Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : LiquOrg (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2799595.0 €

We are in the midst of a revolution in our understanding of the internal organization of cells. In the 1950s we learned that lipid bilayer-based membranes serve as containers (organelles) within the cytoplasm. Now we are learning that liquid-like “membrane-less” organelles i.e. without any container, self-assemble based on “liquid-liquid” phase separations. We propose the seemingly radical idea that membrane-bounded organelles– like their membrane-less counterparts- are stabilized or even templated by analogous phase separations of their surface proteins into largely planar liquids akin to liquid crystals. Our unique Synergy team is organized specifically to test this “liquid crystal hypothesis” on the cell’s secretory compartments - ER exit sites (ERES) and the Golgi stack - by employing our complementary skills in physics, physical chemistry, biochemistry and cell biology. We hypothesize based on pilot experiments evidence that the ERES and Golgi self-organize as a multi-layered series of adherent liquid crystal-like phases of “golgin” and similar proteins which surround and enclose their membranes. Their differential adhesion and repulsion would specify the topology and dynamics of the membrane compartments. If this is true, it will literally rewrite the history of cell biology. We will test the ‘liquid crystal’ hypothesis directly, systematically, and quantitatively on an unprecedented scale to either modify/disprove it or place it on a firm rigorous footing. Experiments (Aim 1) with 13 pure golgins in cis and trans pairwise combinations will establish their foundational physical chemistry. Surgically engineered changes in golgins/ERES proteins will alter the rank order (hierarchy) of their affinities for each other and link phase separation physics to cell biology (Aim 2) and be used to establish the structural basis of phase separations and their specificity, and the potential for self-assembly of wholly synthetic biological organelles (Aim 3).

Mots-clés : 2d phase separation,protein liquid crystals,synthetic golgi,atomic force microscopy,surface forces apparatus,giant unilamellar vesicles,er exit site,golgin
Projet ERC : ROLEDS (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University of East Anglia — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UEA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149115.0 €

We have discovered a new class of photo- and electroluminescent complexes which are suitable for incorporation into organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and which give up to 100% internal quantum yield. The new compounds are particularly suitable for the fabrication of OLEDs via cheap solution-processing techniques and have so far reached 27% external quantum efficiency, a record for any solution-processed device. The new complexes have a linear, rotationally flexible structure, and it is this rotation that allows 100% of the excitation energy to be harvested, by a new emission mechanism (“rotationally accessed spin-state inversion”, RASI). OLEDs are widely used as flat-screen displays (TVs, smartphones), a multi-billion dollar market worldwide. The industry-leading emitters are based on complexes of iridium, one of the rarest elements on earth. Our emitters are compounds of copper, silver and gold, suitable as “slot-in” replacements of iridium. IPR is protected by two UK and one PCT World patent applications. The key discovery is that in certain types of coordination complexes based on carbene ligands the excited singlet state sinks below the excited triplet state during molecular rotation. To our knowledge this is the first realization of "spin-state inverted" materials, until now discussed only as a theoretical concept. The result is efficient, very fast light harvesting with highly desirable short (sub-microsecond) excitation lifetimes, leading to high display brightness (in prototypes 20 times brighter than a HD TV screen), with potential lighting applications.

Mots-clés : light emitting diodes,display screens,energy harvesting,gold complexes,silver complexes,copper complexes,carbene ligands,luminescence
Projet ERC : IMMUNOSTIM (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and Immunotherapy
Entité participante : University of Freiburg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

We have identified a novel family of potent small molecule activators of the NLRP3 inflammasome. The goal of this project is to determine the feasibility of developing these new immunostimulators into an attractive commercial proposition. Establishment of technical feasibility will involve identification the most promising modifications of our drug candidates and testing their efficacy in disease models of cancer and immunization. In addition, we will determine commercial feasibility by conducting market research and competition analysis and by engaging potential industry partners.

Mots-clés : immunostimulator,cancer immune escape,adjuvant,small molecule drug,inflammasome,nlrp3,interleukin 1
Projet ERC : LIPOMET (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Institute for Research in Biomedicine — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IRB;IRB-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2370625.0 €

We have recently identified metastasis-initiating cells (MICs) in several types of tumors (Nature, 2017)1. Intriguingly, MICs: (i) are exclusive in their ability to generate metastases when transplanted; (ii) express the fatty acid channel CD36 and have a unique lipid metabolic signature; (iii) are exquisitely sensitive to the levels of fat in circulation, thus providing a link between the predisposition of metastasis and dietary fat; (iv) are highly sensitive to CD36 inhibition, which almost completely abolishes their metastatic potential. We still do not know how MICs promote metastasis or how MICs are influenced by dietary fat. In particular: (A) where are MICs located within the tumor, and does this location influence their behavior? How and where do they attach and expand at metastatic sites? (B) Why are MICs so sensitive to specific dietary lipids, and how do these lipids promote metastasis at the molecular and cellular levels? (C) Is the prolonged consumption of a high-fat diet a risk factor for developing metastatic tumors? If so, what are the underlying genetic and epigenetic causes for this effect? Can we revert these causes? To answer these questions, we will combine state-of-the-art in vivo functional models of metastasis, with quantitative metabolomics and proteomics, epigenetic and geographical position (3D) single-cell transcriptomic studies, as well as integrative computational analyses, using preclinical models and patientderived carcinomas of melanoma, oral cancer and breast cancer. We expect our project to provide fundamental insights into the mechanisms of metastasis, and how they are influenced by diet. This is highly relevant as 1) large quantities of fatty acids are typically consumed in Western diets; and 2) metastasis is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. We also tackle a timely medical unmet need by exploring the therapeutic anti-metastatic potential of targeting fatty acid metabolism in cancer patients.

Mots-clés : metastasis,metastatic initiating cells,fatty acids,diet,molecular mechanisms
Projet ERC : CAPABLE (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Utrecht University — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999747.5 €

We have witnessed significant work-life policy advancements designed to help men and women more equally combine employment with other spheres of life in recent decades, yet gender inequality persists. Improving gender equality in work-life balance is therefore high on policy agendas throughout Europe. Decades of research in this area have produced key insights but work-family theories fail to sufficiently explain the tenacity of this inequality. Earlier applications of a capabilities approach to work-life balance offer promising inroads, yet the importance of community remains absent. The CAPABLE project will generate fundamentally new knowledge on how work-life balance policies impact an individual’s capability to achieve this balance in Europe by incorporating the understudied dimension of community. Capabilities reflect what individuals are effectively able to achieve. CAPABLE asks: To what extent do work-life balance policies enhance men and women’s capabilities to achieve work-life balance? To answer this question, we will develop and apply complex models derived from Sen’s capability approach to analyse: 1. the availability, accessibility and design of work-family policies; 2. what these policies mean for men and women’s capabilities to achieve work-life balance based on their embeddedness in individual, community and social contexts; 3. whether work-life policies enhance individual wellbeing; and 4. what policy tools are needed for developing sustainable work-life balance policies that enhance gender equal work-life capabilities. CAPABLE will progress scientific and policy frontiers using innovative, mixed-methods approaches at multiple policy levels. The conceptual clarity and empirical advancements provided will significantly expand our understanding of work-life policies in relation to individual capabilities. Furthermore, it will produce key insights into how sustainable work-life policies addressing gender inequality in work-life can be developed.

Mots-clés : capabilities,cross national,gender,work family,work life policies
Projet ERC : FODEX (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : University of Edinburgh — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1698254.63 €

We know how to map tropical forest biomass using an array of satellite and aircraft sensors with reasonable accuracy (±15-40 %). However, we do not know how to map biomass change. Simply differencing existing biomass maps produces noisy and biased results, with confidence intervals unknowable using existing static field plots. Thus the potential for using plentiful free satellite data for biomass change mapping is being wasted. To solve this I propose setting up the first experimental arrays of biomass change plots. In total 52 large plots will be located in logging concessions in Gabon and Peru, where biomass will be assessed before and after logging, and during recovery. In addition to traditional field inventory, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data will give the precise 3D shape of thousands of trees before and after disturbance, allowing biomass change to be estimated without bias. The project’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will collect LiDAR data 4 times over each concession over 4 years, scaling up the field data to give thousands of hectares of biomass change data. In tandem, data from all potentially useful satellites (17+) flying over the field sites over the study period will be ordered and processed. These data will enable the development of new methods for mapping carbon stock changes, with known uncertainty, which I will scale up across the Amazon basin and west/central Africa. For the first time we will have the methods to assess the balance of regrowth and anthropogenic disturbance across tropical forests, informing us about the status and resilience of the land surface carbon sink. As well as of scientific interest, these results are urgently needed for forest conservation: the Paris Agreement relies on paying countries to reduce losses and enhance gains in forest carbon stocks, but we do not currently have the tools to map forest carbon stock changes. Without accurate monitoring it is not possible to target resources nor assess success.

Mots-clés : satellite imagery,big data,deforestation,forest degradation,redd,forest recovery,natural resource management,lidar,radar,terrestrial laser scanning,permanent sample plots,tropical forest
Projet ERC : WHOLE SUN (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2193750.0 €

We live around an active magnetic star, our Sun, that has a direct impact on our technological society through its variability and eruptive behaviour. Despite decades of intense research, fundamental questions such as How does the Sun work? Why does it possess a magnetic cycle and a dynamic hot atmosphere and how they are interrelated? remain mostly unanswered. In the Whole Sun project, we aim at tackling these key questions as a coherent whole for the first time. For too many years, the Sun has been split into internal and external solar physics topics lacking a global integrated view of its complex plasma dynamics. For instance, dynamo simulations seeking to answer the origin of the magnetic field and of its cyclic behaviour neglect surface physics and the existence of sunspots and likewise surface models often assume the magnetic field as a given input without the detailed knowledge of the nonlinear interplay between convection, rotation and magnetic fields in the Sun’s outer envelope. The time has come to gather European world leading solar/stellar physicists to build a deeper understanding of our star and to extend it to its twins. To do so many bottlenecks must be addressed: highly disparate spatial and temporal scales, physical interfaces of all solar layers, complex microphysics and global effects, strong dynamics and how parameters such as star’s metallicity, mass and rotation influence the outcome. By gathering physicists from each side of the solar surface we aim at tackling these challenging, beyond the state-of-the-art problems, by developing a deep theoretical understanding of our star and of its analogues and by building the most advanced multi-resolution solar code in order to jointly address global/macrophysics and local/microphysics aspects of the solar dynamics. The advent of Exa-scale computers makes such a challenge within our reach as do modern analysis methods to interpret observations and 4-D data cube that the project will produce or access.

Mots-clés : solar physics,dynamo,magnetohydrodynamics  mhd,plasma physics,solar activity,solar stellar connection
Projet ERC : WHOLE SUN (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives — Pays : France — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CEA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3643375.0 €

We live around an active magnetic star, our Sun, that has a direct impact on our technological society through its variability and eruptive behaviour. Despite decades of intense research, fundamental questions such as How does the Sun work? Why does it possess a magnetic cycle and a dynamic hot atmosphere and how they are interrelated? remain mostly unanswered. In the Whole Sun project, we aim at tackling these key questions as a coherent whole for the first time. For too many years, the Sun has been split into internal and external solar physics topics lacking a global integrated view of its complex plasma dynamics. For instance, dynamo simulations seeking to answer the origin of the magnetic field and of its cyclic behaviour neglect surface physics and the existence of sunspots and likewise surface models often assume the magnetic field as a given input without the detailed knowledge of the nonlinear interplay between convection, rotation and magnetic fields in the Sun’s outer envelope. The time has come to gather European world leading solar/stellar physicists to build a deeper understanding of our star and to extend it to its twins. To do so many bottlenecks must be addressed: highly disparate spatial and temporal scales, physical interfaces of all solar layers, complex microphysics and global effects, strong dynamics and how parameters such as star’s metallicity, mass and rotation influence the outcome. By gathering physicists from each side of the solar surface we aim at tackling these challenging, beyond the state-of-the-art problems, by developing a deep theoretical understanding of our star and of its analogues and by building the most advanced multi-resolution solar code in order to jointly address global/macrophysics and local/microphysics aspects of the solar dynamics. The advent of Exa-scale computers makes such a challenge within our reach as do modern analysis methods to interpret observations and 4-D data cube that the project will produce or access.

Mots-clés : solar physics,dynamo,magnetohydrodynamics  mhd,plasma physics,solar activity,solar stellar connection
Projet ERC : METABODY (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1939232.25 €

We live in a socio-economic world that affords us with increasing options and technologies to control and present our bodily appearance to others, including by managing our eating habits, or by digital and even surgical body modification. These proliferating phenomena raise the age-old question of how we negotiate the balance between the invariance and invention of our identity. Addressing this question in relation to modern body image phenomena requires a radical new way of studying the concept of body image. METABODY proposes the novel concept of Body Imagining to capture the idea that our body image is not a fixed representation in the brain, but rather a dynamic inference based on prior expectations and new information. Studying the balance between prior beliefs and new information could thus hold the key to understanding modern body image phenomena. Moreover, existing studies have failed to investigate the metacognitive level of these inferences. METABODY will test the novel hypothesis that body image disturbances are not the result of biases merely in the 1st order ability to perceive one’s body, but also in the 2nd order ability to evaluate the reliability of these perceptions in given contexts. Specifically, three empirical work-packages will study how individuals balance their own embodied experience against: (1) external perspectives on the body during multisensory perception (Body Metacognition), (2) social perspectives during interpersonal encounters (Body Mentalizing) and (3) future and ideal body perspectives during decisions about body modification options with uncertain outcome (Body Decision Making). Ultimately, METABODY will address in innovative ways the timely question of how we negotiate the balance between the invariance and invention of our identity in a time when changing the body is offered as an easy way to change the self.

Mots-clés : embodied cognition,metacognition,awareness,body image,eating disorders,mental health
Projet ERC : TEAR (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499750.0 €

We live on an active planet enveloped by ever shifting tectonic plates. The strain induced by these movements is accommodated by faults – thin zones of highly localized shear deformation. Faults deform, interact and fail via multiple physical processes (brittle, plastic, viscous) and across extremely large spatial (<1mm to >100km) and temporal (<0.001s to >10.000yr) scales. While increasingly dense observational networks and advanced laboratory experiments reveal a broad range of fault slip behaviour, the most useful thing seismologists could do - predict earthquakes – remains what we are least able to. The aim of TEAR is to comprehensively study, for the first time, the full complexity of fault system behaviour throughout the seismic cycle revealing how faults slip. Truly multi-scale and multi-physics computational models are validated against laboratory friction experiments, dense fault zone observations and analysis of induced seismicity. Conventionally, earthquakes are modelled as displacement discontinuity across a simplified surface of zero thickness based on linear elastodynamics. In contrast, TEAR will harness novel continuum phase-field theory and cutting-edge numerical techniques to develop, verify and validate a generalized visco-elasto-plastic framework including 1) visco-elastic rheologies suitable for short and long time scales, 2) spatial discretizations which capture localization phenomena (fault evolution), 3) time integrators which adapt dynamically to capture seismic events, 4) scalable high performance computing software to enable high resolution 3D simulations. By utilizing the extensive experience of the PI in earthquake modelling and high-performance computing, including the management of large-scale infrastructural projects, TEAR will not only fundamentally renew our understanding of fault slip and fault zone evolution, but provide key tools for the fast, reliable, efficient and physics-based seismic hazard assessment of the future.

Mots-clés : earthquake physics,fault mechanics,seismic cycle,dynamic rupture,high performance computing,phase field theory,physics based seismic hazard assessment,fault friction experiments,induced seismicity,dense fault observation