Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : RevLogRedux (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Genève — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UniGe
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 4551921.75 €

Bad arguments have never been in short supply. The same holds for the scholarly interest they have elicited both in their own right and as a cautionary tale about everything that can go amiss when we argue. This is hardly surprising. Asking what is wrong with flawed arguments is tantamount to investigating the very rules and principles of argumentation – only in reverse. Fallacy Studies have flourished in recent years (especially under the label of «critical thinking»). Without notable exception, the ever-growing literature on argumentative failures suffers from a conspicuous lack of interest in medieval fallacy theory – arguably one of the most creative stages in the whole history of argumentation theories. The standard story is that after Aristotle got off to a tentative start, the study of fallacies lay dormant until people at Port Royal and John Locke revived it. RevLog Redux will show that this narrative is misleading and will replace it with a new account which will bring to bear the full resources of medieval treatments of illegitimate argumentative moves within and across the Latin West and the Greek East, as well as in the Arabic and the Hebrew traditions. In an unprecedented attempt to explore how medieval authors discussed fallacies, RevLog Redux will lay the groundwork for more conscious and historically sound ways to describe, classify and theoretically assess the laws and flaws of argumentation. To that end, RevLog Redux will develop an integrated computational infrastructure to manage the wealth and complexity of data, information and knowledge the project is expected to produce: namely, AskSten (as in «Ask Sten Ebbesen»), a multi-layered virtual research environment whose digital archive, knowledge base, Semantic Web architecture and on-line deployment will dramatically enhance the formal expressivness and coherence of the project’s findings. AskSten will also include a curated open access Encyclopaedia of Illegitimate Argumentative Moves.

Mots-clés : medieval philosophy,history and analysis of logic and argumentation,cross cultural medieval intellectual history
Projet ERC : SHAPINCELLFATE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : IFOM — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 558271.25 €

Cells are often depicted as irregular spherical objects - the shape they adopt in suspension. However, the packed environment of tissues alters this simple shape, causing large cell deformations. This occurs during normal tissue growth and is even more pronounced upon tissue overgrowth, as in the case of solid tumors. Cell shape changes frequently occur in migratory cells, such as immune cells that patrol the organism within interstitial tissues, and cancer metastases that escape from the primary tumor to invade healthy tissues. In all cases, cells adapt and survive even to very large deformations. The mechanisms underlying such response and the long-term consequences that repeated cell shape changes have on physiology and pathology remain largely unknown. We have observed that changes in the shape of cells and organelle(s) induce reversible and irreversible modifications in their behaviour and function(s). We hypothesize that cells use such mechanisms to integrate the successive deformations of distinct amplitudes and durations that they experience during their lifetime. This implies the existence of “shape-induced memory effects” that not only encode the geometrical and mechanical history of the cell but also dictate its fate. Here, we propose to tackle the molecular mechanisms and physical principles accounting for shape-induced memory effects and to evaluate their impact on immunity and cancer. We will focus on two cell types that undergo large shape changes in vivo, and communicate to establish cancer immunity: (1) dendritic cells, which initiate adaptive immune responses, and (2) cancer cells derived from mammary epithelia. Our project will reveal whether boundary conditions imposed by physical confinement are overarching determinants of cellular behaviours at different spatial and temporal scales, and may further establish novel clinical paths for a holistic understanding of early malignancies and their recognition by the immune system.

Mots-clés : cell shape,cell deformation,organelle deformation,signaling pathways,dendritic cells,cancer cells,physical modeling
Projet ERC : AI4AMR (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Wurtzbourg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2358463.0 €

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most pressing global health problems of our times. To counteract AMR, we urgently need new antibiotics, particularly with novel modes of action (MoA). However, while typical antibiotic screening pipelines can identify compounds that impair bacterial growth, they are unable to predict drug targets and MoA so must be followed up by time-consuming target identification steps. By synergizing our expertise in microbiology, genetics, advanced microscopy, metabolomics, medicinal chemistry, computational biology and artificial intelligence (AI), we propose to create a new pipeline at the forefront of the antibiotic discovery field that will be capable of informing simultaneously on the bioactivity and MoA of new antibiotic candidates. Working with seven pathogens, our improved acquisition strategies for both imaging-based high-content screening and metabolomics will generate a massive dataset of rich multidimensional phenotypes of libraries of genetic mutants and of bacteria exposed to a range of perturbants, at unprecedented scale. Deep learning analyses will then enable us to explore these massive datasets to correlate chemical-induced phenotypes to those from mutants, linking drugs to genes to elucidate the target/MoA of new drugs. This innovative pipeline will enable us to explore unique chemical spaces, including complex natural product extracts (without the need for isolation of individual components) and novel synthetic compounds. Promising candidates with novel MoA will be tested against drug-resistant clinical isolates and against a future pandemic 'pathogen X', demonstrating our pipeline as an AI-powered solution for achieving higher productivity in antibiotic discovery. AI4AMR will provide the community with a new pipeline to efficiently screen large compound libraries to identify novel antibiotics and define their MoA and target, helping directly to combat AMR.

Mots-clés : antibiotics,metabolomics,chemical libraries,natural products,mutant libraries,high content imaging,artificial intelligence,drug discovery
Projet ERC : MEMELAND (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Institut fédéral suisse des sciences et technologies aquatiques — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Eawag
Type d'entité : Autres
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2161862.5 €

MEMELAND will pioneer the creation of Europe's first species-level ecological history, spanning the Roman era to the present day. Our research will unveil the persistent medieval influences in contemporary landscapes and biodiversity. This historical insight will inform proactive land management, conservation, and heritage-informed restoration, crucial for climate change mitigation. Our approach involves sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA), lipid biomarkers, multi-method chronologies, and archaeobotanical analysis at 50 strategically selected lake-pairs across northern and central Europe within three archaeological zones. Additionally, we will go deeper in time and investigate medieval landscape-lake interactions in 3 of the lake pairs. We'll reveal species-level biodiversity, for plants, animals (livestock, fish, birds and invertebrates) and plants-animal-soil pathogens (hologenomic level). Additionally, we'll explore sub-species and landraces within critical taxa (e.g. cereals and domestic livestock).  The geography of present biodiversity is a testament to medieval and early-modern agronomy, population, elite influence (lordship, ecclesiastical), cultivation systems (open-field system), technology (heavy plough) and natural ideologies. By using pairs of lakes, one associated with a high-status site and a nearby lakes with little archaeology, we'll generate geographically representative biodiversity data. This data will enable us to test hypotheses against archaeological, pollen and climate records, and reveal the geographic reality of the ‘medieval agricultural revolution’. Recent advances in sedaDNA analysis, and molecular preservation in temperate climates make MEMELAND a groundbreaking project in both Archaeology and European ecological history. Our work promises to reshape our understanding of the historical interplay between culture and nature and provide critical insights for sustainable land management and climate change mitigation in Europe.

Mots-clés : medieval archaeology,human ecodynamics,vegetation history,sedadna,biomarkers,landscape history,biodiversity,palaeolimnology,historical ecology,heritage management
Projet ERC : CODICUM (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Helsinki — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1513176.25 €

Medieval books were instrumental in shaping European history, communicating rituals, stories and ideas as they were read, copied and shared. To modern scholars they illuminate trade, craft, religious, social and intellectual networks. Less than 10% of the European corpus survives, and in Scandinavia the situation is far worse. However, by historical accident a very high number of Latin fragments – c. 50.000 – from these precious books have been preserved. CODICUM will study and analyse the Nordic book fragments as sources to medieval book culture and its networks. While parchment fragments are found throughout Europe, the numbers and the randomness of their survival in the Nordic countries lend them a special significance. The time is now ripe for interrogating this promising material as one unique European archive by combining approaches from the humanities and the sciences. How was Scandinavia included in different intellectual networks and how did these networks evolve and overlap? How was book production adapted to the limited resources of the north? What can this cross-national archive teach us about curating textual heritage in the long term? CODICUM is led by PIs from four different fields – palaeography, literature, history, and bio-codicology. This unique blending of research expertise enables an innovative synergy which will expand the perspective of European book history c. 1000-1500, reconnect fragments to each other and digitally ‘reassemble’ medieval books, explore the craftsmanship associated with book production, reveal the relationships between the transmitted manuscripts material and illuminate the international networks linking Northern Europe. Researching medieval book culture on an unprecedented scale, CODICUM will seek to resituate our understanding of the book in shaping the Nordic region and connecting the region to the rest of Europe thereby pushing the poorly known Nordic fragment archive into the fore of European book-historical research.

Mots-clés : parchment,bio codicology,ecclesiastical history,monastic history,crafts,scandinavia
Projet ERC : EndoTheranostics (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Naples - Frédéric-II — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2191250.0 €

Colorectal cancer (CRC) represents a significant proportion of malignant diseases. Interventions are often carried out during the latter stages of development, leading to low patient survival rates and poor quality of life. In 2022 a European Commission report stated that “colonoscopy-based screening has higher sensitivity than testing for blood in stool, but it is less acceptable to participants”. At the same time, effective methods to treat polyps in the colon are limited. Current approaches are often associated with unsafe oncological margins and high complication rates, requiring life-changing surgery. EndoTheranostics will usher in a new era for screening colonoscopy, advancing the frontiers of medical imaging and robotics. A tip-growing or eversion robot with a sleeve-like structure will be created to extend deep into hollow spaces while perceiving the environment through multimodal imaging and sensing. It will also act as a conduit to transfer miniaturised instruments to the remote site within the colon for diagnosis and therapy (theranostics). With these capabilities, the system will be able to offer: 1. painless colon cleansing in preparation for endoscopy; 2. real-time polyp detection and tissue characterisation through AI-assisted multimodal imaging; 3. effective removal of polyps by conveying a “miniature mobile operating chamber” equipped with microsurgical tools to the target through the lumen of the eversion robot. The unique technical and clinical challenges will be tackled by the PIs, each bringing complementary skills, backed by their institutions with wide expertise and exceptional facilities. The synergy and added value evident in this team will lead to breakthroughs not possible through independent research. The outcomes of EndoTheranostics will revolutionise the theranostics of CRC, impacting the quality of life of millions of individuals. Ultimately it will launch a new era for endoluminal intervention with applications beyond medicine.

Mots-clés : soft robotics,inflatable robots,medical imaging and perception,tissue characterisation and registration,microsurgery,natural orifices translumenal endoscopic surgery notes,autonomous control and manipulation,intervention shared control
Projet ERC : MOSAIC (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of South Carolina System — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1711250.0 €

“Mapping Occult Sciences Across Islamicate Cultures” (MOSAIC) is the first major project to investigate Islamic and Eastern Christian occult-scientific sources, spanning from late antiquity to the nineteenth century and from Iberia to India, in a vast continuum of languages (Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Turkish). It is generally acknowledged that occult sciences—alchemy, astrology, geomancy, lettrism, magic and a wide range of other operative and prognosticative disciplines—are integral to any history of science and technology. By including the far larger non-Latinate occult-scientific archive, equally integral to this history, MOSAIC is poised to bring about a paradigm shift. We untangle the term “occult” in all its diversity and test a more expansive definition to account for the specific epistemologies driving its multifarious applications. This dynamic and adaptive heuristic not only opens new avenues in the study of body-mind, nature-culture relationships in the historical construction of natural and mathematical science; it also reveals new paths of dissemination and crosspollination of the occult sciences in Islam and Byzantium, restoring a vast textual and artifactual record largely neglected to date. Retrieving occult science will require an unprecedented degree of synergetic expertise, international collaboration and the training of a new generation of highly qualified scholars. We will (1) identify, investigate, catalogue and interpret a critical mass of highly technical sources, making them available through editions, translations, surveys, studies, exhibitions and conferences; (2) combine, as feasible, the study of scientific theories with their technological practice, including through experimental reconstruction; (3) develop a suite of open-access digital tools of immediate use to specialists and nonspecialists alike, and (4) integrate all our findings in a print and born-digital Master Synthesis as an engine for the field going forward.

Mots-clés : greek,syriac,arabic,persian,turkish,artifacts,manusripts,byzantium,islam,occult sciences,encyclopedism,experimental reconstruction,knowledge organisation,critical editions,digital tools
Projet ERC : PROTOS (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Conseil supérieur de la recherche scientifique — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 269682.5 €

All information humankind has of the ancient past of our planet comes from analyzing the geological record encoded in rocks. There is, however, no rock record of the first 600 million years of Earth’s history. Unlocking the secrets of this earliest period –the Hadean– is a fundamental task for science, as it is key to understanding how the planet became habitable, when the first forms of metabolism and self-replication developed, and life appeared. The lack of a geological record has led scientists to use computational modeling to make inferences about the conditions in Early Earth’s environments. Less common are laboratory experiments specifically targeted to simulating Hadean conditions. Based on ubiquitous carbonaceous chert deposits in the oldest rock record, it is widely accepted that many early Archean aquatic settings were reducing and rich in silica and some basic carbon-based molecules. We reason that such aquatic conditions were already established during the early Hadean, and inevitably led to the existence of a large-scale factory of simple and complex organic compounds, many of them relevant to prebiotic chemistry and to the route to biomimetic hybrid microstructures able to self-organize and catalyze prebiotic reactions relevant to the origin of life. Our project is aimed at understanding the crucial role of silica in directing the geochemical and protobiological processes, creating habitats for early life, and preserving early biomass on Earth’s surface during the first billion years of its history. PROTOS will use an array of laboratory experiments (the Hadean Simulator) to systematically study ab-initio reactions of water and gases with the earliest rock types in order to determine compositions of aquatic habitats and subsequent silica precipitation mechanisms, organic synthesis processes on silica/iron surfaces, and the preservation of the first remnants of life. PROTOS will change our view of the infancy of the planet.

Mots-clés : hadean,early earth,mineral self organization,serpentinization,silica,self organization,prebiotic,chemistry,life detection,origin of life
Projet ERC : CHRONOLOGY (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 4733992.5 €

Experiencing the world and inferring its causal structure rely on the flexible temporal organization of information in the brain, enabling future planning in thoughts and actions. Understanding how the brain maps events in time is essential, yet surprisingly little is known about the neural mechanisms by which the brain represents time and uses it for computations. Based on the observation that complex neural activity accompanies the mental evaluation of time across species, our project aims at testing the hypothesis that the collective dynamics of brain circuits involved in memory generate and organize representation of temporality. To identify the key structures of time representations in the brain, we will record neural activity at different neuroanatomical scales (from neuron to whole-brain) in three species (rodents, non-human primates, and humans) while individuals are behaving in timing tasks of varying cognitive complexity. A geometrical analysis of neural activity will determine the existence of temporal cognitive maps that provide individuals with a mental chronology of experienced events. We will test if the navigation of temporal cognitive maps is involved in tasks where individuals mentally travel in time. Exploiting state-of-the-art artificial intelligence methods to build interpretable recurrent neural network models, we will identify generic processes supporting the emergence of time representations by comparing signatures of theoretical mechanisms with brain activity. Targeted causal manipulation at the single cell resolution will help select precise mechanisms among model-based hypotheses, including the role of local and long-range neuronal connectivity in the establishment of circuit dynamics that develop across time scales. Our synergistic cross-disciplinary team will establish an innovative, biologically-grounded, overarching framework for the representation of time in the brain, its dependence on context, and its relation to memory.

Mots-clés : time perception geometry of neural representations cognitive maps multielectrode recordings all optical electrophysiology acousto optic two photon calcium imaging recurrent neural network models computational neuroscience neural dynamics
Projet ERC : MaScAmp (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Société Max-Planck pour le développement des sciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Société Max Planck
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2214250.0 €

MaScAmp proposes a new paradigm for fundamental interactions in physics in the form of a unified mathematical approach to scattering amplitudes. The project brings together a multidisciplinary team with expertise in pure mathematics and theoretical physics who will develop a set of novel and efficient algorithmic methods with applications in mathematics, particle physics and gravity.  Discoveries in many areas of fundamental physics depend upon a detailed understanding of the scattering of particles. Modern experiments, such as particle colliders and gravitational-wave detectors, demand high-precision theoretical computations to make new discoveries. These are deduced from physical models by a highly labour-intensive process relying on the calculation of scattering amplitudes, which assign probabilities to particle interactions. Despite a tremendous worldwide effort over many decades, the methods used to compute increasingly complex scattering amplitudes remain disparate and fragmented. The work of the PIs in distinct domains suggests unexpected symmetries and universal rules obeyed by scattering amplitudes in different-looking areas of physics. This calls for a radically new way of studying scattering amplitudes.  MaScAmp will create a unified framework for the calculation of general scattering amplitudes by building upon the latest research in mathematics, notably in algebraic geometry and number theory. As a result, MaScAmp will overcome longstanding computational bottlenecks, push the boundaries of numerous areas of theoretical physics, such as quantum field theory, gravity and string theory, and inspire new mathematical research. A widely applicable computer software implementation will enable physicists to make previously inaccessible predictions for present and future experiments. A project of MaScAmp’s scope and ambition is only achievable by combining the unique expertise of the PIs in complementary areas of mathematics and physics.

Mots-clés : scattering amplitudes,feynman integrals,iterated integrals,periods,motivic galois theory,string theory,symbolic integration,moduli spaces,modular forms,polylogarithms