Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : INSPIRE (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University of Twente — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Percutaneous insertions of instruments are commonly used during minimally invasive surgery (MIS) for delivering diagnostic agents and performing therapeutic interventions. These instruments often deviate from their intended paths due to tissue deformation and physiological processes. Inaccurate instrument placement may lead to misdiagnosis, ineffective therapy, or traumatic effects due to medical complications. The ability to accurately visualize the instrument in real-time, without providing toxic radiation, as it is steered within the human body would permit a gamut of novel diagnostic and therapeutic options, including on-site pathology and targeted drug delivery. Such an advance would truly revolutionize MIS. The goal of INSPIRE is to develop and evaluate an innovative instrument that integrates shape sensing technology for ablation procedures. MIS using radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a state-of-the-art procedure for tumor destruction. The significant challenge within this procedure is to develop a better visualization technique to position the RFA instrument precisely near the tumor. Computed tomography is the current image-guided technique, but damage is easily inflicted during the procedure by misplacement of the RFA instrument and extensive radiation exposure. INSPIRE aims to integrate optical shape sensing (OSS) hardware and software within the RFA instrument to guide positioning for safe, accurate, and effective minimally invasive destruction of bone tumors, without radiation exposure. INSPIRE involves clinical and industrial collaborations (e.g., FBGS, Medtronic, Philips) and a business development team. The results gained will be applicable to a range of rigid and flexible instruments, and to an assortment of personalized treatment scenarios. INSPIRE is strongly motivated by the existing need to further reduce the invasiveness of MIS, improve clinical outcomes, minimize patient trauma, and enable treatment of inoperable patients.

Mots-clés : ablation,minimally invasive surgery,image guided interventions
Projet ERC : C-POS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
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 : 1696410.0 €

Person-centred care is a core health value of modern health care. The overarching aim of C-POS (Children's Palliative care Outcome Scale) is to develop and validate a person-centred outcome measure for children, young people (CYP) and their families affected by life-limiting & life-threatening conditions (LLLTC). International systematic reviews, and clinical guides have highlighted that currently none exists. This novel study will draw together a unique multidisciplinary collaboration to pioneer new methods, enabling engagement in outcome measurement by a population currently neglected in research. C-POS builds on an international program of work. The sequential mixed methods will collect substantive data through objectives to determine i) the primary concerns of CYP and their families affected by LLLTC & preferences to enable participation in ethical person-centred measurement (n=50); ii) view of clinicians and commissioners on optimal implementation methods (national Delphi study); iii) a systematic review of current data collection tools for CYP regardless of condition; iv) integration of objectives i-iii to develop a tool (C-POS) with face and content validity; v) cognitive interviews to determine interpretability (n=40); vi) longitudinal cohort of CYP and families to determine test-retest reliability, internal consistency, construct validity and responsiveness (n=151); vii) development of resources for routine implementation viii) translation and interpretation protocols for international adoption. C-POS is an ambitious study that, for the first time, will enable measurement of person-centred outcomes of care. This will be a turning point in the scientific study of a hitherto neglected group.

Mots-clés : patient centred outcomes,palliative care,paediatrics
Projet ERC : MAGIC (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 13800.0 €

Phase contrast and scattering-based (dark-field) X-ray imaging can potentially revolutionize the radiological approach to medical imaging because they are intrinsically capable of detecting subtle differences in the electron density of a material and of measuring the effective integrated local small-angle scattering power generated by the microscopic density fluctuations in the specimen. Within the context of the ERC-Starting Grant PhaseX (310005) we deeply investigated and further developed gratings- based interferometry, a rapidly establishing phase sensitive technique. In particular, we generated seminal work towards the translation of phase contrast imaging into clinic with the world-wide first in-vitro phase-contrast mammographic investigation of whole breast mastectomies and the first reader study investigating potential clinical relevance of phase-contrast mammography. Grating fabrication is the main bottleneck so far preventing grating-based X-ray phase-contrast interferometry from being applied at high energies and large Field of View (FOV). With PhaseX, we addressed the fundamentals of grating fabrication in order to deliver high-quality diffraction gratings with high-aspect ratio. In particular, we explored unconventional fabrication techniques in order to go beyond the physical limits of the conventional approaches and we developed the idea of innovative technology at the basis of this ERC-PoC project (MAGIC). Among the tested wet etching techniques, Metal Assisted Chemical Etching (MACE) showed exceptional performances for fabrication of large area silicon gratings with high aspect ratio. The main idea of MAGIC is to use MACE for grating fabrication with characteristics that fulfil high energy and large FOV applications: we target the same quality with a competitive price in order to keep the ratio quality/cost in a favorable range with additional advantages of large FOV and possibility of serving a large market on a quicker way.

Mots-clés : x ray imaging,phase contrast imaging,diffraction gratings,microfabrication
Projet ERC : Materials 4.0 (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : University of Stuttgart — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Phase diagrams have revolutionized materials development by providing the conditions for phase stabilities and transformations, and thereby a thorough thermodynamic understanding of materials design. However, the majority of today’s phase diagrams are based on scarce experimental input and often rely on daring extrapolations. Every multicomponent phase diagram relies on a fragile set of phase stabilities as very recent studies show. Materials 4.0 will change this. It will raise materials design to the next level by providing a highly accurate first principles thermodynamic database. First principles, alias ab initio, approaches do not require any experimental input and can operate where no experiment is able to reach. However, they have been limited to zero Kelvin or low temperature approximations which are not representative of phase diagrams. Materials 4.0 reaches far beyond this by utilizing my unique expertise in high-accuracy finite-temperature ab initio simulations. We will develop novel methods accelerated by machine learning potentials that facilitate a highly efficient determination of Gibbs free energies and migration barriers including all relevant finite-temperature excitation mechanisms. The methodology will be implemented in an easy-to-use open-source integrated development environment and made accessible to the community. Materials 4.0 will consider materials relevant to current scientific developments and of technological interest, such as hydrides, lightweight alloys, superalloys, MAX phases, and high entropy alloys. A large ab initio thermodynamic database will be computed for elements across the periodic table. The main focus will be on phase stabilities of various phases, including dynamically unstable ones, and importantly liquids as well; all fully from ab initio. The phase stabilities will be put into practice by re-parametrizing binary phase diagrams and studying the implications on multicomponent phase diagrams.

Mots-clés : phase diagrams,gibbs energies,ab initio,density functional theory,calphad,alloys,machine learning
Projet ERC : MORALSELF (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
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 : 1498958.0 €

Philosophers and social scientists have emphasized that our moral self-concept, the degree to which being moral is central for us, plays a pivotal role in explaining humans’ tendency to act prosocially. Clarifying the development of the moral self-concept and discovering the functional mechanisms is thus central for clarifying the basis of human morality. Despite a set of perennial questions that the moral self-concept relates to and the empirically proven relevance, research has largely neglected the early ontogeny of the moral self-concept. This is all the more surprising as recent developmental research demonstrated a hitherto unknown inclination of young children to act prosocially, which has led to a theoretical reorientation in developmental science. Moreover, the neurocognitive basis of moral identity as well as the functional mechanisms that relate moral identity to prosocial behaviour have have yet to be discovered, leaving the ontogeny and the nature of the moral self-concept in the dark. In this proposal I will take a new approach by combining novel tools derived from developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience to provide a comprehensive model of the moral self-concept that integrates (i) knowledge on the developmental origins and changes, (ii) its neurocognitive basis, and (iii) the functional mechanisms that relate the moral self-concept to actual prosocial behavior. To this end, the project relies on an interdisciplinary methodological approach by combining explicit interview measures, implicit attitudes tests, behavioral assessments, and electrophysiological methods with both children and adults to empirically explore the human moral self-concept. The current project not only contributes to a perennial debate on the origins of human morality; providing knowledge on the factors that promote the moral self-concept will also have societal impact by informing theory and practice of moral education.

Mots-clés : development,preschool children,morality,prosocial behavior,self concept
Projet ERC : RESPONSIBILITY (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 337217.41 €

Philosophical research on responsibility today stems from early modern debates about causal necessity and freedom of the will, and ultimately from the Stoic problem of reconciling ethics with physics. It is therefore mainly focused on scepticism about the existence of free will and on the question whether moral responsibility is compatible with physical determinism. The main premises of this project are that this focus is too narrow, and that the traditional problems can only be solved with a deeper understanding of the network of human capacities responsibility involves and the social and interpersonal context in which questions about responsibility arise. This in turn depends on a wide range of philosophical and scientific research that has been neglected in debates about determinism, responsibility and free will, in particular, legal theory, where the literature on the relationships between responsibility, liability and culpability is more sophisticated and more nuanced than it is in philosophy; biological systems theory, which has shown how the activity of more complex systems can harness stochasticity in the activity of the less complex systems of which they are composed; and the philosophy of action, in which the physical, psychological, ethical and intellectual dimensions of human agency are now more clearly articulated and better understood. The Roots of Responsibility will draw on all of these resources, in order to develop a comprehensive theory of responsibility, which cuts across traditional boundaries between metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of law. It will foster collaborative research in these branches of philosophy, and include expertise in psychology and theoretical biology at the relevant stages.
Projet ERC : TOMATTO (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Autonomous University of Madrid — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UAM
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1866700.0 €

Photoinduced electron transfer (ET) and charge transfer (CT) processes occurring in organic materials are the cornerstone of technologies aiming at the conversion of solar energy into electrical energy and at its efficient transport. Thus, investigations of ET/CT induced by visible (VIS) and ultraviolet (UV) light are fundamental for the development of more efficient organic opto-electronic materials. The usual strategy to improve efficiency is chemical modification, which is based on chemical intuition and try-and-error approaches, with no control on the ultrafast electron dynamics induced by light. Achieving the latter is not easy, as the natural time scale for electronic motion is the attosecond (10-18 seconds), which is much shorter than the duration of laser pulses produced in femtochemistry laboratories. With femtosecond pulses, one can image and control “slower” processes, such as isomerization, nuclear vibrations, hydrogen migration, etc., which certainly affect ET and CT at “longer” time scales. However, real-time imaging of electronic motion is possibly the only way to fully understand and control the early stages of ET and CT, and by extension the coupled electron-nuclear dynamics that come later and lead (or not) to an efficient electric current. In this project we propose to overcome the fs time-scale bottleneck and get direct information on the early stages of ET/CT generated by VIS and UV light absorption on organic opto-electronic systems by extending the tools of attosecond science beyond the state of the art and combining them with the most advanced methods of organic synthesis and computational modelling. The objective is to provide clear-cut movies of ET/CT with unprecedented time resolution and with the ultimate goal of engineering the molecular response to optimize the light driven processes leading to the desired opto-electronic behavior. To this end, synergic efforts between laser physicists, organic chemists and theoreticians is compulsory.

Mots-clés : attosecond chemistry,electron and charge transfer,organic optoelectronics,molecular wires,attosecond pump probe,quantum chemistry of attosecond molecular science,organic synthesis,carbon nanostructures
Projet ERC : ANTICS (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : National Oceanography Centre — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : NOC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2197803.0 €

Photosynthesis in the ocean converts approximately 100 Gt of carbon dioxide (CO2) into organic matter every year, of which 5-15% sinks to the deep ocean. The depth to which this organic matter sinks is important in controlling the magnitude of ocean carbon storage, as changes in this flux attenuation depth drive variations in atmospheric pCO2 of up to 200 ppm. Efforts to produce global maps of flux attenuation have yielded starkly contrasting global patterns, blocking our understanding of ocean carbon storage and our ability to predict it. The bottleneck is our ignorance of the spatiotemporal variability of the processes that control flux attenuation. ANTICS will directly address this knowledge gap by using an innovative synthesis of cutting-edge in situ imaging, machine learning and novel data analyses to mechanistically understand ocean carbon storage. Use state-of-the-art imaging technologies, I will collect data on size, distribution and composition of organic matter particles and measure their sinking velocity in the upper 600 m across the Atlantic. I will design a neural network model that allows the conversion of in situ images into carbon fluxes, and develop analysis routines of particle size spectra that quantify the processes causing flux attenuation: remineralisation, physical aggregation/disaggregation, fragmentation/repackaging by zooplankton. By statistically linking these outputs to seasonality, depth, primary production and temperature, I will be able to determine which processes dominate under specific environmental conditions. This step change in our understanding will allow ANTICS to resolve flux attenuation spatially and temporally. I will use this pioneering knowledge to validate and inform the parametrization of the marine biogeochemical component of the UK’s earth system model used for carbon cycle forecasting in the next IPCC assessments.

Mots-clés : ocean carbon,biological carbon pump,sinking particle transformation,particle size spectra,image analysis,neural network,marine ecosystem model,carbon cycle forecasting
Projet ERC : ARQADIA (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
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 : 1499603.0 €

Physical systems featuring strong electronic correlations exhibit fascinating phenomena, as exemplified by high-Tc superconductivity, quantum magnetism or fractional quantum Hall physics. Inspired by these effects, new ideas have emerged to harness strongly correlated phases in artificial quantum materials, and use them as a resource for fundamental science and for quantum technology. Promising approaches for producing quantum devices are found in condensed matter platforms: one can indeed benefit from nanofabrication to engineer systems that are compact, versatile, and which can potentially be integrated in large-scale architectures. The main goal of ARQADIA is to engineer and study quantum correlated and topological phases of light using artificial photonic materials that I will fabricate in a solid-state platform. I will use exciton-polaritons in semiconductor microcavities, which are hybrid quasiparticles resulting from strong coupling between cavity photons and quantum well excitons. Polaritons are particularly attractive since they combine the best of two worlds: (i) through their photon component, they can be confined in microstrucutres and manipulated using optical spectroscopy; (ii) through their matter component, interactions between polaritons can be tuned and reinforced. Moreover, polaritons can be detected through the decay of cavity photons, which means that they naturally implement out-of-equilibrium physics and allow addressing fascinating questions related to the interplay between quantum correlations and dissipation. Within ARQADIA, I will tackle the challenge of engineering quantum correlations between polaritons via a technological breakthrough: I will insert active materials featuring strongly interacting excitons in microcavity lattices. I will use these materials to study out-of-equilibrium strongly correlated phases in vastly different regimes: from 1D to 2D, from weakly to strongly interacting and from topologically trivial to non-trivial.

Mots-clés : synthetic quantum materials,exciton polaritons,quantum many body physics,topology
Projet ERC : Virocellsphere (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : Weizmann Institute of Science — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2749901.0 €

Phytoplankton blooms are ephemeral events of exceptionally high primary productivity that regulate the flux of carbon across marine food webs. The cosmopolitan coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi (Haptophyta) is a unicellular eukaryotic alga responsible for the largest oceanic algal blooms covering thousands of square kilometers. These annual blooms are frequently terminated by a specific large dsDNA E. huxleyi virus (EhV). Despite the huge ecological importance of host-virus interactions, the ability to assess their ecological impact is limited to current approaches, which focus mainly on quantification of viral abundance and diversity. On the molecular basis, a major challenge in the current understanding of host-virus interactions in the marine environment is the ability to decode the wealth of “omics” data and translate it into cellular mechanisms that mediate host susceptibility and resistance to viral infection. In the current proposal we intend to provide novel functional insights into molecular mechanisms that regulate host-virus interactions at the single-cell level by unravelling phenotypic heterogeneity within infected populations. By using physiological markers and single-cell transcriptomics, we propose to discern between host subpopulations and define their different “metabolic states”, in order to map them into different modes of susceptibility and resistance. By using advanced metabolomic approaches, we also aim to define the infochemical microenvironment generated during viral infection and examine how it can shape host phenotypic plasticity. Mapping the transcriptomic and metabolic footprints of viral infection will provide a meaningful tool to assess the dynamics of active viral infection during natural E. huxleyi blooms. Our novel approaches will pave the way for unprecedented quantification of the “viral shunt” that drives nutrient fluxes in marine food webs, from a single-cell level to a population and eventually ecosystem levels.

Mots-clés : algal blooms,phytoplankton,coccolithophores,marine viruses,phycodnaviridae,transcriptomics,single cell analysis,infochemicals,metabolomics,sphingolipids,cell signaling,stress response