Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : PureIgY (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : University of Aveiro — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The increased occurrence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens is a critical concern corresponding to economic and societal challenges of high priority. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is responsible for 33,000 deaths per year, while bringing €1.5 billion per year in healthcare costs and productivity losses to the EU. Current solutions (biopharmaceuticals) are highly expensive and very few tackle the AMR scenario. Therefore, new approaches to tackling AMR focusing on low cost and relatively low time-to-market therapeutics must be pursued. Immunoglobulin Y (IgY) present in hen’s egg yolk is a potential alternative to the previously described biotherapeutics, and can be obtained in higher amounts from a renewable and non-invasive matrix. However, given the complex nature of egg yolk, the current purification technologies are multi-step and mainly based on chromatography, being highly expensive and leading to low yields. In the ERC Starting Grant (IgYPurTech) I proposed the use of aqueous biphasic systems (ABS) as IgY separation/purification platforms (from commercial and non-hyperimmune eggs since no therapeutic action was defined in the proposal). Although promising results have been obtained with ABS, during the IgYPurTech framework an additional and more cost-effective process to purify IgY was developed. It is not based on the selective extraction of antibodies for one of the phases in ABS, but on two steps of induced precipitation with appropriate salts and biopolymers. This innovative purification platform enables to produce high-quality IgY in higher amounts and at a significantly lower cost than other currently commercialized biotherapeutics. In this PoC Action – PureIgY – it is aimed to scale-up the developed purification technology, to address the biological features of specific IgY to tackle the AMR critical scenario, to work on the business plan development and business development, and to create an early-stage drug development start-up.

Mots-clés : antimicrobial resistance,biopharmaceuticals,purification process,scale up,start up,business development,investment ready business plan
Projet ERC : ExtreFlow (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Imperial College London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1112256.04 €

The increasing demand for environmentally friendly, healthier, and better performing formulated products means that the process industry needs more than ever predictive models of formulation performance for rapid, effective, and sustainable screening of new products. Processing flows and end use produce deformations that are extreme compared to what is accessible with existing experimental methods. As a consequence, the effects of extreme deformation are often overlooked without justification. Extreme deformation of structured fluids and soft materials is an unexplored dynamic regime where unexpected phenomena may emerge. New flow-induced microstructures can arise due to periodic forcing that is much faster than the relaxation timescale of the system, leading to collective behaviors and large transient stresses. The goal of this research is to introduce a radically innovative approach to explore and characterize the regime of extreme deformation of structured fluids and interfaces. By combining cutting-edge techniques including acoustofluidics, microfluidics, and high-speed imaging, I will perform pioneering high-precision measurements of macroscopic stresses and evolution of the microstructure. I will also explore strategies to exploit the phenomena emerging upon extreme deformation (collapse under ultrafast compression, yielding) for new processes and for adding new functionality to formulated products. These experimental results, complemented by discrete particle simulations and continuum-scale modeling, will provide new insights that will lay the foundations of the new field of ultrafast soft matter. Ultimately the results of this research program will guide the development of predictive tools that can tackle the time scales of realistic flow conditions for applications to virtual screening of new formulations.

Mots-clés : structured fluids,complex fluids,interfacial rheology,surface viscoelasticity,bubble dynamics
Projet ERC : SEIC (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Université Claude Bernard - Lyon 1 — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Lyon I
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 866045.0 €

The initial conditions of the Earth and other terrestrial planets were set 4.5 Gy ago during their accretion from the solar nebula and their concomitant differentiation into an iron-rich core and a silicate mantle. Accretion in the solar system went through several different dynamical phases involving increasingly energetic and catastrophic impacts and collisions. The last phase of accretion, in which most of the Earth mass was accreted, involved extremely energetic collisions between already differentiated planetary embryos (1000 km size), which resulted in widespread melting and the formation of magma oceans in which metal and silicates segregated to form the core and mantle. Geochemical data provide critical information on the timing of accretion and the prevailing physical conditions, but it is far from a trivial task to interpret the geochemical data in terms of physical conditions and processes. I propose here a fluid dynamics oriented study of metal-silicate interactions and differentiation following planetary impacts, based in part on fluid dynamics laboratory experiments. The aim is to answer critical questions pertaining to the dynamics of metal-silicate segregation and interactions during each core-formation events, before developing parameterized models of metal-silicate mass and heat exchange, which will then be incorporated in geochemical models of the terrestrial planets formation and differentiation. The expected outcomes are a better understanding of the physics of metal-silicate segregation and core-mantle differentiation, as well as improved geochemical constraints on the timing and physical conditions of the terrestrial planets formation.
Projet ERC : EPICUP (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institut d'Investigació Biomédica de Bellvitge — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IDIBELL;IDIBELL-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149278.0 €

The innovative idea behind the EPICUP (EPIgenetics of Cancer of Unknown Primary) project is to develop a package demonstrating the feasibility of a high-throughput tool for epigenotyping Cancer of Unknown Primary (CUP) to identify tumor type based in the DNA methylation profile of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) loci. CUPs are a heterogeneous group of cancers defined by the presence of metastatic disease with no identified primary tumor at presentation. In those CUPs where the primary tumor type is not identified, the outcome is extremely poor with an expected death within the first six months of the diagnosis. CUP has been reported to comprise approximately 5% of all cancer cases in the world. Despite the introduction of new image technologies and immunohistochemistry methods, more than 50% of CUPs remain anonymous regarding their primary tumor site of origin and, as mentioned, their prognoses are dismal. As part of the ERC Advanced Grant “Epigenetic Disruption on Non-Coding RNAs in Human Cancer” (EPINORC), aimed at determining the contribution of DNA methylation alterations to the aberrant activity of ncRNA loci in human cancer, we have used the most advanced DNA methylation microarray technology to detect CpG methylation changes in a wide variety of ncRNAs (microRNAs, lincRNAs, T-UCRs, snoRNAs, piRNAs...) that show a tumor-type specific pattern. In the current EPICUP Proof of Concept (PoC) proposal, we plan to optimize a ncRNA DNA methylation assay that includes a user-friendly and cost effective approach to improve the clinical diagnosis of CUP cases to an extent that will make it interesting commercially for the health providers and their associated company partners.

Mots-clés : dna methylation,non coding rnas,cancer of unknown primary,microarray
Projet ERC : EPIPHARM (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Xenopat sl — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 30000.0 €

The innovative idea behind the EPIPHARM (EPIgenetics of PHARMacogenetics) project is to develop a package demonstrating the feasibility of a high-throughput tool for epigenotyping Cancer of Unknown Primary (CUP) to identify a drug sensitivity fingerprint based in the DNA methylation profile of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) loci. CUPs are a heterogeneous group of cancers defined by the presence of metastatic disease with no identified primary tumor at presentation. The CUP outcome is extremely poor with an expected death within the first six months of the diagnosis. CUP has been reported to comprise approximately 5% of all cancer cases in the world. Despite the introduction of new image technologies and immunohistochemistry methods, more than 50% of CUPs remain anonymous regarding their primary tumor site of origin and, as mentioned, their prognoses are dismal. For most patients with CUP, recommended treatments involves just empiric chemotherapy, usually with a taxane/platinum or gemcitabine/platinum regimens that achieve the described modest clinical benefit. Thus, it is necessary to have better tools to guide the pharmacological treatment of CUP cases. As part of the ERC Advanced Grant “Epigenetic Disruption on Non-Coding RNAs in Human Cancer” (EPINORC) we identified CpG methylation changes in a wide variety of ncRNAs (microRNAs, lincRNAs, T-UCRs, snoRNAs, piRNAs...) that showed a tumor-type specific pattern that has allowed the successful development of the EPICUP assay for the diagnoses of CUPs that it has been licensed and it is undergoing final clinical validation. In the current EPIPHARM Proof of Concept (PoC) proposal, we plan to optimize a ncRNA DNA methylation assay that includes a user-friendly and cost effective approach to improve the therapy of CUP cases by providing a more personalized drug treatment to an extent that will make it interesting commercially for the health providers and their associated company partners.

Mots-clés : dna methylation,non coding rnas,cancer of unknown primary,microarray,chemosensitivity
Projet ERC : HGTCODONUSE (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1992366.0 €

The intensive use of antibiotics provided an unprecedented improvement in infectious disease treatments but at the expense of creating ideal conditions for the selection of widespread resistance. Propagation of antibiotic resistances is favoured by horizontal gene transfer and by bacterial life in multispecies community. However, compositions of resistome and bacterial communities are often correlated, suggesting that propagation of resistances does not occur at random. This project will test the hypothesis that mismatch in codon preferences between the transferred genes and the receiving genome is a fundamental factor shaping resistome structure and evolution. Such central role of codon preferences may have been hitherto overlooked. The project combines mutant collection characterization, experimental evolution approaches –one in a multispecies context and one in a variable environment context-, full genome sequencing of evolved populations, phylogenomics and mathematical modelling integrating the experimental results of the other approaches, and generating a predictive tool about the evolutionary outcome of various real-life situations.

Mots-clés : horizontal gene transfer,antibiotic resistance,codon usage preferences,microbiota,experimental evolution
Projet ERC : Rotational Waves (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Swansea University — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2230400.0 €

The interaction between a molecule and a solid surface is fundamental to a huge variety of research fields and applications, ranging from industrial heterogeneous catalysis and atmospheric chemistry on ice particles, to ultra-cold astrochemical reactions on cosmic dust. One molecular property that is essential for molecule surface interactions, but also particularly difficult to control and resolve, is the orientation & alignment of the rotational axis of the molecule i.e. the quantum rotation projection states. The existing paradigm is that control over this molecular property can be obtained either by photo-excitation schemes and/or by deflecting experiments using strong electric or magnetic fields. Using these approaches valuable insight was obtained, and the crucial role the rotation projection states have on the outcome of molecule-surface collision was demonstrated. However, the two approaches mentioned above can only be applied to a very small sub-group of systems, (typically on excited/paramagnetic species). Here, we propose a completely different approach which utilizes the rotational magnetic moment, which is a general molecular property, to control and resolve the projection rotation states of ground-state molecules. Our matter-wave approach involves passing a molecular beam through a specific series of magnetic fields, where the different wave components interfere and produce Rabi-oscillations characteristic of the molecular wave function before and after scattering. We present proof-of-principle results demonstrating the validity of our general approach, and describe the novel molecular interference and molecular spin echo measurements we will perform to obtain the much-awaited experimental benchmarks in this field.

Mots-clés : molecular beams,magnetic manipulations,reactions at surfaces,surface dynamics
Projet ERC : OrbiDynaMIQs (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : University of Trieste — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNITS
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1316783.44 €

The interaction between localized spins and mobile fermions underlies the transport properties of a large variety of highly correlated materials. Even a single localized spin impurity can dramatically influence the motion of many fermions in its surroundings, giving rise to one of the most remarkable phenomena in quantum many-body physics - the Kondo effect. For a finite density of localized spins, the Kondo effect competes with non-local fermion-mediated Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interactions, providing the driving force for many intriguing phenomena such as the unconventional superconductivity and the quantum critical behavior of heavy-fermion compounds. Despite decades of investigations, fundamental issues remain concerning the dynamical and spatial properties of the Kondo effect, that are difficult to tackle in electron systems. Further, a detailed understanding of the transition between the single-impurity Kondo problem and a system of interacting impurities is still missing. In OrbiDynaMIQs, I will develop a novel experimental platform for addressing such open questions. Leveraging on recent progress in manipulating single atoms with optical tweezers, I will realize a versatile two-orbital quantum simulator based on ultracold fermionic ytterbium atoms. I will focus on the spin-orbital dynamics of single and multiple localized impurities embedded in one- and two-dimensional itinerant fermion systems. I will then investigate the emergence of RKKY interactions between localized spins, both in few-body and full lattice realizations, taking first steps in exploring a whole new range of spin-correlation phenomena in Kondo systems. The proposed approach capitalizes on the strong interlink between quantum many-body physics and precision measurements with two-electron atoms, and on my experience at the confluence of these fields. It will also facilitate studies of new two-orbital models with enlarged SU(N) symmetries beyond that of spin-1/2 electron systems.

Mots-clés : kondo physics,quantum dynamics
Projet ERC : CanISeeQG (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
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 : 2500000.0 €

The interplay between two of the most important building blocks of nature, quantum mechanics and gravity, has been a great source of inspiration for theoretical physics, leading to discoveries such as the Hawking radiation of black holes and the development of string theory. In turn, the following picture emerged: physics at the most fundamental level is governed by the rules of quantum mechanics while gravity is some effective coarse-grained description of the underlying microscopic theory. Given that the microscopic degrees of freedom are non-local, standard techniques such as the renormalization group and effective field theory a priori do not apply. Nevertheless, we use effective field theories that incorporate general relativity to describe our observations. With the discovery of gravitational waves and the various ongoing and upcoming experiments that will put general relativity to the test, it has become urgent to assess the validity of the standard framework of effective field theory for describing observable quantum gravity effects. Recent developments in resolving the information loss paradox and the quantum nature of black holes concluded that effective field theory must be modified in a way that uniquely incorporates quantum gravity. The main purpose of this proposal is to describe this modification in a precise and quantitative way, ultimately connecting it to potential experimental discoveries. In order to achieve this goal, I will approach the problem using a combination of thermodynamics, hydrodynamics and quantum information theory, mostly in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, where a precise description of quantum gravity is available. As a by-product of identifying observational features of quantum gravity, I will also make substantial progress in several foundational problems. My broad track record and expertise, and the fact that I have already obtained promising preliminary results, makes me uniquely qualified to lead this endeavor.

Mots-clés : quantum gravity,holography,black holes
Projet ERC : MARS (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Leibniz Association — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2747025.0 €

The interplay of electronic order with antiferromagnetism and superconductivity has recently emerged as a vital question for rationalizing the physics of all classes of unconventional superconductors. The electronic order is rarely sufficiently long-range correlated to render it susceptible for diffraction techniques. Instead, a local probe is usually required to detect it experimentally. It is clear, however, that such a probe must provide sensitivity at the same time to electronic order, superconductivity, and static magnetism for clarifying the interplay between these ordering phenomena. The only experimental technique which is capable of fulfilling these requirements simultaneously is spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy (SP-STM). This technique utilizes spin-polarized tunneling currents in order to measure signatures of electronic order, superconducting gaps, and the magnetic structure at the atomic scale. To the best of our knowledge, SP-STM has never been applied to unconventional superconductors, despite the mandatory necessity. Exactly this is the goal of the MARS project: We want to combine SP-STM, which we recently established in our microscopes, with our experience in scanning tunneling microscopy on unconventional superconductors. We will apply highest-resolution SP-STM systematically to prototype representatives of the most important classes of unconventional superconductors, viz. cuprate, iron-arsenide, and heavy-fermion superconductors. For this purpose, a unique milli-Kelvin scanning tunneling microscope will be built, in order to achieve unprecedented resolution in spin-polarization, energy, and real-space.

Mots-clés : spin polarized scanning tunneling microscopy
Projet ERC : ChipNano (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Chip nanoimaging as — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 40000.0 €

The invention of optical nanoscopy is about to revolutionize several disciplines and it was awarded with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014. It is widely believed that a majority of existing optical microscopes will be replaced by an optical nanoscope. Unfortunately, the potential of the such a revolution and its widespread adoption are severely obstructed due to limitations of present day nanoscopy solution, i.e. system complexity, high cost and low throughput. In my ERC project, I have developed compact photonic chip-based optical nanoscopy, that can increase the throughput of convention optical nanoscopy by a factor of 100 times. The sample is placed on top of a photonic chip, capable of both holding and illuminating the sample, enabling to acquire super-resolved images. Photonic-chips can be retrofitted to an existing standard optical microscope converting it to high-resolution nanoscope. By way of analogy, moving from current super-resolution microscopy to chip-based nanoscopy will be as transformational as the move from main-frame computers to mobile phones. This is indeed a disruptive technology enabling widespread penetration of affordable chip-based optical nanoscopes. In ChipNano, the overall aim here is to bring the technology closer to the market by making the invention more commercially viable by a) co-operating and possibly setting-up business contract with the industrial partners on chip-production b) obtaining user feedback from key opinion leaders in Europe; c) consolidating business case to attract long-term venture funding in close cooperation with a university spin-off.

Mots-clés : optical microscopy,optical nanoscopy,integrated optics,lab on a chip,optical waveguide,bio imaging,super resolution microscopy