Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : REPLAY (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Birmingham — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

How does the brain use past experiences to shape future actions? Over two decades ago, research in rodents has made a remarkable discovery that may provide key answers to this fundamental question. Researchers found that while rats were sleeping, activity in their hippocampus seemingly retraced the animals’ previous trajectories in a maze, only much faster than in real time. This phenomenon, known as replay, has become a major focus of neuroscientists and even artificial intelligence researchers over the past decades. The resulting research demonstrated that replay is prevalent during wakeful resting, related to memory, planning and reward processing, and shares similarities with machine learning algorithms. These findings suggest that replay may be a fundamental mechanism behind memory consolidation and the computation of optimal behavior. Yet, despite the significance of this phenomenon, little is known about replay in the human brain. The major reason for the lack of knowledge are difficulties to measure fast neural processes non-invasively in the human hippocampus. The main goal of the proposed research is to overcome these obstacles, and to provide deeper insights into replay in humans. To achieve this, we will use a novel fMRI analysis method that tests whether the transitions between successive fMRI patterns during rest or sleep exhibit non-random relations to the temporal structure of previous experiences. Using this approach, the proposed research will provide insights into four cognitive and computational aspects of replay in the human brain: (1) the coordination of hippocampal replay with activity in other brain areas, (2) the effects of reward and planning on content and direction of replay, (3) the role of replay during sleep and its relation to sleep spindles, and (4) its role in age-related memory decline. In combination, insights gained from this research promise to greatly enhance our understanding of how memories guide adaptive behavior in humans.

Mots-clés : cognitive neuroscience,cognitive computational neuroscience,fmri,decision making
Projet ERC : TIPTOP (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : Leibniz Association — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2139500.0 €

How eukaryotes sense and integrate temperature information is an open question in biology. Plants have evolved to grow across a wide range of climates, and experience large temperature gradients geographically, seasonally and over the 24 h diurnal cycle. The distribution and phenology of plants has altered in response to climate-change, and crop yields decrease by about 10% for every 1ºC increase in temperature. The mechanisms by which plants respond to temperature are however poorly understood. We have recently discovered two major nodes for sensing temperature status by plants: (1) Transcriptional- key proteins required for plant temperature responses contain prion related domains and are directly controlled by temperature dependent phase separation. (2) Translational- transcripts show preferential translation at high temperature, and have thermoresponsive hairpin structures. Building on these discoveries, we propose an ambitious programme to understand the fundamental principles by which the cell senses and integrates temperature: (1) How do prion domain proteins sense temperature and control the activity of transcriptional regulators? What are the organising principles of their activity, and how can sequence variation such as repeat length tune and adapt thermoresponsive prion domain proteins to different climates? (Biochemistry and genetic analysis combined with high throughput functional screens) (2) How is translation affected by warm temperature? What is the RNA secondary structure code that enables certain transcripts to be preferentially translated at high temperature? (Ribo-seq, quantitative proteomics and transgenic approaches) (3) How can we use the knowledge gained above in (1) and (2) to engineer specific temperature response networks in yeast and plants? How can we create useful tools and assays to advance the field such as FRET biosensors for local temperature within the cell? (Bioinformatics, biochemistry and cell biology)

Mots-clés : temperature sensing,thermosensing,phase change,prion domain,arabidopsis thaliana,brachypodium distachyon,heat stress,flowering,elf3,pif4,pif7,hsp70,translation,thermosensory hairpin,climate change
Projet ERC : HUM-GOV (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Erasmus University Rotterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : EUR
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499591.0 €

How is humanitarian governance evolving in response to global and local changes, and how do civil society actors and crisis-affected people shape humanitarian governance ‘from below’ using accountability and advocacy? Growing humanitarian need, increasing population displacement, and expanding impact of climate-related disasters multiply the challenges of preserving life and dignity in crisis-affected populations. At-risk populations are increasingly difficult to capture using the traditional categories of disaster/conflict victims and refugees, and humanitarian governance (attempting to govern individuals and groups to preserve life and reduce human suffering) is in flux. Changes in humanitarian governance include a paradigm shift to resilience and localization of aid reforms. As yet, these changes and their consequences are poorly understood. Through a dynamic research programme engaging at-risk populations and civil society actors, the project pursues the objectives of 1) understanding changes in humanitarian governance; 2) clarifying advocacy and accountability relations in changing landscapes of humanitarian governance; 3) identifying variations in humanitarian governance and revealing how they relate to key variables, including the type of crisis and the local context; 4) providing conceptual tools for analysing variations of humanitarian governance; and 5) addressing inequalities in humanitarian studies. Using a mixed-methods approach combining conceptual work on ethics and humanitarianism with four case studies using qualitative and participatory methods, the project will explore how the interplay of actors and contextual factors produce variations in humanitarian governance, with a special focus on how crisis-affected populations and civil society actors use accountability and advocacy to influence the system. The project has the potential to transform humanitarian studies and to impact protection and service delivery in humanitarian emergencies worldwide.

Mots-clés : humanitarian governance,social accountability,advocacy processes,interactive research,reform from below,vulnerability,precariousness,resilience,solidarity,everyday politics,disasters,refugees
Projet ERC : PLANTMOVE (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
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 : 1933996.0 €

How to transport fluids, move solids or perceive mechanical signals without the equivalent of pumps, muscles or nerves? This ongoing challenge, which is relevant from microfluidics to robotics, has long been solved by plants. In this project, I wish to gather my cross-disciplinary background in plant mechanics, soft matter physics and granular materials to address some of the fundamental mechanisms used by plants to perceive mechanical stimuli and generate motion. The project focuses on three major issues in plant biophysics, which all involve the coupling between a fluid (water in the vascular network or in the plant cell, cellular cytoplasm) and a solid (plant cell wall, starch grains in gravity-sensing cells): (i) How mechanical signals are perceived and transported within the plant and what is the role of the water pressure in this long-distance signalling. (ii) How plants sense and respond to gravity and how this response is related to the granular nature of the sensor at the cellular level. (iii) How plants perform rapid motion and what is the role of osmotic motors and cell wall actuation in this process, using the carnivorous plant Venus flytrap as a paradigm for study. The global approach will combine experiments on physical systems mimicking the key features of plant tissue and in situ experiments on plants, in strong collaboration with plant physiologists and agronomists. Experiments will be performed both at the organ level (growth kinematics, response to strain and force stimuli) and at the tissue and cellular level (cell imaging, micro-indentation, cell pressure probe). This multi-disciplinary and multi-scale approach should help to fill the gap in our understanding of basic plant functions and offers new strategies to design smart soft materials and fluids inspired by plant sensors and motility mechanism.

Mots-clés : plant biomechanics,plant movements,poroelasticity,osmotic pressure,granular materials,non brownian suspensions,cellular materials,microfluidic
Projet ERC : NEODYNE (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HHU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1903698.0 €

How we decide between different alternatives is a central question to cognitive neuroscience. Decisions may appear trivial (selecting between two meals), or sophisticated and long reaching (deciding whom to marry). Decisions constitute a highly dynamical process of evidence accumulation. These dynamics can be represented in cortical oscillations, which have attracted great interest as a key mechanism that coordinates fast computations. While a few studies have investigated the role of cortical oscillations in decision making, the underlying mechanisms translating neurochemical activity into network dynamics and ultimately into choice remain unknown. Although neuromodulator effects are well described at the cellular level, their network effects during high-level behaviours are not well understood. There is however evidence that neuromodulators also control cortical oscillations and that this may have behavioural relevance. For a mechanistic understanding of human decision making, it is essential to (1) study its fast temporal cortical dynamics and (2) understand how neurochemical signalling gives rise to network dynamics and ultimately to cognition. Biophysical network models are excellent tools for linking these different levels of investigation. Such an understanding is critically important not only from a basic science perspective, it will also further our understanding of psychiatric diseases, which are often characterized by anomalies in neurochemical systems, neural oscillations and decision making. The novel approach that is core to this proposal is to investigate whether and how neurochemical systems guide decision behaviour by modulating cortical dynamics. To achieve this ambitious goal, I will use a combination of imaging methods with computational modelling, pharmacological challenges and electrical brain stimulation. This new approach will allow me to move towards a mechanistic understanding of the systems-level dynamics underlying decision making.

Mots-clés : decision making,cognition,cortex,neural oscillations,neurochemical mechanisms,computational modelling,magnetoencephalography
Projet ERC : GREENT (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Human activities have severe impacts on the biological carbon and nitrogen cycles. The most important consequences of these are global warming and water pollution. Wastewater treatment technology, in particular nitrogen removal systems, improved considerably in the last decade. The application of anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacteria in oxygen-limited granules has the potential to turn wastewater treatment plants into energy-efficient systems with minimal greenhouse gas emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. Recently, microorganisms that couple the anaerobic oxidation of methane to denitrification were discovered. An innovative integration of these microorganisms into partial nitritation-anammox systems for wastewater treatment offers an elegant and efficient solution to combat greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment plants. The aim of the GREENT project is to determine nitrous oxide emissions from partial nitritation-anammox bioreactors and the parameters that govern these emissions, and to investigate the responsible pathways in molecular detail. Furthermore, I will explore the feasibility of an innovative bioreactor, which will remove ammonium and methane simultaneously through anammox and anaerobic methane-oxidizing microorganisms. This approach will turn the otherwise harmful methane into a resource for efficient nitrogen removal. These fundamental insights and technological advances will be achieved by a complimentary array of state-of-the-art methodology such as continuous culturing, stable isotope tracing and a combination of -omics methods together with physiological experiments and detailed measurements at full-scale installations. The results of this proposal will be of paramount importance for the wastewater treatment sector, but also indispensable for mathematical modelling, life cycle assessment and understanding the ecophysiology of the involved microorganisms.

Mots-clés : nitrogen removal,anaerobic ammonium oxidation,nitrogen cycle
Projet ERC : Hemstem (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : University of Basel — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 59155.0 €

Human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remains a devastating disease with less than 30% of patients surviving five years after diagnosis. Despite decades of research and detailed mo-lecular insights provided by mutational profiling, curative treatment still requires high-intensity chemotherapy and the crude approach of allogeneic stem cell transplantation – an effective, yet non-specific immunotherapy that is costly to the patient because of its severe side effects. One reason why the wealth of molecular and experimental knowledge has so far been unable to revolutionize treatments is the fact that AML is driven by small subpopulations of so-called leukemic stem cells (LSCs), which survive chemotherapy and immune surveillance. LSCs have growth advantages induced by oncogenic mutations, but are in many ways similar to healthy hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). This similarity makes it difficult to target LSCs without simultaneously eradicating HSCs and healthy hematopoiesis derived from these cells. Like HSCs, LSCs home to protective bone marrow (BM) niches promoting stemness and therapy resistance and modify them to displace HSCs and promote their own expansion. This proposal explores strategies to target LSCs based on understanding these interactions. In Aim 1 we investigate how WNT signaling, an evolutionary conserved pathway governing stem cell self-renewal, regulates interactions between leukemic and healthy hematopoietic (stem) cells. In Aim 2, we propose to inhibit the in vivo expansion of LSCs by enhancing self-renewal and niche affinity in their natural competitors, the healthy stem cells with inborn BM homing ability. Aim 3 uses zebrafish to visualize LSC-HSC interactions and screens for molecules supporting healthy instead of (pre-) malignant hematopoiesis. Our studies will im-prove the knowledge on the complex interactions between LSCs and HSCs and provide a rationale for novel treatments that might lead to a paradigm-shift in the clinical management of AML.

Mots-clés : hematopoiesis,hematopoietic stem cells,acute myeloid leukemia,leukemia stem cells,zebrafish,niche,xenograft models,translational cancer research
Projet ERC : MORE2ADA2 (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
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 : 1958505.0 €

Human adenosine type 2 (ADA2) deficiency is a rare but devastating condition resulting in a complex phenotype of vasculitis (ranging from cutaneous to intracerebral vasculitis with lacunar infarcts), immunodeficiency (recurrent bacterial or viral infections), bone marrow anomalies (cytopenia, aplasia), cancer (lymphoma, leukemia). Mortality is 10%, often in childhood. The mainstay of treatment consists of anti-TNF blockade for vasculitis. Cytopenia and immunodeficiency respond poorly. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is curative in most cases. Although the condition was described in 2014, its pathophysiology is unsolved. From previous work in my laboratory, I have gained insight that ADA2 is likely to play a significant role in antiviral host defense and endothelial function. I thus hypothesize that ADA2 deficiency is an underdiagnosed condition and that complete or partial ADA2 deficiency plays a role in several other common medical conditions. With this research proposal, I aim (1) to unravel the pathophysiology of ADA2 deficiency, to (2) study the significance of ADA2 deficiency in phenocopies of the disease (3) to study the function of ADA2 in vitro (4) to develop new treatment strategies for ADA2 deficiency and its phenocopies. To achieve these aims I will study the prevalence of ADA2 deficiency in cohorts of patients presenting with one or more of the main disease characteristics (e.g. juvenile stroke, aplasia, childhood lymphoma...) by genetic and functional approaches. The genotype, immunophenotype and clinical characteristics of these patients will be studied using the newest technologies. In cell lines and tissue samples of ADA2 deficient patients, we will study the function of ADA2. Finally, we will screen known and novel drugs for their potential use in ADA2 deficiency and phenocopies, even beyond, in cardiovascular disease, cancer, anti-viral host defense.

Mots-clés : primary immune deficiency,adenosine deaminase type 2 deficiency,stroke,viral infection,cancer
Projet ERC : GutBrainGABA (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Reading — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1997953.0 €

Human beings are over 99% genetically identical. It seems striking therefore, that 1% of this genetic difference accounts for the large extent of individual variations seen in human behaviour and brain function. One promising alternative source of individual differences is the resident bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, which is 40-90% distinct between different individuals. Bacteria in the human gut outnumber human cells, and account for nearly 10 times as much DNA as that from human cells. Some gut bacteria have been shown to produce Gamma Amino Butyric Acid (GABA) and serotonin (5-HT), molecules that function as neurotransmitters in the human brain. However, it is not known whether their production in the gut has any impact on behavioural and brain function. This project takes a biochemically informed approach to address this gap in knowledge through focussing on GABA, whose function as a neurotransmitter is well characterised, and which can be assayed directly or through proxy measures of brain and behaviour. The first work package of this project in human adults will investigate whether the population of gut bacteria capable of producing GABA can modulate brain levels of GABA (measured directly using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy), as well as performance in tasks that depend on GABA-ergic activity. The second work package will test the impact of ingesting bacteria known to produce GABA (packaged as a custom-made probiotic) over a period of four weeks, on the same brain and behavioural measures. Together, these studies will answer a fundamental question of whether the population of gut bacteria capable of producing GABA, as well as its modulation by probiotics, has any impact on the level GABA in the brain and its function. This interdisciplinary proposal brings together approaches from psychology, neuroscience, and gut microbiology to chart a new research frontier in understanding individual differences in human behaviour and brain function.

Mots-clés : gut microbiota brain,individual differences