Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : SuperTwist (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
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 : 1391978.0 €

It is widely believed that the development of room temperature superconductivity is one of biggest challenges of modern physics and will lead to a technological revolution. However, a detailed understanding of how high temperature superconductivity arises in unconventional superconductors has to this day eluded scientists. This year, in a breakthrough discovery, scientists have found superconductivity in a radically new compound, which has a strikingly similar phenomenology to most unconventional superconductors – “magic” angle bilayer graphene. As graphene crystals are ultra-clean, highly tuneable and its parent state is well understood, I strongly believe that the study of these compounds will cause a long awaited revolution in the comprehension of unconventional superconductivity. In this project I will uncover the nature of superconductivity in “magic” angle graphene, by experimentally revealing its defining aspect – the superconducting order parameter. While no experimental method alone can definitely define the order parameter and since key experimental techniques are unavailable for these truly nano-scale materials, I will implement a radically new, multidisciplinary approach between material science and the development of disruptive measurement techniques. To achieve this ambitious goal, my truly unique background is essential, which includes van der Waals engineering, quantum transport, microwave engineering and quantum optics. I will employ these versatile skills to (i) develop robust procedures to engineer novel van der Waals hetero-structures of “magic” angle graphene to manipulate its phonons, impurities and magnetic correlations, (ii) perform Josephson interferometry and tunnelling experiments to investigate its macroscopic phase, spin state and excitation spectrum, (iii) develop novel thermal transport and specific heat techniques to investigate the size and nodal structure of its superconducting gap.

Mots-clés : unconventional superconductivity,graphene,van der waals,specific heat
Projet ERC : SuperTwist (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Institute of Photonic Sciences — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : ICFO;ICFO-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 388750.0 €

It is widely believed that the development of room temperature superconductivity is one of biggest challenges of modern physics and will lead to a technological revolution. However, a detailed understanding of how high temperature superconductivity arises in unconventional superconductors has to this day eluded scientists. This year, in a breakthrough discovery, scientists have found superconductivity in a radically new compound, which has a strikingly similar phenomenology to most unconventional superconductors – “magic” angle bilayer graphene. As graphene crystals are ultra-clean, highly tuneable and its parent state is well understood, I strongly believe that the study of these compounds will cause a long awaited revolution in the comprehension of unconventional superconductivity. In this project I will uncover the nature of superconductivity in “magic” angle graphene, by experimentally revealing its defining aspect – the superconducting order parameter. While no experimental method alone can definitely define the order parameter and since key experimental techniques are unavailable for these truly nano-scale materials, I will implement a radically new, multidisciplinary approach between material science and the development of disruptive measurement techniques. To achieve this ambitious goal, my truly unique background is essential, which includes van der Waals engineering, quantum transport, microwave engineering and quantum optics. I will employ these versatile skills to (i) develop robust procedures to engineer novel van der Waals hetero-structures of “magic” angle graphene to manipulate its phonons, impurities and magnetic correlations, (ii) perform Josephson interferometry and tunnelling experiments to investigate its macroscopic phase, spin state and excitation spectrum, (iii) develop novel thermal transport and specific heat techniques to investigate the size and nodal structure of its superconducting gap.

Mots-clés : unconventional superconductivity,graphene,van der waals,specific heat
Projet ERC : CoulENGINE (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : TU Dresden — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TUD
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999627.0 €

Key phenomena in condensed matter are determined by the properties of the electronic states, strongly motivating the development of strategies for their artificial design. In semiconducting solids, heavily studied from fundamental and technological perspectives, electronic structures are currently defined using strong perturbations of the materials such as tuning the chemical composition, changing the geometry, or applying external fields. Traditional concepts, however, inherently rely on modifying single-particle properties of individual electrons, while the influence of many-particle interactions has been largely neglected in the context of bandstructure engineering so far. In addition, conventional methods start to approach intrinsic barriers in today’s technology, driving an intense search for fundamentally novel concepts. Here, I propose to explore an alternative pathway to design and manipulate electronic states in matter that is exclusively based on many-particle interactions between electronic excitations mediated by Coulomb forces. These are exceptionally strong in two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors with a major impact on the energies of the electronic states, and are highly sensitive to the dielectric surroundings. Using layered heterostructures I intend to show how the dielectric environment of a 2D semiconductor can be tuned on ultrafast timescales by pulsed optical injection to manipulate electronic states via proximity screening. Similarly, external screening will be used to study how the geometry of proximate objects can be imprinted on the electronic structure of a 2D layer, creating dielectrically defined zero-, one-, and two-dimensional potentials in one unified system. Ultimately, the realization of rapidly tunable electronic quantum states through dielectric environment will offer novel, versatile experimental platforms for fundamental many-body physics research and establish a new approach for electronic structure engineering on the nanoscale.

Mots-clés : nanoscale materials,spectroscopy,two dimensional semiconductors,interactions at surfaces and interfaces,electronic structure engineering
Projet ERC : SIMPOSION (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : University of Florence — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2167456.25 €

Kidney disorders represent a major global health burden with a significant sexual dimorphism that is largely unexplained. My group first identified the stem cells of the kidney (renal progenitors) and demonstrated their crucial role in kidney disease. Here, I propose that sex hormones regulate number and function of renal progenitors to empower females to face the hemodynamic and metabolic challenges of pregnancy. I further propose that this process impacts on sexual dimorphisms in incidence and outcome of kidney diseases including kidney cancer. A multitude of unpublished data obtained with primary human progenitor cultures and unique mouse models of progenitor-specific sex hormones receptor knockout already support my concepts. I will demonstrate that, starting from the age of fertility, estrogen signaling in renal progenitors supports their survival and self-renewal, which is needed to increase their capacity to generate new podocytes and tubular epithelial cells. I will show that failure to produce a sufficient number of podocytes from estrogen-activated renal progenitors promotes preeclampsia and fetal growth retardation. This is a completely new pathophysiological concept of why women with a mismatch of nephron number and pregnancy-related hyperfiltration develop preeclampsia. I will further demonstrate that the same mechanism protects fertile women from severe forms of glomerular injury unrelated to pregnancy. Finally, I will prove that to compensate for the lower number of renal progenitors, testosterone pushes them to proliferate more in males and that this can explain the increased incidence of most prevalent forms of kidney cancer, that derive from renal progenitors. This topic is a direct continuation of my previous studies on renal progenitors supported by ERC Starting and Consolidator grants and will unravel fundamental paradigms in kidney physiology, adaptation, and disease with important implications for prevention and management of kidney disease.

Mots-clés : kidney,renal cell carcinoma,pregnancy,renal progenitor
Projet ERC : SIMPOSION (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Aarhus University — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : AU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 129443.75 €

Kidney disorders represent a major global health burden with a significant sexual dimorphism that is largely unexplained. My group first identified the stem cells of the kidney (renal progenitors) and demonstrated their crucial role in kidney disease. Here, I propose that sex hormones regulate number and function of renal progenitors to empower females to face the hemodynamic and metabolic challenges of pregnancy. I further propose that this process impacts on sexual dimorphisms in incidence and outcome of kidney diseases including kidney cancer. A multitude of unpublished data obtained with primary human progenitor cultures and unique mouse models of progenitor-specific sex hormones receptor knockout already support my concepts. I will demonstrate that, starting from the age of fertility, estrogen signaling in renal progenitors supports their survival and self-renewal, which is needed to increase their capacity to generate new podocytes and tubular epithelial cells. I will show that failure to produce a sufficient number of podocytes from estrogen-activated renal progenitors promotes preeclampsia and fetal growth retardation. This is a completely new pathophysiological concept of why women with a mismatch of nephron number and pregnancy-related hyperfiltration develop preeclampsia. I will further demonstrate that the same mechanism protects fertile women from severe forms of glomerular injury unrelated to pregnancy. Finally, I will prove that to compensate for the lower number of renal progenitors, testosterone pushes them to proliferate more in males and that this can explain the increased incidence of most prevalent forms of kidney cancer, that derive from renal progenitors. This topic is a direct continuation of my previous studies on renal progenitors supported by ERC Starting and Consolidator grants and will unravel fundamental paradigms in kidney physiology, adaptation, and disease with important implications for prevention and management of kidney disease.

Mots-clés : kidney,renal cell carcinoma,pregnancy,renal progenitor
Projet ERC : REGMAMKID (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IBEC;IBEC-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499604.0 €

Kidney non-endocrine functions are primarily performed by millions of individual integral units called nephrons. Although the adults of simple vertebrates (fish, amphibians and reptiles) have the ability to regenerate entire nephrons by a process called “nephron neogenesis”, this capacity is absent in birds and mammals. In this regard we have observed, for the first time, that the murine neonatal kidney is able to generate new nephrons after the resection of the 20 per cent of the kidney mass. In the same manner, our recent published data on the generation of human kidney organoids ex vivo from kidney disease derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), demonstrates the suitability of iPS technology to establish an unprecedented platform for drug screening, disease modelling and kidney regeneration. Thus, with support from REGMAMKID we will carry out a dual strategy for kidney regeneration and therapy. For kidney regeneration, we will make use of our newly developed mouse model of neonatal kidney regeneration and identify the molecular and epigenetic drivers responsible for this process. For kidney therapy, we will generate specific kidney cell populations with therapeutic potential such as podocytes and tubular epithelial cells by combining emerging cutting-edge technologies from the fields of cellular reprogramming and pluripotent stem cells differentiation. Making use of the tools developed in REGMAMKID we will model two different genetic kidney disorders: one affecting the podocyte (Congenital Nephrotic Syndrome) and other leading to an excessive proliferation of tubular epithelial cells (Autosomal Dominant Polycistic Disease). These studies will significantly impact on our understanding of kidney disease and healing.

Mots-clés : kidney,regeneration,induced pluripotent stem cells,gene editing,disease modeling
Projet ERC : HERO (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 6262605.0 €

Knowledge of the electronic band structure and a key low energy degree of freedom, chosen from a short list including charge, spin, free electrons and atomic positions, characterizes most crystalline solids with astonishing success. This paradigm underpins not only metallic and insulating behavior, but also superconductivity, the fractional quantum Hall effect and Mott physics where the efficient theoretical approach is always to consider many-body physics only for a single low energy degree of freedom. While much research even over the last 20 years has validated this paradigm, e.g. for graphene, there are examples of quantum matter where it seems to break down, most notably transition metal oxides which host what appear to be many “key” low energy degrees of freedom (order parameters) and even the quasiparticles in the “normal” metallic states do not always behave as ordinary electrons in metals. Our contention is that the truly important degrees of freedom are not awaiting discovery, but rather that the key property of many of these systems is that there are several key degrees of freedom. HERO aims to go beyond the state of the art in accounting for systems with multiple order parameters by considering all of the possibilities offered by quantum mechanics, and taking advantage of exceptional experimental and computational tools such as free electron lasers. We will search systematically for different forms of “Hidden” Order , derived either from correlations between classical order parameters which could even be vanishing due to quantum fluctuations or from external ac drive fields. Quantum multicritical points where different forms of order simultaneously appear near zero temperature will be considered with special attention to the effects of Entanglement between mesoscopic quantum variables associated with the multiple orders. Finally, we will examine the consequences of Resonant level crossings for symmetry-restoring modes associated with different orders.

Mots-clés : quantum criticality,non linear dynamic,tensor order,free electron laser,multiferroics
Projet ERC : VOLUME-BIO (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : University Medical Center Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UMC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1554634.14 €

Lab-made artificial tissues and organoids promise to revolutionize medicine, tackling transplant shortage, and to innovate biological and pharmaceutical research, introducing accurate in vitro models of human physiology, as potential alternatives to animal experimentation. The functionality of living organs is intimately linked to their complex architecture, from the physicochemical properties of extracellular microenvironment, to tissue-level scale, where multiple cell populations interact in a precisely orchestrated spatial distribution. Advances in key technologies capturing this shape-function relationship in vitro can bring the long-sought goal of real tissue engineering within reach. In VOLUME-BIO I will develop a novel multi-material volumetric bioprinting technology for the precise generation of engineered tissues and organoids exhibiting physiological functions. Inspired by optical tomography, cell-laden hydrogels are sculpted into tissue analogues within seconds, upon exposure to bio-friendly 3D visible light fields. Tuneable light patterns control the local distribution of cells and, through orthogonal photo-chemical reactions, of key factors that guide stem cell fate, namely stiffness of the extracellular matrix and morphogenetic biochemical cues. The unprecedented ability to tune independently such parameters will also permit to build 3D platforms to study how architectural complexity impacts organoid maturation. This will provide a new tool to address the so far unanswered question of how much an engineered tissue needs to mimic Nature’s template to achieve physiological functionality. Bringing together my expertise in engineering, bioprinting, materials design and stem cell biology, I will first test the potential and versatility of this novel volumetric technology by building from anatomical patient-specific images functional and centimetre-scale vascularized bone and bone marrow organoid supporting physiological-like hematopoiesis.

Mots-clés : biofabrication,3d printing,biomaterials,tissue engineering
Projet ERC : TerreStriAL (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : University of Göttingen — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1494226.0 €

Land plants abound on Earth’s surface. All of this diversity arose in a singular event. The algal progenitor of land plants was a streptophyte alga and only recent phylogenomic analyses have specified the particular algal lineage that is most closely related to land plants. But why did land plants evolve only once? And what properties did the ancestors of these terrestrial organisms possess that allowed them to conquer land? Life on land involves rapid and drastic shifts in temperature, light or water availability. Hence, a prime candidate property is the ability to deal with these terrestrial stressors by dynamically responding to shifting environmental cues. My recent data highlight that the streptophyte algae closest to land plants have the genetic makeup for land plant-like stress response signalling circuits—including genes for sensing the major stress phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA). This provides us with testable candidates. To shed light on the early evolution of one of land plants’ key properties, I, here, propose to combine in-depth molecular biological analyses of these candidate stress signalling and response pathways with large-scale systems biology approaches. For this, my team and I will develop streptophyte algal model systems. We will dissect the regulatory hierarchy employed during stress signalling and the response pathways it is regulating in real-time in vivo and across evolutionary time in silico. These approaches will go beyond a view of gene evolution that is based on presence/absence to address if land plant stress dynamics have evolved from algal stress regulatory networks that became hardwired into land plant biology. The aim of this work is to infer the biology of the earliest land plants by investigating their closest algal relatives and interrogating a candidate mechanism used to deal with the challenges of life on land. Understanding this mechanism means understanding a key player that paved the way for the success of plants on land.

Mots-clés : plant terrestrialization,early plant evolution,streptophyte algae,plant physiology,evo physio,gene regulatory networks
Projet ERC : LANGBOOT (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Lancaster University — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1517779.44 €

Language and cognition have a close, but cryptic, relationship. Is language just another tool in humans' diverse cognitive toolkit; vital for communication, but not necessary for complex, high-level thought? Or is language what allows us to form and manipulate complex thoughts in the first place, by allowing words to act as placeholders in ideas that would otherwise be too unwieldy to handle? Distinguishing between these possibilities is vital to understanding our most fundamental cognitive faculties and the origin of modern human cognition itself. The current project will render this problem tractable with the groundbreaking proposal that language bootstraps the cognitive complexity of the human mind by enhancing its ability to form and manipulate more elaborate mental representations than would otherwise be possible without language. In an innovative programme of investigation that uses cutting-edge methods from experimental psychology, psycholinguistics, cognitive modelling, and corpus linguistics, we will examine how words interact with conceptual knowledge gleaned from perceptual and action experience in forming mental representations across a range of fundamental cognitive tasks, including categorisation, memory performance, and abstract thought. We will test whether and how language provides indispensable aid to cognitive processing that struggles to complete under time pressure or that strains working memory capacity, and how such aid could have influenced cognitive evolution. Findings of this project will answer whether language provides critical enhancement to the achievable complexity of cognition, and whether language use could have brought about the sudden flowering of art, fine tools and culture that are the hallmarks of complex cognition in modern humans. The result will be a comprehensive, multidisciplinary perspective on the role of language in cognition that has the potential to reshape how we regard the functioning of the human mind.

Mots-clés : mental representation,concepts,embodied cognition,perceptual simulation,linguistic distributional information,cognitive evolution,cognitive science,psycholinguistics,cognitive modelling