Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ULTRADISS (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : SISSA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 572125.0 €

Dissipation spectroscopy: Nanomechanical dissipation, experienced by oscillating tip-based Force Microscopy (AFM) instruments, provides an innovative probe of the physics of classical and quantum materials, solids, surfaces. My group made, in the last decade, well-recognized experimental and conceptual advances by exploiting and adapting advanced AFM techniques, especially the ultra-sensitive pendulum-AFM, (p-AFM, dissipation sensitivity ~0.1 aW, force sensitivity ~ 10-12N) detecting collective phenomena and phase transitions including structural, electronic, magnetic. This dissipation spectroscopy was applied so far mostly at the equilibrium physics of 3D classical solids. The challenge: I propose to extend nanomechanical dissipation spectroscopy to pick up much weaker effects caused by non-equilibrium perturbations, by nanomanipulations, and by quantum effects in carefully picked case studies. Such as measuring the imperceptible wind force exerted on a noncontact tip by a thermal or electrical current in the surface below, or the minute mechanical cost of creating and dismantling a single spin Kondo state, or a topological surface state. Risks, benefits, relevance: None of this was done before, so despite our experience and good feasibility estimates there is some risk. The benefits however will be substantial. Thermal and electrical migration of defects and impurities is important in materials, and electrical contacts. The dragging, peeling, sensing of 2D systems like graphene nanoribbons and twisted bilayers is hot. And quantum dissipation is pertinent to the limiting factor of quantum information processes. To do all this by nanomechanics will be unique. The opportunity: My group is ready to put its expertise in these exciting new problems, once I can through an Advanced Grant secure the instrumental and experimental human resources, as well as the theoretical support of additional beneficiary SISSA, indispensable in such a frontier context.

Mots-clés : nanoscale energy dissipation,atomic force microscopy,2d systems under non equilibrium conditions,topological materials
Projet ERC : PROT-RESIST (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : Ben-Gurion University of the Negev — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : BGU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Distal site tumor metastasis is the leading cause of prostate- and pancreatic-cancer-related deaths; nevertheless, standard-of-care (SoC) treatments and other targeted therapies under development are based on their activity against the primary tumors rather than on their anti-metastatic activity. There is consequently an urgent medical need for new agents targeting the metastatic process. In prostate and pancreatic cancer models, the serine protease mesotrypsin promotes tumor invasion and metastasis, making it an attractive target for therapeutic intervention. In our ERC StG project, we used directed evolution to generate a novel prototype mesotrypsin inhibitor, designated APPI-3M, which is based on the human amyloid β-protein precursor Kunitz protease inhibitor domain (APPI) scaffold. This inhibitor has picomolar affinity, enhanced binding specificity and improved proteolytic resistance to mesotrypsin and exhibits high potency in cell-based and preclinical models of prostate cancer invasion and metastasis. In this PoC proposal, we propose to perform final lead optimization (particularly decreasing body clearance) of APPI-3M towards its commercialization for clinical translation as an antimetastatic therapeutic adjuvant, with the direct involvement in the planning stage of clinicians and other key opinion leaders in the field. The feedback of these experts is expected to confirm the need to address the problem of metastatic progression and to identify potential indications and therapeutic windows for the use of APPI-3M as a neoadjuvant in prostate and pancreatic cancers. This input will be translated into feasible preclinical studies to demonstrate the contribution of APPI-3M therapy to currently ongoing SoC protocols for prostate and pancreatic cancers. In parallel, we will carry out the in-depth market and IP analyses needed for the commercialization of the engineered protein for therapeutic applications.

Mots-clés : protein engineering,drug design,stability engineering,proteolytic enzymes,antagonist,directed evolution,metastasis,cancer therapy
Projet ERC : MoodBugs (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : KU Leuven — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KUL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1769600.0 €

Do our gut microbes influence our emotions? This sounded far-fetched a decade ago, but rodent research has shown that the microbial ecosystem in the gut (the gut microbiota) causally impacts affective processes. The underlying microbiota-gut-brain signalling mechanisms include the capacity of the microbiota to produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) from dietary fiber and to regulate inflammation. These rodent findings have great potential to identify new modifiable players in the (patho)physiology of affective processes and disorders, which is urgently needed given the stalled revolution in affective science, but human translation is needed to fulfill this potential. MoodBugs aims to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between the gut microbiota and stress sensitivity and fear learning, two affective endophenotypes, and the microbiota-gut-brain (SCFA, inflammation) and neur(ochemic)al mechanisms underlying it, in an interdisciplinary hypothesis-driven fashion. In a population-based study, my team showed a cross-sectional association beteen a specific microbiota profile (B2 enterotype) and mental well-being. To test directionality of this association, I propose a longitudinal and mechanistic population-based study[WP1]. To test causality, I will study the effect of depleting the gut microbiota using an antibiotic intervention on fear learning and its brain basis[WP2]. In a placebo-controlled trial, I showed that SCFA administration (1 week) attenuates the cortisol response to psychosocial stress. To test for whom and how SCFA work, I will investigate microbiota composition as a predictor of response to SCFA, and gene expression in affective circuits as the neural mechanism mediating their effect[WP3]. I will induce systemic inflammation to test its causal effect on stress and fear, and on neuroinflammation in the underlying neural circuitry as hypothesized mediator. I will also test the potential of SCFA to dampen these inflammation-induced effects[WP4].

Mots-clés : gastrointestinal microbiota,microbiota gut brain axis,affective neuroscience,stress,fear
Projet ERC : Q-Xtreme (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Universität Innsbruck — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : CO-PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1557371.76 €

Do the laws of quantum physics hold for massive objects of arbitrary size? Q-Xtreme will address this very important question by testing the quantum superposition principle at unprecedented macroscopic scales: we will place a levitated object in two locations at once, separated by a distance comparable to its size. Experimental confirmations of macroscopic quantum superpositions started as early as 1927, using electrons, and have today reached the size of organic molecules containing thousands of atoms. Q-Xtreme will bring macroscopic quantum physics to an entirely new level by preparing macroscopic quantum superpositions of objects containing billions of atoms, pushing current state-of-the-art by at least five orders of magnitude in mass. This goal will be achieved by using a radically new approach: quantum controlling the center-of-mass motion of a levitated nanoparticle (a solid-state object of few hundred nanometers) in ultra-high vacuum by using optical, electrical and magnetic forces. Q-Xtreme requires cutting-edge expertise in photonics, nanotechnology, optoelectronics, and quantum technology, which this Synergy Group uniquely combines. The achievements of Q-Xtreme are only possible by the combined proficiency in both fundamental science and engineering of this Synergy Group. The implications of Q-Xtreme are far-reaching. Testing the quantum superposition principle at unprecedented mass regimes opens the door to experimentally study the interplay of quantum physics and gravity, as well as dark matter and dark energy models. These macroscopic quantum superpositions will also give rise to ultrahigh sensing accuracies, with applications in inertial force sensing, measurements of short-range interactions and gravitational physics.

Mots-clés : levitated nanoparticles,macroscopic quantum superpositions,optomechanics,quantum nanomechanics,quantum superposition principle
Projet ERC : DOCUMULT (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : University of Palermo — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 813293.2 €

Documenting Multiculturalism will investigate comprehensively and systematically the coexistence of the diverse confessional, ethnic and linguistic communities of the island of Sicily under its Norman and Hohenstaufen rulers — Arabic-speaking Muslims and Jews, Greek Christians, and Latin Christians. It will investigate: the legal foundations upon which the coexistence of the subject communities rested; the nature, extent and results of cultural, linguistic and social interactions between them; and variation in the above, from time to time c. 1060 – c. 1266, and from place to place within the island. The ambitious objective is to create the fundamental tools to study, and to begin to write, the history of the subject communities of Norman Sicily from the bottom up, using documentary rather than narrative sources, and illustrating as far as possible the full variety in space and time. The Project will do this by making new critical editions of all of the administrative and legal documents for Norman Sicily, in the three principal administrative languages — Arabic, Greek and Latin. These texts will populate a database, to which further data from the non-documentary sources will be added. The database will then be used to generate a series of powerful electronic research tools, which will be both the means to meet the ends of this particular project, and ends in themselves that will revolutionise the future study of all aspects of the history of Norman Sicily. At the end of the Project, a series of summative studies will document, analyse and discuss different aspects of coexistence and popular multiculturalism in Norman Sicily, and set the case of Sicily in the wider Mediterranean context. What is distinctive about this Project is that not only the publication of its research objectives, but also the tools that it will create in order to achieve them, will revolutionise the future study of all aspects of the cultural, economic and social history of Norman Sicily.

Mots-clés : anthroponomy,byzantine greek,coexistence,diplomatic,hybridity,legal history,medieval latin,middle arabic,multiculturalism,multilingualism,norman sicily,palaeography,toponymy
Projet ERC : YMPACT (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 151509.0 €

Dramatic migrations in the third millennium BC re-shaped Europe, modifying its economy, society, ethnicity and ideological structure for ever. The best incentive proxy are populations that moved from the steppes of Russia, spreading as far west as Hungary, implanting a pastoral economy with widespread innovations. These dynamic people covered thousands of kilometres within a few centuries, and organised direct physical relations over the steppes for the first time. This synchronism is promoted by a society organised to fit to this lifestyle, with new herding techniques, likely use of wagons and domesticated horses, and a protein-rich diet, whose adaptive advantages are evident from the physical record in human skeletons and territorial extensions. This is the Yamnaya complex, whose impact remains visible today in the European gene pool and apparently the propagation of Indo-European languages. This international and interdisciplinary project examines the data from 320 excavated burial mounds and c.1350 burials to calibrate these changes, also against a control sample of supposedly local and neighbouring populations. The archaeological, biological and environmental information allows large, new datasets to be built, whose systematic interrogation and modelling should reveal the formative processes behind these changes. Assessing funeral archaeology, material culture, and exchange pattern defines their culture and impact. Scientific analyses of skeletons expose relations of origin, degrees of consanguinity, diet, and histories of individual mobility over single lifetimes with new precision and replicability. They should also act as proxy datasets for environmental changes using further analytical techniques in a context of landscape evolution. Diachronic patterns within these sets should link with aspects of the internal social dynamics, such as the creation of new status positions, visible later in the Pan-European Corded Ware and Bell Beaker groups.

Mots-clés : migration,ancient dna,bio anthropology,isotope geochemistry,landscape archaeology,palynology,pedology,cultural heritage,language change
Projet ERC : YMPACT (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : University of Bristol — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 245786.0 €

Dramatic migrations in the third millennium BC re-shaped Europe, modifying its economy, society, ethnicity and ideological structure for ever. The best incentive proxy are populations that moved from the steppes of Russia, spreading as far west as Hungary, implanting a pastoral economy with widespread innovations. These dynamic people covered thousands of kilometres within a few centuries, and organised direct physical relations over the steppes for the first time. This synchronism is promoted by a society organised to fit to this lifestyle, with new herding techniques, likely use of wagons and domesticated horses, and a protein-rich diet, whose adaptive advantages are evident from the physical record in human skeletons and territorial extensions. This is the Yamnaya complex, whose impact remains visible today in the European gene pool and apparently the propagation of Indo-European languages. This international and interdisciplinary project examines the data from 320 excavated burial mounds and c.1350 burials to calibrate these changes, also against a control sample of supposedly local and neighbouring populations. The archaeological, biological and environmental information allows large, new datasets to be built, whose systematic interrogation and modelling should reveal the formative processes behind these changes. Assessing funeral archaeology, material culture, and exchange pattern defines their culture and impact. Scientific analyses of skeletons expose relations of origin, degrees of consanguinity, diet, and histories of individual mobility over single lifetimes with new precision and replicability. They should also act as proxy datasets for environmental changes using further analytical techniques in a context of landscape evolution. Diachronic patterns within these sets should link with aspects of the internal social dynamics, such as the creation of new status positions, visible later in the Pan-European Corded Ware and Bell Beaker groups.

Mots-clés : migration,ancient dna,bio anthropology,isotope geochemistry,landscape archaeology,palynology,pedology,cultural heritage,language change
Projet ERC : FluoSurf (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Bordeaux — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UBx
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 10710.0 €

Droplet-based microfluidics is a key emerging technology for the miniaturization and automation of biochemical assays. The limiting factor for industrial applications of the technology is not the device aspect but rather the robust control of emulsion formulations to be used in these devices. Existing formulation solutions available on the market are far from being mature enough to fully convince and satisfy the end-user. The ERC project SOFI has resulted in the fundamental understanding of the dynamics of surfactant with two key results on emulsification efficiency and on retention efficiency. We identified that the flaw in the formulations results from a fundamental misunderstanding of the surfactant properties. We have a competitive technical advantage from our results of the ERC project SOFI in terms of fundamental understanding of the dynamics of surfactant to explain the origin of failure of the current formulations and to propose alternative solutions. We will provide high-quality and high-added value formulations, adapted to the industrial landscape of droplet-based microfluidics with an non-restrictive level of details on the elements of the formulation for the customer. We will characterize the molecules using our cheap and newly developed methods for a quantitative determination of the formulation performance. The aim of the proposed Proof of Concept are therefore to (i) improve our product technical and economic properties, (ii) finalize the transfer of our technology from the laboratory to the market and (iii) to start business and product commercialization.

Mots-clés : surfactant,droplet based microfluidics,screening
Projet ERC : SHIFTFEEDBACK (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : University of Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UvA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Drought is severely threatening our ecosystems and their functioning: it causes strong shifts in plant community composition that are difficult to revert. Positive feedbacks often underlie these dramatic shifts, but in many ecosystems drought causes fast-growing species to increase. These species are not only vulnerable to drought, but they also suffer negative plant-soil feedback, i.e. they change the soil microbial community in a way that keeps their own abundance in check. Thus, drought-induced shifts in plant communities do not result from positive feedbacks, unless drought changes plant-soil feedback. We know that plant-soil feedback drives plant community succession, but its role in community response to drought has never been explored. Here, I will unravel whether and how changes in plant-soil feedback underlie strong shifts in plant community composition following drought. This knowledge is crucial for mitigating the effects of drought on terrestrial ecosystems. My objectives are: 1. Examining how drought affects plant community and soil microbial community composition and the implications for plant-soil feedback 2. Quantifying the effects of plant-plant and plant-microbial interactions on plant growth and subsequent shifts in plant community composition in response to drought 3. Disentangling the mechanisms underlying drought-induced changes in plant-soil feedback I will address these objectives in a novel set of approaches. I will identify general patterns in plant-soil feedback across European drought experiments, and assess the role of plant-plant and plant-microbial interactions across a Dutch secondary successional gradient. In a set of targeted mesocosm experiments, I will elucidate the mechanisms underlying changes in plant-soil feedback and the consequences for plant community composition. These approaches will result in a step-change in understanding the dynamics of plant-soil interactions under drought and the consequences for ecosystem change.

Mots-clés : climate change,bacterial community,fungal community,aboveground belowground interactions,soil ecology,grassland,heathland
Projet ERC : REMATCH (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : German Cancer Research Center — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : DKFZ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149500.0 €

Drug discovery and development has become a lengthy and resource-intensive process which is characterized by high attrition rates of candidate molecules. Candidate molecules are often identified in high-throughput screening experiments that capture only a small fraction of its biological activities and too many candidates fail in clinical development due to unwanted side-effects and lack of a therapeutic window. In addition, many approved drugs harbor unrecognized therapeutic efficacy in other indications that were not covered during development. Necessary deep characterization of candidate molecules during pre-clinical development demands further efficient and cost-effective methods and data rich assays. Providing a solution to compare phenotypic measurements to a reference database can facilitate the profiling of unwanted effects and the identification of drugs with potential for repurposing. High-content imaging provides a cost-effective solution to capture a broad range of biological responses, however, analysis of such data requires extensive expertise and data processing pipelines. This project has the following objectives: (i) to develop a cloud-based infrastructure for analyses of image-based drug screening (WP1), (ii) to perform a proof-of-concept screen to create a reference database and a showcase for commercialization (WP2), (iii) to conduct market analyses and development of a business plan for a spin-off company (WP3). The ERC Proof of Concept Grant will thus enable us, based on methods pioneered in our ERC Advanced Grant, to develop and perform a proof-of-concept as well as to develop an innovative knowledge base and cloud-IT product for drug development and repositioning.

Mots-clés : microscopy based high content screening,genomics,image analysis,small molecule screening,drug repositioning,computational drug discovery