. This interplay between approximation properties in topological dynamics and in noncommutative topology carries a surprisingly rich structure. It connects directly to the heart of the classification problem for nuclear C*-algebras on the one hand, and to central open questions on amenable dynamics on the other.

Mots-clés : amenable group,c  algebra
Projet ERC : BioAlk (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Delft University of Technology — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Delft
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1625000.0 €

Alkylation, in particular carbon-carbon (C-C) bond formation, is one of the most important and challenging synthetic transformations in chemistry. Current chemical approaches for C-alkylation require the use of expensive and toxic transition metals with complex ligands that have limited selectivity. Developing sustainable methods for the controlled formation of C-C bonds with regio- and stereospecificity in high yields has the potential to change organic chemistry and provide access to new molecules. Enzymes, Nature’s catalysts that enhance reaction rates, can selectively catalyze such reactions, with current limitations due to high energy co-substrates and the requirement for specific starting materials, sometimes leading to undesired side products, therefore unsustainable to upscale. I aim at developing the synthetic potential of key oxidoreductase enzymes towards the sustainable selective production of highly valuable compounds through C-C bond formation. Oxidoreductases traditionally catalyze reduction and oxidation reactions and are increasingly used at industrial scale for their mild reaction conditions and exquisite chemo-, regio- and stereoselectivity. I will use the inherent mechanism of two particular oxidoreductases, ene reductases and alcohol dehydrogenases, and develop them towards selective C-C bond formation. BioAlk aims at being disruptive in catalysis and organic synthesis by enabling new approaches for bench mark sustainable methods towards highly selective biocatalytic C-alkylation with industrially relevant oxidoreductases. I will design and develop non-natural enzymatic processes with ene reductase-catalyzed selective inter- and intramolecular α-alkylation of carbonyl and related compounds, and alcohol dehydrogenase-catalyzed nucleophilic reductive alkylation, while exploring the enzyme reaction mechanisms.

Mots-clés : biocatalysis,selective alkylation,organic synthesis,oxidoreductases