Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : FemtoPix (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Université d'Uppsala — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Conformational dynamics are crucial for the functioning of most macromolecules and a deeper understanding of these motions holds great promise for future discoveries in biology. But it is difficult to probe the structure of macromolecules away from their most stable conformations, and time-resolved studies remain limited by the available techniques.  Today a new generation of XFELs is growing. The extremely short pulse duration, high pulse intensity and repetition rate of these lasers offer new research opportunities in physics, chemistry, and biology.  Since the first XFELs were proposed, the idea of obtaining images of individual proteins frozen in time has fascinated and inspired many, and we have been at the forefront of this quest. The combination of advances in XFEL technology with ESI has brought the dream of imaging hydrated single proteins by X-ray diffraction within reach.  Currently time-resolved studies in solution in the sub-ms range are done through solution X-ray scattering or spectroscopic methods, but they can only provide limited structural information. XFELs provide a way to dramatically improve our understanding of these time-scales. This proposal aims to develop the science and technology to make ultrafast single-protein imaging a reality, through a three-step approach: (I) develop diagnostics suitable for nanosized samples, (II) enable single protein X-ray diffraction imaging through new sample delivery instrumentation, (III) perform time-resolved single protein imaging experiments using the unexplored tender X-ray energy range.  Ultrafast imaging of macromolecules will reveal new horizons. As a single-molecule method with high time-resolution, it enables imaging the structural changes associated with fundamental processes such as enzyme catalysis, allosteric signal transduction or even protein folding. It also opens a way to record molecular movies and mapping the conformational landscape of isolated macromolecules for the first time.

Mots-clés : x ray free electron lasers,x ray single particle imaging,diffraction before destruction,sample delivery,electrospray ionisation,ultrafast,structural dynamics,time resolved
Projet ERC : HyBOP (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Entité participante : Organisation des Nations unies pour l'éducation, la science et la culture — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Unesco
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1523488.0 €

Fluorescence takes place throughout the natural world. Most conventional chemical wisdom proposes that in organic entities, fluorescence occurs in conjugated systems, such as in the aromatics. However, in biological settings, the interaction of light with matter occurs in media built up of dense networks of hydrogen bonds. Recent experiments suggest that it is possible to observe fluorescence from these networks too. This could open the possibility of designing hydrogen-bond networks with enhanced fluorescence, offering enormous fundamental and practical potential.  The overarching goal of HyBOP is to decipher, using advanced computer simulations, the exotic optical properties of hydrogen-bond networks and to harness them as probes of water-mediated forces. To achieve this, HyBOP will tackle the following challenges:1) Establish the ground rules for creating fluorescent hydrogen-bond networks in biological materials. 2) Understand how to drive the electrons and nuclei of water networks into regimes where they can fluoresce. 3) Use the optical behaviour of these networks to probe hydrophobic forces in nature. To uncover the complex chemistry of hydrogen-bond network fluorescence, and guide the discovery of new fluorophores, we will deploy state of the art electronic excited-state molecular dynamics in combination with machine-learning techniques. This will provide HyBOP with ground-breaking knowledge which will lay a theoretical framework to motivate development of new experimental probes of hydrophobicity.  HyBOP seeks to bring hydrogen-bond networks to the forefront of chemistry in their use as optical probes; by laying the theoretical ground-work for designing non-invasive fluorophores in biophysics, opening up a new window into the origins of autofluorescence in medical diagnostics and finally, provoking frontier electron and nuclear spectroscopy, HyBOP will have a spill-over effect and build new synergies across several branches of the physical sciences.

Mots-clés : fluorescence,aqueous systems,data science
Projet ERC : TRIFFIC (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and Communication Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Twente — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2558750.0 €

The coherent optomechanical interaction between acoustic and optical waves known as stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) can enable ultra-high resolution signal processing and narrow linewidth lasers important for next-generation wireless communications, precision sensing, quantum information processing, and many more. But the proliferation of such a unique and powerful technology is currently impeded by fundamental challenges associated with circuit integration of Brillouin optomechanics in a versatile and mass producible material platform such as silicon nitride. The absence of acoustic guiding and the infinitesimal photo-elastic response of standard silicon nitride devices render conventional SBS in this material platform currently out of reach. An innovative approach that breaks with usual paradigms of actuating SBS solely through optical forces in two-dimensional waveguiding circuit is required to overcome these fundamental limitations. The TRIFFIC project aims to actuate and subsequently functionalize SBS in silicon nitride through three-dimensional (3D) integration of gigahertz acoustic wave sources and waveguides with low loss optical circuits. The two orders of magnitude SBS gain enhancement expected from this project will unlock Brillouin optomechanics in silicon nitride circuits for the first time. Using this novel 3D optomechanical platform, I aim to demonstrate a revolutionary concept of on-demand and programmable optomechanics that will transform the field of RF photonics by providing an advanced signal processor with comprehensive spectral control beyond what is currently possible. Further, I will demonstrate Hz-linewidth integrated SBS lasers in the red and blue visible wavelengths that can be integrated with future portable optical atomic clocks and trapped ion quantum computers. The ERC Consolidator will be instrumental for me to achieve these ambitious research objectives that will enable the optomechanics revolution in integrated optics.

Mots-clés : integrated optics,stimulated brillouin scattering,optomechanics,microwave photonics,optical frequency combs,silicon nitride,lasers
Projet ERC : AI-Next (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : University Hospital Bonn — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2268799.59 €

Medical artificial intelligence (AI) holds immense promise for transforming radiology by introducing advanced diagnostic capabilities. Yet, traditional AI models face challenges like extensive data annotation needs and are task-specific with limited generalizability to different scenarios. This problem of robust and label-efficient generalization continues to be a key translational challenge for medical AI models and has prevented their broad uptake in real world healthcare settings. AI-Next will build on the recent advent of foundation models, providing a unique opportunity to rethink the development of medical AI and overcome the challenges of traditional AI models. At the core of AI-Next stands the development of a state-of-the-art visual foundation model (VFM) that learns generalizable representations from unlabelled radiology scans and provides a basis for label-efficient model adaptation in several applications. The VFM will focus on neuro-radiology and be trained with data at unprecedented scale including >200,000 brain computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging scans from population-based and disease specific cohorts, leveraging self-supervised learning. The VFM will be adapted with a limited set of explicit labels to a range of tasks with clinical significance. This includes the screening and triage of scans for emergency findings, longitudinal disease activity assessment, risk prediction of dementia, forecasting of disease evolution and finally automated radiology reporting. Moreover, the VFM will be employed for image processing tasks, including generating super-resolution images to enhance diagnostic capabilities. Overall, AI-Next will represent a crucial step towards more generalisable, accurate and label-efficient AI in neuro-radiology, offering significant potential for improving diagnostics, clinical decision-making as well as patient outcomes, and its open-source innovations will serve as a blueprint for the broader field of radiology.

Mots-clés : radiology neuroradiology neuroimaging artificial intelligence foundation models
Projet ERC : MRStain (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UKSH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1460532.5 €

Ex-vivo histology is the gold standard to investigate human brain microstructure. However, its invasive nature precludes its use in monitoring disease progression and the investigation of the pathophysiological origin of neurological disorders. MRStain will address this shortcoming by exploiting the sensitivity of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) signal to estimate aggregated histological metrics in the human brain non-invasively. Like established histology staining methods (e.g., myelin-basic protein), MRStain will be sensitive to changes in cellular populations, axons, myelin, and iron. This will be achieved by augmenting the MRI measurements with computational biophysical models, which can disentangle tissue metrics at the micron-scale using the macroscopic spatial resolution (1–4 mm) of MRI. However, the clinical use of these models has not been employed because their validity and generalizability across disease trajectories has yet to be tested against the ex-vivo histological gold standard. This project will address this shortcoming by generating a globally unique multi-modal dataset that combines novel in-vivo and ex-vivo MRI techniques with biophysical models as well as cutting-edge large-scale 3D histology. The project will benefit from a unique translational university hospital environment where large sections of freshly excised brain tissue from drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy patients (TLE, 80 sections of about 3 x 2 x cm^3) can be examined, enabling in-vivo MRI-based biophysical tissue parameters to be validated against their histological gold standard. I will develop an MRStain model to identify TLE relevant changes that will achieve a paradigm shift in how epilepsy is treated by identifying target brain areas for surgery that will help to predict seizure-free outcome after surgery. The final validated MRStain models will also pave the way for similar noninvasive investigations of other neuropsychiatric diseases with unprecedented precision.

Mots-clés : mri,mr physics,biophysical models of mr signal,3d ex vivo histology in the human brain,physical informed models for artifact correction in mri,machine learning and cell segmentation,machine learning and mri
Projet ERC : SynthAct3D (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Université de Twente — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Autonomous motion and adaptability of microorganisms in fluids are hallmark features of living systems, fueling the emergence of active matter within the realm of soft matter physics. Notably, micron-sized synthetic self-propelled particles (SPPs) have emerged as a distinct class within this domain due to their unique ability to convert internal energy into directed motion, making them ideal models for studying inherently out-of-equilibrium systems. However, a significant challenge persists: the majority of existing synthetic SPPs are ill-suited for probing the governing principles of emergent collective behaviors observed in living systems, such as swarming, active turbulence, and living clusters, particularly in 3D real space.   The ultimate aim of SynthAct3D is to pioneer a paradigm shift, transitioning synthetic active matter from the familiar territory of 2D experiments towards the uncharted terrain of 3D materials with advanced functionalities. This fundamentally driven, experiment-centric proposal seeks to unravel the core mechanisms behind emergent phenomena observed in living systems, employing entirely synthetic units.   SynthAct3D focuses on two complementary goals, anchored in a novel experimental framework that combines innovative SPP designs, rigorous characterization, and high-speed confocal imaging: I. Phase behavior a. Investigate the influences of dimensionality (2D Vs 3D) and particle shape on the emergence of self-organization, both structurally and dynamically. b. Elucidate the role of particle propulsion and the microscopic nonequilibrium dynamics in dictating the macroscopic behavior of SPPs in 3D. II. Active materials a. Design reconfigurable 3D active materials (e.g. shape-shifting, and glasses) This research is expected to yield unprecedented insights into internally powered systems in 3D, paving the way for a new class of internally driven materials with applications in reconfigurable soft materials.

Mots-clés : active soft matter,colloids,self propelled particles,self organization,non equilibrium,artificial microswimmers,3d real space
Projet ERC : GENERATE (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Université de Turin — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1630520.0 €

The study of geometric structures on manifolds finds its inspiration in Klein’s Erlangen Program from 1872, and has seen spectacular developments and applications in geometric topology since the work of Thurston at the end of the 20th century. Geometric structures lie at the crossroads of several disciplines, such as differential and algebraic geometry, low-dimensional topology, representation theory, number theory, real and complex analysis, which makes the subject extremely rich and fascinating. In the context of geometric structures of pseudo-Riemannian type, the study of submanifolds with special curvature conditions has been very effective and led to some fundamental questions, such as the open conjectures of Andrews and Thurston from the 2000s, and the recently settled Labourie’s Conjecture. This project aims to obtain important results in this direction, towards four interconnected goals: 1. the study of quasi-Fuchsian hyperbolic manifolds, in particular leading to the proof of a strong statement that would imply the solution of the conjectures of Andrews and Thurston; 2. the achievement of curvature estimates of L^2-type on surfaces in Anti-de Sitter space; 3. the construction of metrics of (para)-hyperKähler type on deformation spaces of (G,X)-structures, and the investigation of their properties; 4. the study of existence and uniqueness of special submanifolds of dimension greater than 2 in pseudo-Riemannian symmetric spaces. The project adopts an innovative approach integrating geometric and analytic techniques, and the results will have remarkable applications for Teichmüller theory and Anosov representations. In the long term, the proposed methodology and the expected results will lead to further developments in various related directions, for instance: the study of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds of variable negative curvature, of higher dimensional pseudo-hyperbolic manifolds, and the deformation spaces of other types of (G,X)-structures.

Mots-clés : geometric topology,g,x structures,pseudo riemannian geometry,minimal and maximal submanifolds,hyperbolic geometry,anti de sitter geometry,quasi fuchsian manifolds,deformation spaces,teichm ller theory,geometric analysis
Projet ERC : LSR (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université Johann Wolfgang Goethe de Francfort-sur-le-Main — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1992629.0 €

LSR will defend a novel interpretation of Kant’s Doctrine of Right which will allow a reevaluation of LSR will defend a novel interpretation of Kant’s Doctrine of Right which will allow a reevaluation of central issues of his political and juridical philosophy from both the historical and systematic points of view. It will also elaborate new Kantian perspectives for dealing with contemporary normative challenges in the fields of political philosophy, philosophy of law, and political and legal theory. It will investigate two groundbreaking hypotheses. First, that Kant's philosophy of law and right is permeated with the use of reflecting teleological judgment which influence the meaning and normative content of the rational principles of right. Teleology sets up a complex relationship between the a priori and the empirical levels, between practical reason and the pragmatical anthropology as well as between the procedural and dynamical aspects embodied in a specific conception of history. Second, that on a deep methodological level, Kant's philosophy can be understood as grounded in a reflective constructivism that can be developed and updated as a powerful philosophical method for dealing with complex problems about the relation of different forms of normativity, the issue of interdisciplinarity, and the relationship between theory and practice. From the development of those hypotheses, it will be investigated how Kant’s philosophy of right may present innovative solutions for issues such as the following: the relation between external coercion and normativity in the context of the theories of juridical positivism; the requirements concerning the ideal of the rule of law; the relation among the principles of right and history and anthropology; and issues regarding the legitimacy of property, economic and intergenerational justice, cosmopolitanism, human rights and democracy. This project therefore has three strands: a historical, a systematic and a methodological one.

Mots-clés : right,law,state,republic,constructivism,cosmopolitanism,human rights,democracy,justice
Projet ERC : PatriFem (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Université de Gênes — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1960215.0 €

From the mid-12th century, all over Europe, laws started to be enacted that hindered women from acquiring and managing wealth, triggering a long process that on the threshold of early modernity led to a dramatic reduction in their economic opportunities. The importance of the issue is undeniable, not only because female agency has been a central theme in gender studies, but also because the effects of these developments are still felt today, yet the underpinnings of these developments are far from clear. The period which is being taken into consideration coincides with a foundational phase of contemporary Europe which saw profound economic, social and political transformations, changes in family structures, and complex legal developments. So why certain laws began to be enacted at this precise moment? How is the cutback in female economic rights connected to the late medieval developments? To what extent and how did female economic rights vary from one context to another? The aim PatriFem is to provide answers to these crucial questions through an innovative and extensive research covering three regions with extremely diverse characteristics in terms of legal traditions, and socio-economic and political frameworks: Italy, France, and the German-speaking area. Research will involve the collection and management of large data sets. It will be carried out in different archives across Europe using two main bodies of sources: statutes (to chart the developments in property and patrimonial rights) and private sources (eg. notarial records, to observe how laws were interpreted or even preempted in practice). The methodology, which can be adopted for different areas across time, will be instrumental to future research. The data will enable to develop an interactive digital atlas which will represent an unprecedented attempt at charting a chronological geography of female property and patrimonial rights in law and practice across Europe over the span of five centuries.

Mots-clés : female economic rights,female agency,dowries,non dotal assets,inheritance practices,female property and patrimonies