Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ALZSYN (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : University of Edinburgh — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia in older people, is a devastating condition that is becoming a public health crisis as our population ages. Despite great progress recently in Alzheimer’s disease research, we have no disease modifying drugs and a decade with a 99.6% failure rate of clinical trials attempting to treat the disease. This project aims to develop relevant therapeutic targets to restore brain function in Alzheimer’s disease by integrating human and model studies of synapses. It is widely accepted in the field that alterations in amyloid beta initiate the disease process. However the cascade leading from changes in amyloid to widespread tau pathology and neurodegeneration remain unclear. Synapse loss is the strongest pathological correlate of dementia in Alzheimer’s, and mounting evidence suggests that synapse degeneration plays a key role in causing cognitive decline. Here I propose to test the hypothesis that the amyloid cascade begins at the synapse leading to tau pathology, synapse dysfunction and loss, and ultimately neural circuit collapse causing cognitive impairment. The team will use cutting-edge multiphoton and array tomography imaging techniques to test mechanisms downstream of amyloid beta at synapses, and determine whether intervening in the cascade allows recovery of synapse structure and function. Importantly, I will combine studies in robust models of familial Alzheimer’s disease with studies in postmortem human brain to confirm relevance of our mechanistic studies to human disease. Finally, human stem cell derived neurons will be used to test mechanisms and potential therapeutics in neurons expressing the human proteome. Together, these experiments are ground-breaking since they have the potential to further our understanding of how synapses are lost in Alzheimer’s disease and to identify targets for effective therapeutic intervention, which is a critical unmet need in today’s health care system.

Mots-clés : in vivo imaging,stem cells,array tomography,neuropathology
Projet ERC : P-CITIZENS (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Stockholm University — Pays : Suède — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 26250.0 €

Amateur theatre played a significant role in the formation of a modern concept of citizenship that emerged during the Enlightenment and took shape during the American and French Revolutions. Around the social activities enacted and texts performed a broad-based movement developed between 1780 and 1850 that, arguably, had more impact than professional theatre which has previously been the almost exclusive focus of theatre studies. In the period, non-professional theatre offered huge educative possibilities for the acquisition of skills and competences deemed essential to becoming a ‘good citizen’. For the first time, a historiographical research project will study European amateur theatre’s impact on social change. Five different case studies will bring distinct cultural and political contexts into the picture that determined ideas and practices of citizenship as well as theatre: 1) late-absolutist rule in Germany, 2) revolutionary shifts in France, 3) parliamentary rule in Great Britain, 4) reformed monarchy in Sweden, and 5) a contested republic in Switzerland. The study of amateur theatre in these regions will reveal the development of their citizen practices in regard to accessibility and agency, aesthetic education, institutionalisation and professionalization. Merging performance theory, cultural theory and institutional theory this project will connect the historical formation of citizenship to discourses on performativity and the building of identity through embodied practices. It will also help to foreground the role of non-professional theatre in the shaping of society. The key objectives of this project are: [1] to contribute to a historiographic shift by focusing on the ‘doing’ and performativity of theatre practices [2] to examine how concepts of citizenship emerged around theatre in Germany, France, Britain, Sweden and Switzerland [3] to analyse how non-professional theatre embraced and further developed concepts that helped to establish a citizen

Mots-clés : theatre history,amateur cultures,political identity
Projet ERC : P-CITIZENS (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : University of Warwick — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 462000.0 €

Amateur theatre played a significant role in the formation of a modern concept of citizenship that emerged during the Enlightenment and took shape during the American and French Revolutions. Around the social activities enacted and texts performed a broad-based movement developed between 1780 and 1850 that, arguably, had more impact than professional theatre which has previously been the almost exclusive focus of theatre studies. In the period, non-professional theatre offered huge educative possibilities for the acquisition of skills and competences deemed essential to becoming a ‘good citizen’. For the first time, a historiographical research project will study European amateur theatre’s impact on social change. Five different case studies will bring distinct cultural and political contexts into the picture that determined ideas and practices of citizenship as well as theatre: 1) late-absolutist rule in Germany, 2) revolutionary shifts in France, 3) parliamentary rule in Great Britain, 4) reformed monarchy in Sweden, and 5) a contested republic in Switzerland. The study of amateur theatre in these regions will reveal the development of their citizen practices in regard to accessibility and agency, aesthetic education, institutionalisation and professionalization. Merging performance theory, cultural theory and institutional theory this project will connect the historical formation of citizenship to discourses on performativity and the building of identity through embodied practices. It will also help to foreground the role of non-professional theatre in the shaping of society. The key objectives of this project are: [1] to contribute to a historiographic shift by focusing on the ‘doing’ and performativity of theatre practices [2] to examine how concepts of citizenship emerged around theatre in Germany, France, Britain, Sweden and Switzerland [3] to analyse how non-professional theatre embraced and further developed concepts that helped to establish a citizen

Mots-clés : theatre history,amateur cultures,political identity
Projet ERC : ALPHA (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : University of Leeds — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 109695.66 €

Amazon forests contribute vital ecosystem services, including maintaining biodiversity (>10,000 tree species) and storing large amounts of carbon. Amazonia also features prominently in global climate, carbon, and vegetation models, which assume tropical forests are effectively pristine and that past human disturbance mimicked natural processes. It is now evident that recurrent human disturbance of Amazonia, like fire and deforestation, were significant in some areas. Since those disturbances likely modify subsequent vegetation dynamics - including temporarily increasing forest capacity to absorb carbon - the emerging paradigm of human disturbance is a challenge to global ecological understanding. The focus of my project is thus to reliably determine whether human disturbances occurred in locations that form the basis of global models. A key expected outcome is to either legitimize or force revision to these models of carbon sequestration potential in Amazonia. I will innovatively integrate ecological, paleoecological, archaeological, chemical and biogeographic analyses to assess the degree to which past human disturbance drives the diversity patterns and carbon dynamics observed in modern Amazonian forests. For key long-term sites across Amazonia, I will quantify the: i) time since the last fire, ii) past fire frequency, extent and intensity, iii) past vegetation change in the presence and absence of human activity, and iv) continuity of past human activity over the last 1000 years. My results will provide the first quantification of local-scale recovery processes exceeding 100 years in tropical forests, and will determine if observed forest dynamics are driven by disturbances that occurred before modern ecological surveys began. I will then quantify the extent to which past disturbances create an overestimation of carbon storage potential, driving a profound reexamination of carbon sequestration and biodiversity patterns in Amazonia.

Mots-clés : disturbance ecology,fire,cultural history
Projet ERC : iManage (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1496131.0 €

Amidst important debates about the gig economy and the automation of jobs, employment law has paid scant attention to the rise of algorithmic management: the increasingly pervasive reliance on monitoring technology and sophisticated algorithms to measure, control, and sanction workers. This poses a fundamental threat to the legal regulation of our labour markets. Automated management allows the exercise of hitherto impossibly granular employer control. At the same time, however, the absence of clear decisions and traditional management structures appears to disperse responsibility ‘into the cloud’. How can employment law respond to a world in which automation has not replaced workers—but their bosses? This pioneering project will develop the first systematic account of the challenges and potential of algorithmic management, examine its implications for legal regulation, and develop concrete solutions to avoid harmful path-dependencies. It tackles a risky challenge that goes right to the core of employment law’s existing structures, with technology developing at unprecedented and unpredictable scale. Looking at a range of jurisdictions across the European Union and beyond, iMANAGE requires the development of novel, interdisciplinary methodology at the intersection of data science and employment law. In articulating the underlying structures of automated management control, it develops a new and positive role for employment law in ensuring algorithmic accountability, and shaping the responsible use of technology in the workplace. This is a challenge we cannot shy away from: both the theoretical foundations of employment law, and its practical operation across different jurisdictions, depend on understanding and regulating the radically different organisation of the workplace of tomorrow.

Mots-clés : algorithmic accountability,control,job automation,gig economy,future of work,discrimination,privacy,gdpr,non standard work,labour market regulation,social partners,comparative labour law
Projet ERC : MathAm (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : European Organization for Nuclear Research — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CERN
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 943415.0 €

Among the most important mathematical quantities of interest in high-energy particle physics are the so-called scattering amplitudes, which allow us to make predictions for physical observables. Despite their importance, performing explicit computations of scattering amplitudes is still one of the bottlenecks of high-energy physics, mostly due to the complexity of the integrals involved and a lack of understanding of the underlying mathematics. Over the last couple of years, a deep connection between scattering amplitudes and certain branches of modern mathematics has slowly started to emerge. The goal of MathAm is investigate in detail the relationship between scattering amplitudes, number theory and algebraic geometry, with the final aim of developing novel computational techniques for scattering amplitudes that are beyond reach of conventional state-of-the-art technology. The ultimate goal of MathAm is threefold: By revealing unexpected connections between seemingly disconnected areas of mathematics and physics, MathAm will 1. shed new light on the mathematical underpinnings of the fundamental laws of Nature in general. 2. play a decisive role in testing recent conjectures about the all-loop structure of certain special classes of gauge 3. theories by confronting them to the explicit results for scattering amplitudes, 3. set a new standard for making predictions for collider experiments like the LHC by performing computations that are beyond reach of current technology. To sum up, MathAm has a unique multi-disciplinary character and, by applying novel technology from modern mathematics, its results will have impact in various seemingly disconnected disciplines, ranging from the frontiers of research in pure mathematics over formal aspects of Quantum Field Theory all the way to making the most precise theoretical predictions for the LHC experiments.

Mots-clés : scattering amplitudes,feynman integrals,number theory,algebraic geometry
Projet ERC : DIvA (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: Biological Mechanisms, Structures and Functions
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 : 2000000.0 €

Among the types of damage, DNA Double Strands Breaks (DSBs) are the most deleterious, as illustrated by the variety of human diseases associated with DSB repair defects. Repair of DSB into the chromatin context raises several questions that we aim to address in this proposal. Firstly, it is likely that the chromatin environment where a break occurs influences the choice of repair pathway. Since the different DSB repair mechanisms can lead to different "scar" on the genome, further studies are required to elucidate how chromatin structure regulates the targeting of DSB repair machineries. Secondly, DNA packaging into chromatin hinders detection and repair of DSBs and many chromatin modifications were recently identified as induced around DSBs to facilitate repair. However, a complete picture of the chromatin landscape set up at DSB, and more specifically the set of histone modifications associated with each repair pathway ("repair histone code") is still awaited. In addition, whether and how damaged chromosomes are reorganized within the nucleus is still unknown. Finally, once repair has been completed, the initial chromatin landscape must be faithfully restored in order to maintain epigenome stability and cell fate. Using an experimental system we recently developed (called DIvA for DSB Inducible via AsiSI), that allows the induction of multiple sequence-specific DSBs widespread across the genome, we propose to investigate these uncovered aspects of the relationship between chromatin and DSB repair. By high-throughput genomic and proteomic technologies, we will try (i) to understand the contribution of chromatin in the DSB repair pathway choice (PRIME), (ii) to describe more thoroughly the chromatin remodeling events and the spatial chromosomes reorganization, that occur concomitantly to DSB to promote adequate repair (REPAIR), and (iii) to elucidate the processes at work to restore epigenome integrity after DSB repair (RESTORE).

Mots-clés : chromatin,dna double strand break repair,chip seq
Projet ERC : PLAMORF (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Universität Hamburg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UHH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2017790.0 €

An essential consequence of multi-cellularity is the need for intercellular and tissue wide communication. As seen with animals, higher plants coordinate metabolic and developmental processes via signals transferred to different body parts. Plants use a dual vascular system consisting of phloem and xylem for long-distance transfer of metabolites and signalling molecules. In contrast to circular systems in animals, transport in flowering plants occurs in the phloem via the cytoplasm of connected cells devoid of nuclei. In addition to small molecules, a remarkably large number of so-called mobile micro RNAs (miRNAs), messenger RNAs (mRNAs), and phloem RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) were identified in the phloem and in chimeric plants. Mobile RNAs and RBPs move through plasmodesmata into and through the phloem to distinct tissues. Thus, mobile RNAs represent an additional class of signalling molecules, raising important questions in the field of intercellular signalling. This project combines the expertise of three research groups in the fields of cell biology/macromolecular transport, mathematical modelling/bioinformatics and phloem function/protein biochemistry. It addresses the questions: How are mobile miRNAs and mRNAs selected for transport? Is this process specific and regulated by RBPs and motifs? What determines their destination? And importantly, how are these signals processed in the destination cells? To address these questions, we will develop predictive models, using novel single cell transcriptomics pipelines to establish cell-type specific RNA transport and motifs (WP1), and studying the structure, affinity, and functions of phloem RBPs to gain insights in the RNA delivery mechanism (WP2). We will combine the advantages of the agronomically important plant oilseed rape to identify phloem RNAs and RBPs with the well-established A. thaliana model that allows us to identify and test cell-specific transported RNA signals and RBPs in a time-efficient manner.

Mots-clés : single cell transcriptomics,macromolecular signals,rna binding proteins,rna motifs,messenger rna transport,inter cellular communication,phloem,micro rna,chimeric plants
Projet ERC : TrojanDC (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Lund University — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999835.0 €

An important hallmark of cancer is the ability to evade the immune system. Genetic mutations in tumor cells result in the accumulation of tumor antigens (TAs), however, increased cell heterogeneity, downregulation of antigen presentation or inhibition of immune cell infiltration allows immune surveillance evasion. For the first time, direct cell reprogramming offers exciting opportunities to overcome these challenges. My group has recently identified a combination of transcription factors (TFs) sufficient to reprogram mouse fibroblasts into antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs), providing a new strategy to set in motion antigen-specific immune responses. I hypothesize that a similar combination reprograms tumor cells into antigen presenting cells (APCs). This proposal aims to test a cancer immunotherapy concept based on DC reprogramming and endowed APC function in tumor cells. The work will proceed in three steps. First, I will define optimal TF combinations and external cues to efficiently reprogram human fibroblasts into DCs employing an innovative single-cell screen. Then, I will reprogram mouse and human tumor cells into tumor-APCs followed by characterization of transcriptome, chromatin accessibility, surface peptidome and ability to present antigens to T cells. Finally, I will test whether reprogrammed cells mount an attack against tumors in mouse models. I will further test the hypothesis that intratumoral delivery of reprogramming factors elicits in vivo antigen presentation, immune cell recruitment and tumor regression. The approach proposed here will combine DCs’ antigen processing and presenting abilities with the endogenous generation of TAs. The induction of DC identity in cancer cells with ability to present a constellation of TAs will open new research and therapeutic avenues. This project represents a pioneering contribution by merging cell reprogramming and cancer immunotherapy, paving the way for an entirely new approach to cancer gene therapy.

Mots-clés : cellular reprogramming,cell fate engineering,dendritic cell,transcription factor,cancer gene therapy,immune evasion,antigen presentation,regenerative medicine,immunology,cancer immunotherapy
Projet ERC : PASIPHAE (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas — Pays : Grèce — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FORTH;ΙΤΕ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1887500.0 €

An inflation-probing B-mode signal in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) would be a discovery of utmost importance in physics. While such a signal is aggressively pursued by experiments around the world, recent Planck results have showed that this breakthrough is still out of reach, because of contamination from Galactic dust. To get to the primordial B-modes, we need to subtract polarized emission of magnetized interstellar dust with high accuracy. A critical piece of this puzzle is the 3D structure of the magnetic field threading dust clouds, which cannot be accessed through microwave observations alone, since they record integrated emission along the line of sight. Instead, observations of a large number of stars at known distances in optical polarization, tracing the same CMB-obscuring dust, can map the magnetic field between them. The Gaia mission is measuring distances to a billion stars, providing an opportunity to produce, the first-ever tomographic map of the Galactic magnetic field, using optical polarization of starlight. Such a map would not only boost CMB polarization foreground removal, but it would also have a profound impact in a wide range of astrophysical research, including interstellar medium physics, high-energy astrophysics, and galactic evolution. Taking advantage of our privately-funded, novel-technology, high-accuracy WALOP optopolarimeters currently under construction, we propose an ambitious optopolarimetric program of unprecedented scale that can meet this challenge: a survey of both northern and southern Galactic polar regions targeted by CMB experiments, covering >10,000 square degrees, which will measure linear optical polarization at 0.2% accuracy of over 360 stars per square degree (over 3.5M stars, a 1000-fold increase over the state of the art), combining wide-field-optimized instruments and an extraordinary commitment of observing time by Skinakas Observatory and the South African Astronomical Observatory.

Mots-clés : polarisation,interstellar magnetic fields