Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : WHOLE SUN (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of Oslo — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UiO
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2190000.0 €

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

Mots-clés : solar physics,dynamo,magnetohydrodynamics  mhd,plasma physics,solar activity,solar stellar connection
Projet ERC : METABODY (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Hertfordshire — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 50143.75 €

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

Mots-clés : embodied cognition,metacognition,awareness,body image,eating disorders,mental health
Projet ERC : RELATE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Kent — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1826921.25 €

We live in a time of profound environmental change. Phenomena such as urbanisation and agricultural intensification have led to ecosystem degradation and species extinctions, and thus a reduction in biodiversity. Yet, while it is now widely asserted in the research, policy and practice arenas that interacting with nature is fundamental to human wellbeing, there is a paucity of evidence characterising how biodiversity, the living component of nature, plays a role in this accepted truth. With RELATE, I will pioneer a completely novel approach to investigating this challenging problem, innovating through interdisciplinary (human geography, environmental psychology, economics and ecology) integration and the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods. As such, RELATE will initiate a step-change in our understanding of how nature underpins human wellbeing. Three objectives will be met: (1) explore how people relate to different biodiversity attributes (particular morphologies, sounds, smells, textures, behaviours and/or cultural meanings associated with species), positively and negatively, across all classes of cultural ecosystem service and types of human-nature experience (intentional, incidental, indirect, thereness); (2) quantify variation in how people value, or not, different biodiversity attributes using a range of monetary and non-monetary valuation techniques, including new subjective wellbeing measures; (3) understand how co-occurrence between biodiversity and people may alter across space/time (both seasonal and inter-decadal), and the impact this may have on human-biodiversity relationships. The crucial trade-offs decision-makers tasked with managing environmental spaces have to make between multiple biodiversity, individual and societal deliverables cannot be optimised until we understand human-biodiversity relationships specifically. Consequently, RELATE will deliver a timely, rich and holistic evidence-base, supported by transformative science.

Mots-clés : biodiversity,cultural ecosystem services,human wellbeing,human wildlife interactions,green space,seasonality,species traits,urbanisation
Projet ERC : UAAWORM (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : University of Edinburgh — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499520.0 €

We pioneered technologies that allow the site-specific introduction of chemically synthesized unnatural amino acids (UAA) into a chosen protein within the context of a multicellular organism - the nematode worm C. elegans. The foundational technology for this advance is genetic code expansion. In its most simple form, genetic code expansion to incorporate UAA into proteins requires an orthogonal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNACUA pair to be introduced into the host organism. The orthogonal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase must specifically recognize an UAA and use this amino acid to specifically aminoacylate its cognate orthogonal tRNACUA, which is itself not a substrate for endogenous synthetases. The aminoacylated tRNA then decodes an amber stop codon introduced into a gene of interest at a specific site. Our proposal is at the intersection of synthetic multicellular biology and organismal neurobiology. We aim to engineer photo-activateable proteins in C. elegans neurons by site specifically incorporating photo-caged unnatural amino acids. This will allow us to develop tools to: i) control within an intact, freely moving animal the activity of any desired single neuron or group of neurons, and ii) eventually control the chemical and electrical synaptic connectivity between neurons. We will then apply this technology to investigate how neuronal circuits generate behaviour. In addition and complementary to the development and application of neurobiological tools we will further improve the coding capacity of the worm’s protein synthesis machinery.

Mots-clés : genetic code expansion,synthetic multicellular biology,neuronal circuit function
Projet ERC : REALISM (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : École normale supérieure PSL — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : ENS PSL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 125000.0 €

We propose a simple idea: to reproduce earthquakes in the laboratory. Because earthquakes are spectacular examples of uncontrollable catastrophes, the opportunity to study them under controlled conditions in the laboratory is unique and is, in fact, the only way to understand the details of the earthquake source physics. The aim of the project is interdisciplinary, at the frontiers between Rock Fracture Mechanics, Seismology, and Mineralogy. Its ultimate goal is to improve, on the basis of integrated experimental data, our understanding of the earthquake source physics. We have already shown that both deep and shallow laboratory earthquakes are not mere `analogs’ of earthquakes, but are real events – though very small [Passelègue et al. 2013, Schubnel et al. 2013]. During laboratory earthquakes, by measuring all of the physical quantities related to the rupturing process, we will unravel what controls the rupture speed, rupture arrest, the earthquake rupture energy budget, as well as the common role played by mineralogy in both shallow and deep earthquakes. We will also perform some experiments on rock samples drilled from actual active fault zones. Our work will provide insights for earthquake hazard mitigation, constrain ubiquitously observed seismological statistical laws (Omori, Gutenberg-Richter) and produce unprecedented data sets on rock fracture dynamics at in-situ conditions to test seismic slip inversion and dynamic rupture modelling techniques. The new infrastructure we plan to install will reproduce the temperatures and pressures at depths where earthquakes occur in the crust as well as in the upper mantle of the Earth, with never achieved spatio-temporal imaging resolution to this day. This will be a valuable research asset for the European community, as it will eventually open the door to a better understanding of all the processes happening under stress within the first hundreds of kilometres of the Earth.

Mots-clés : earthquake physics,faults,fault gouge,mechanical and physical rock properties,thermo hydro chemo mechanical couplings,pore pressure,mineral dehydration,phase,transitions,nucleation,friction
Projet ERC : AMIGA (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Eindhoven University of Technology — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU/e
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999497.0 €

We propose an ambitious 5-year multidisciplinary program that seeks to pioneer and establish a fundamentally new paradigm in molecular information systems that is based on novel conceptual and experimental advances on the integration of DNA-based chemical reaction networks (CRNs) and semipermeable microcapsules, i.e. protocells. In AutonoMous computInG Artificial cells (AMIGA), we will establish a platform technology, based on molecular communication between interacting protocells, capable of revolutionary new modes of molecular sensing, computation and data storage/retrieval. Progress in this emerging field requires i) the development of computer-aided design (CAD) strategies to implement large-scale CRNs consisting of hundreds of components, ii) formulating suitable micro-substrates, such as droplets or vesicles, to spatially localize CRNs and ways to manipulate their interconnection and iii) strategies that allow direct recording of molecular operations onto a chemical storage medium such as DNA. We address these challenges via a comprehensive research program in which we implement large-scale, DNA-based CRNs by localization of components in interacting protocells resulting in distributed molecular circuits programmed to display advanced computational functions such as (i) asynchronous logic, (ii) integral feedback control and (iii) molecular pattern recognition. Combining protocell localization with recent advances in CRISPR base editors, we will construct an integrated system where molecular operations can write instructions on permanent memory storage elements. The developed methodology finds applications in emerging technologies aimed at using molecular circuits for in-vitro diagnostics and the use of synthetic DNA as a storage medium for digital data.

Mots-clés : dna computing,protocell communities,bottom up synthetic biology,dna nanotechnology,systems chemistry,artificial cells
Projet ERC : [LC]2 (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Loughborough University — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 44261.35 €

We propose an unprecedented class of soft, self-assembled and self-motile micro-machines. The combined qualities of active fluids and colloidal liquid crystals can be leveraged to design intrinsically out-of- equilibrium hierarchal structures, or ‘Living’ Colloidal Liquid Crystals [LC]2. The study of colloidal interactions and self-assembly in active nematics has yet to be considered and constitutes an unexplored and inter-disciplinary application of the emerging sciences of active matter and colloidal liquid crystals. Activity will endow dynamical multi-scale colloidal structures with autonomous functionality, including self-motility, self-revolution and dynamical self-transformations, which are exactly the characteristics one would desire for a first generation of autonomous components of micro-biomechanical systems and soft micro-machines. As hybrids between biological active fluids and man-made materials, [LC]2 structures represent an early foray into ‘living’ metamaterials, in which active self-assembly of simple components produces a rich diversity of behaviours and the potential for autonomously tunable material properties, mimicking biological complexity. In particular, we hypothesize self-assembled [LC]2 dimer turbines, colloidal flagella and ant-like group retrieval. These systems represent a fundamentally innovative concept that we propose to drive nanotechnology into a new future of soft materials that biomimetically self-assemble and autonomously enact functions. It is our multiscale coarse-grained simulations and expertise in flowing active nematic fluids that generates the opportunity for this unique line of research.

Mots-clés : active matter,colloids,liquid crystals,self assembled materials,biomaterials
Projet ERC : B-PhosphoChem (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Erlangen-Nuremberg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2491250.0 €

We propose the development of the chemistry of black phosphorus (BP). B-PhosphoChem will constitute a new text book chapter in the realm of synthetic chemistry located at the interface of inorganic-, organic-, and materials chemistry as well as solid state physics. B-PhosphoChem will provide the basis for exciting and so far elusive applications such as ion batteries and stable high performance devices. Thin sheets of BP represent a new class of 2D materials and have recently raised tremendous interest in the scientific community. Outstanding physical properties such as high charge carrier mobility, combined with transparency and the persistence of a band gap have been discovered. However, the chemistry of BP remains still unexplored. B-PhosphoChem will close this gap and will a) provide the opportunity to modulate and fine tune the physical properties, b) allow for considerably improving the processability and increasing the solubility, c) establish concepts for the desired chemical stabilization, d) give access to the combination of BP properties with those of other compound classes, e) reveal the fundamental chemical properties and reactivity principles, and f) provide methods for establishing practical applications. Five work packages will be addressed: 1) Production of Thin Layer BP, 2) Supramolecular Chemistry of BP, 3) Intercalation Compounds of BP, 4) Covalent Chemistry of BP, and 5) BP-Based Materials and Devices. The work packages will be supported by systematic calculations. For our group, whose core competence is synthetic organic and supramolecular chemistry, the orientation towards inorganic phosphorus chemistry constitutes a major step into a completely new direction. However, we are convinced to be the most predestinated research group in the world successfully facing this challenge because of our leadership and well documented interdisciplinary experience in synthesizing and characterizing 0D-, 1D-, and 2D nanostructures.
Projet ERC : Mol-2D (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Valencia — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UV
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499950.0 €

We propose to create heterostructures based on functional molecules and 2D materials. As molecular systems we focus on bistable magnetic molecules able to switch between two spin states upon the application of an external stimulus (temperature, light, pressure, electric field etc.). As 2D materials we concentrate on those exhibiting in particular superconductivity or magnetism. The driving idea is to tune/improve the properties of the “all surface” 2D material via an active control of the hybrid interface. This concept, which goes much beyond the conventional chemical functionalization of a 2D material, will provide an entire new class of smart molecular/2D heterostructures, which may be at the origin of a novel generation of hybrid materials and devices of direct application in highly topical fields like electronics, spintronics, molecular sensing and energy storage. Through this molecular approach, we will address major challenges in different areas of the 2D research: i) in 2D physics, we investigate the new properties that should appear in heterostructures involving 2D superconductors and 2D magnets or magnetic molecules; ii) in 2D electronics, we explore the possibility of tuning the superconducting/magnetic properties of a 2D material by applying an external stimulus (light for example), or to design smart electronic/spintronic devices able to respond to physical (light, magnetic field, etc.) or chemical stimuli (trapping of molecules); iii) in 2D composite materials, a general goal is to design hybrid molecular/2D materials with improved properties with respect to the pure 2D material to be used in the fabrication of energy storage devices. To reach these challenging goals an integrative and multidisciplinary approach is proposed in which various facets of chemistry – coordination, solid-state and supramolecular chemistry – are coupled with physics, materials science and nanotechnology.

Mots-clés : 2d materials,molecular magnetism,spin crossover,magnetic layers,transition metal dichalcogenides,superconducting layers,graphene composites,layered double hydroxides,coordination polymers
Projet ERC : IntraMEMS (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

We propose to develop an automated microfluidic platform for rapid analysis of the margins of frozen resections of tumors. It will allow cancer cells to be specifically distinguished from healthy cells during the time course of the surgical intervention itself via an immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining protocol completed in 5 minutes. The interest of such platform is that late-positivity, which is defined as the detection of cancer cells within the resection margin of the tumor by means of classical IHC after surgery, can be reduced or even avoided. Patients diagnosed with latepositive margins carry a high risk of cancer recurrence due to possible tumor cells left in the body. Intra-operative margin assessment of tumor resections is already done to evaluate the presence of such remaining cancer cells using different techniques. The most common one is microscopic morphological examination by applying hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining on cryo-sectioned surgical specimens, because it can be done easily in a matter of minutes. However, the major drawback of this method is the lack of cancer cell-specific staining: the interpretation relies only on morphology and small numbers of cancer cells infiltrating into healthy tissue are not easily recognizable. We therefore will develop a platform that can perform IHC together with H&E staining on cryo-sectioned samples within 5 minutes. Combining IHC that targets cancer cell-specific proteins with H&E staining will show unequivocally the presence of cancer cells and minimize those variations in the outcome of the analysis that originate from the pathologist’s personal interpretation. It will potentially decrease the recurrence rate, increase the success of post-operative treatment, and reduce unnecessary surgical rescissions.

Mots-clés : immunohistochemistry,microfluidics,clinical pathology,cancer,intra operative margin assessment,tumor