Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : SILVER (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 344676.25 €

Silver was the primary metal of economic exchange and military finances in ancient Mediterranean and Near-Eastern societies. Silver isotopes will help quantify monetization of these societies by identifying Ag mineral sources, monetary sinks, and its major transfer routes. High-precision stable Ag isotope analysis initiated in Lyon has shed new light on the provenance of silver coinage. This is because Ag isotopes are distinctive of coinage’s intrinsic value in contrast to traditionally-used Pb and Cu isotopes, which may characterize impurities or additives. The common belief that PbS (galena) ores accounted most of the silver mined in the antique world will be tested. We will extract Ag from ores around the Mediterranean and test PbS prevalence over As and Sb sulfosalts and low-temperature ores with Ag, Cu, and Pb isotopes and trace elements. Our work will address major questions: (i) understand the sources of unminted silver as a precursor to coinage; (ii) use Ag isotope fingerprinting of the earliest coinages of Athens to identify the contributions of Greek mines to the development of the world’s first democracy; (iii) map the Greek and Persian mines which sourced the treasure captured by Alexander the Great, and investigate the spread of its silver; (iv) study the causes of the monetary reform of the Roman Republic in 211 BC; and (v) model the silver cycle from mines to coinage and artefacts in its economic context. In the short term this project represents radical scientific innovation, which will pave the way for a global and quantitative understanding of the history of monetary development in the ancient Mediterranean. In the long term, it will contribute to the emergence of a community of analysts, numismatists and economic historians with shared expertise about the monetization of ancient societies and their management of precious metal resources.

Mots-clés : museum collections,ore deposits
Projet ERC : MySocialBeIng (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 893517.5 €

Since Heinrich Schliemann excavated the famous shaft graves at Mycenae and identified the individuals as members of Agamemnon’s royal family, archaeologists have tried to understand the social structures which materialised in the collective graves of Mycenaean Greece. Whereas today’s understanding of family ties goes well beyond biological relatedness (e.g. patchwork families), prehistoric individuals buried together and their belonging are still predominantly explained by biological models – also due to the inability to trace past biological relatedness. But now the necessary methods have been developed and we will apply them to the extraordinary archaeological richness of Mycenaean Greece with its many collective graves which will serve as a paradigmatic case study for unravelling prehistoric social complexity beyond elites. MySocialBeIng will produce and integrate comprehensive archaeological, anthropological, genetic and isotopic analyses for all individuals buried together in selected collective graves (chamber, tholos) in order to decipher the criteria for their selection and social belonging out of the dialectic interplay of biological relatedness and social practices (gender, mobility, nutrition, burial, material culture). This has only recently become possible with 1) the development of bioinformatics tools to model biological relationships, 2) single-stranded DNA library production for numerous individuals, 3) innovative pedigree-based Bayesian modelling of 14C dates and 4) novel datasets of bioavailable strontium in Greece. The results will have a major impact on Mycenaean archaeology and on archaeology as a discipline by establishing a ground-breaking new approach to the study of past social relations. Moreover they will be relevant for the social sciences in general as well as for society, allowing us to fully understand the complexity of social belonging in the human past and thus helping to overcome the 19th-century “biological bias" of belonging.

Mots-clés : bronze age,mycenaean greece,burial archaeology,archaeogenetics,bioarchaeology,social archaeology,social practices,isotope analysis
Projet ERC : 1-SWITCH (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Lund University — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Since March 2020, the world is facing the Covid-19 pandemic. As of September 2020, over 900 000 people have died of the disease, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The WHO recommendations in order to limit the spread of the virus are to “test, trace and isolate”. To be successful, this strategy requires fast and massive testing. Today, tests are performed using PCR, a resource-intensive process requiring extraction of the viral RNA before nucleic acid amplification. PCR tests are slow (several hours) and require an army of advanced laboratory equipment or automated diagnostic workflow setups for the various steps, and thus prevalent in centralized facilities testing samples in large batches. Consequently, the turn-around time for these tests has proven to be 24-48 hours globally. Here, we propose to develop a new Covid-19 test, 1-SWITCH, consisting of a single step switchable fluorescent probe assay. The 1-SWITCH technology will use low cost reagents, and therefore will be cheaper than current available Covid-19 tests. The sensitivity of the test will be superior to the one of antigen tests and comparable to the one of PCR tests. This 1-step, 1-tube method will detect the virus directly within minutes and eliminates the assay complexity, thus facilitating smoother workflows in laboratory diagnostics as well as point of care screening. This will consist of a major breakthrough in clinical diagnostics. Plans for bringing our research finding to a commercial innovation are presented.

Mots-clés : virus detection,sars cov 2,direct detection,high sensitivity,low cost
Projet ERC : SIMONANO2 (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Chalmers University of Technology — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999550.0 €

Single Molecule Analysis in Nanoscale Reaction Chambers Imagine that you would measure the average eye color of the population in Sweden. Clearly it would not say much about the colors of the eyes of the inhabitants. To obtain this information, one must of course study them individually. The same holds true for complex biological molecules, especially proteins, which may exist in many different configurations that cannot be resolved in an ensemble measurement. Heterogeneities in biomolecular structure and function limit our understanding of biology. To advance further it is vital that we study biomolecules individually. For proteins this is highly challenging since it must be done in a non-invasive manner under conditions similar to their native environment. The SIMONANO project aims to develop a new platform for single molecule analysis which provides essential advantages. Proteins will be controllably loaded into solid nanoscale chambers, thereby eliminating the need of field gradient forces or surface immobilization. Furthermore, the proteins are entrapped at physiological conditions and small ligands can still access them quickly. Most importantly, the content is regulated on the single molecule level, i.e. proteins can be controllably loaded one at a time and different types of proteins can be introduced sequentially. Advanced (but established) fluorescence microscopy techniques will be used to detect the proteins and analyze their reactions. The possibility to reliably entrap any desired number of proteins under physiological conditions and study their reactions will provide great scientific advancements in the life sciences. Once developed in this project, the nanoscale reaction chambers can become a tool used by biologists worldwide, which will advance our understanding of life on the molecular level. This will in turn lead to new applications in biotechnology and medicine.

Mots-clés : nanopores,polymer brushes,electrokinetics
Projet ERC : RadMag (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Sussex — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1050608.57 €

Single-molecule magnets (SMMs) display magnetic hysteresis that is molecular in origin, and these materials have huge potential to be developed as nano-scale devices. The big challenge is to create SMMs that function without the need for liquid-helium cooling. This project will develop new SMMs that combine the strong magnetic anisotropy of lanthanide ions with a series of novel radical ligands. Our innovative SMMs will have controllable molecular and electronic structures, which will ultimately enable hysteresis at unprecedented temperatures. Highly unusual di- and tri-metallic Ln-SMMs are proposed in which the metals are bridged by radicals with heavy Group 15 (phosphorus-bismuth) and Group 16 (sulphur-tellurium) donor atoms. Trimetallic SMMs will also be based on hexaazatriphenylene (HAT) radicals, and dimetallic SMMs will also be based on nindigo radicals, both of which are nitrogen-donor ligands. The SMM field is dominated by systems with diamagnetic ligands. Our radical ligands have never been used in SMM studies: their diffuse unpaired spin provides a way of switching off the quantum tunnelling mechanisms that otherwise prevent hysteresis. We will exploit the rich electrochemistry of the target ligands: heavy p-block radicals have huge spin densities on the donor atoms; HAT radicals can have up to three unpaired electrons; reduced or oxidized nindigo radicals allow access to redox-switchable SMMs. In the HAT-bridged SMMs, the use of ligands with more than one unpaired electron is unprecedented. The heavy p-block ligands are themselves are novel. The PI’s approach to SMMs has already established new directions in lanthanide chemistry and in molecular magnetism. He now proposes a new, radical approach to SMMs with potential to re-define the state of the art, and to extend the frontiers of a vibrant multi-disciplinary field. Achieving the aims will provide a major step towards using SMMs for applications at practical temperatures.

Mots-clés : molecular magnetism,organometallic chemistry
Projet ERC : HISTOID (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting 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 : 1089738.0 €

Skeletal muscle is the most abundant human tissue and contains mainly post-mitotic nuclei. It also expresses the largest gene known in nature – dystrophin – whose mutations cause Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most frequent and incurable childhood muscle disorder. These characteristics create hurdles that negatively impact on the development of therapies for muscle diseases, ranging from acute tissue loss to chronic neuromuscular disorders. Moreover, a lack of humanised models of muscle regeneration delays the understanding of its regenerative dynamics. My work has pioneered the use of human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to generate genetically corrected myogenic cells for the autologous cell therapy of muscular dystrophies. Here I propose to exploit this technology together with biocompatible materials to develop three dimensional, iPS cell-derived, patient-specific artificial muscles. These bioengineered skeletal muscles will provide a model to study human muscle regeneration and a platform for tissue engineering and therapy development for severe muscle diseases. The project will be developed in two phases. First we will develop the iPS cell-derived muscle in vitro, introducing cell types and stimuli necessary to obtain a functional tissue. In the second phase we will exploit the muscle “organoids” for regenerative medicine and drug development. Specifically, we will investigate the artificial muscle potential for tissue replacement in vivo and then model different muscular dystrophies in vitro to screen drugs with therapeutic relevance. Finally, we will combine the tools and knowledge developed in the two aforementioned areas into a novel platform to optimise skeletal muscle gene and cell therapies. This project will bring together tissue engineering, drug development and cell therapy under the same translational technology, advancing the understanding of pathogenesis and the development of therapies for muscle diseases.

Mots-clés : disease modeling and tissue engineering
Projet ERC : NEUROSKIN (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Technion – Israel Institute of Technology — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Skin disease is one of the most common human illnesses. At any given time, approximately one out of three individuals is affected by skin disease and it is the 18th leading cause of health burden worldwide. Despite this profound impact, skin disease continues to receive relatively little attention in global health forums, and the etiology of most of these conditions is unclear. The skin is our major interface with the external world, densely innervated with sensory and autonomic nerve fibers. Thus, neuromodulators are involved during all phases of skin damage and healing. Nevertheless, we do not fully understand the interaction between skin innervation and skin pathologies. More importantly, the therapeutic potential contained in cutaneous innervation has not been exploited. NEUROSKIN will determine how different skin innervations affect psoriasis, a major skin disease, representing the largest class of skin conditions, those that are mediated by inflammation. We will utilize a transgenic mouse model that enables optogenetic control of local peripheral innervations using light. This model was developed as part of our ERC STG to characterize the involvement of peripheral innervation on gut inflammation. In NEUROSKIN, we will extend this tool to develop additional transgenic mice relevant to cutaneous neuronal subpopulations. In these mice, we will control the activity of neurons innervating the psoriatic plaques at different stages of the disease. This will allow us to map potential of targeted neuronal interventions to treat inflammatory skin conditions. Such characterization is expected to introduce an entire set of therapeutic tools based on neurological manipulations, and allow us to repurpose drugs and other technologies (e.g electrical and magnetic simulation) for the potential treatment of skin disorders. Moreover, NEUROSKIN will introduce a new toolbox that will enable the entire community to study the involvement of skin innervation in skin functions.

Mots-clés : neurons,skin,cholinergic,sympathetic,immune,psoriasis,inflmmation,wound healing
Projet ERC : RegulRNA (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and Immunotherapy
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 : 1998291.0 €

Small and large non-coding RNAs are essential components at the heart of gene expression regulation. The past fifteen years have witnessed the emergence of a new field of research impacting diverse domains of biology. Among these, virology is no exception and discoveries such as the antiviral role of RNA silencing, virus-encoded microRNAs (miRNAs), or miRNA-based regulation of viruses have notably shifted our views of host-virus interactions. Although we know a lot about the mechanisms of action of ncRNAs, and their role in the context of viral infections, we know much less regarding the control of the regulatory RNAs themselves. In other words, how are the regulators regulated? To provide answers to this burning question, we propose to use different viruses as models to investigate the various levels where modulation of regulatory RNA can occur. Thus, we will study the importance of RNA secondary and tertiary structure as well as accessory proteins in the regulation of miRNA primary transcript processing. In a second axis, we propose to investigate how the functional, mature miRNAs can be controlled. To this end, we will focus on the mechanisms of target-mediated miRNA decay and the role of competing endogenous RNAs. We will finally turn to the regulation of antiviral RNA silencing. Although it seems that this kind of defence mechanism exist in mammalian cells, it is not yet clear how physiologically relevant it is and how it interfaces with other innate immune mechanisms. In this multidisciplinary project, we will use a combination of techniques ranging from bioinformatics to cellular biology to achieve our goal to get a comprehensive view of how RNA silencing processes are regulated during virus infection.

Mots-clés : microrna,lncrna,rna regulation,mcmv,kshv
Projet ERC : PROCONTRA (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : University of Warsaw — Pays : Pologne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UW
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2478370.0 €

Smart contracts are formal agreements that take the form of computer programs. They are typically written down, and automatically executed, on blockchains. Smart-contract protocols are algorithms that describe how these contracts operate in multiparty settings. Due to the large number of potential applications, interest in this field has exploded in the last few years. Also, the PI has generated important results through his work in this area. The ambitious goal of PROCONTRA is to transfigure this emerging field into a mature science. Our main research hypothesis is that smart-contract protocols will be used in real life and many of them will strongly rely on advanced cryptographic techniques and will need to be developed using modeling methods from theoretical cryptography. We will work in this direction by proposing new solutions in this area, providing formal models and security proofs. Given the importance of these protocols, it is crucial to fully analyze their security before they are deployed in real life. Therefore, the first pillar of this project is to design a complete security model for analyzing them. The second pillar is to propose new smart-contract protocols and to extend the existing ones. Our protocols will be proven secure in the model we propose in the first pillar. This will be done using traditional “pen-and-paper” methods. However, the most important proofs will also be machine-checked using proof assistants. On a more theoretical side, we will also work on characterizing what tasks are in general achievable using smart contracts, and under what assumptions. Throughout the project, we will closely interact with the smart-contract practitioners, and with the industry, in order to understand what are the practically-relevant problems in this field and to ensure that the project’s outcome will have an impact beyond academia. This will also take a form of participation in the standardization efforts in this area.

Mots-clés : universal composability framework,multiparty computation protocols,smart contracts,blockchain
Projet ERC : SENFLEX (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
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 €

Smart fabrics remain a promising market opportunity, however one that has not lived up to its potential yet. One of the key issues with current smart fabrics lies in the production methods and the strategy to impart functionalities. These rely on the integration of meshes of rigid electronics, or arrays of conductive yarns on soft mats or tissues. This heavily affects the fabrication and connection, costs, robustness and user’s experience of current smart fabrics. The SENFLEX project proposes a disruptive solution where the functionalities of smart fabrics come from fibers themselves. During his ERC Starting grant project "FLOWTONICS", the PI demonstrated that some thermoplastic elastomers could be co-drawn with other materials such as liquid metals, polymer nanocomposites or optical materials, into long functional fibers. He and his team could in particular develop truly smart and flexible fibers called SenFlex, that can be elastically deformed and sense the imposed mechanical constraints in unprecedented ways. SenFlex fibers are simple to fabricate at large scale and can be integrated in a variety of fabrics. They can also be imparted with novel robust and truly distributed sensing designs that require little electrical connections and exhibit low power consumption, paving the way towards smart fabrics with advanced functionalities at drastically reduced costs. In the SENFLEX project, we will assess the commercial feasibility of SenFlex fibers that have the potential to disrupt the € 5 billion smart fabrics market. We will investigate the market and scalability of our technology for several key applications. Our final deliverables are large-scale prototypes with proven industrial scalability and a business plan that describes our go-to-market strategy, business potential and product development approach. The prototypes and business plan will be used to convince strategic partners and investors for the next step towards commercialization.

Mots-clés : multimaterial fibers,thermal drawing,fiber processing,soft electronics,pressure and strain sensing,smart fabrics,medical textiles,personalized care