Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : CUBE (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Norwegian University of Life Sciences — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : NMBU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2796408.0 €

The Holy Grail of selective C-H activation has been vigorously pursued for more than 70 years in all areas of catalysis - homogeneous, heterogeneous and biological - yet with scarce cross-fertilization. CUBE will bridge this gap, by synergistically disclosing the secrets of Cu-containing biological and synthetic catalysts and translating the acquired knowledge into rationally designed new catalysts with unprecedented activity, selectivity and turn-over numbers. CUBE will capitalize on the recent discovery of abundant and experimentally accessible natural enzymes (LPMOs) that activate resilient C-H bonds using a mono-Cu catalytic center, thus providing a biological analogue to synthetic Cu-zeolites. CUBE will also harness the potential of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which offer unprecedented (“enzyme-like”) flexibility in catalyst development. C-H activating Cu-containing Zr-MOFs have just been described. CUBE will generate trans-disciplinary insights into Cu-based catalysts to progress beyond the state of the art in C-H activation. To this aim, we will elucidate the key mechanistic features of oxidant activation by O2, as well as N2O and H2O2, and then C-H activation. Emerging design principles from these studies will evolve new catalysts, including engineered enzymes, enzyme-polymer hybrid materials, and MOFs. To enable these efforts, we will develop novel methodologies at the interface of spectroscopy and computational chemistry. The project brings together leading players in complementary fields: design, synthesis and testing of catalysts (UiO), enzymology and protein engineering (NMBU), spectroscopic investigations of heterogeneous catalysts (UoT) and spectroscopic/computational studies of homogeneous and biological catalysts (MPI). Through a work-plan conceived to maximize cross-fertilization within the project team, we will design and develop novel catalysts for tomorrow’s C-H activation chemistry.

Mots-clés : protein engineering,chemical biology,bioinspired catalysts,c h activation,direct methane conversion,bio catalysis,enzymatic catalysis,pmmo,lpmo,cu zeolites,cu zr metal organic frameworks
Projet ERC : IceXL (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Inria
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149750.0 €

The ICEXL proof of concept project targets the pre-commercialization of a novel software for additive manufacturing of complex technical parts. It relies on innovative approaches from the SHAPEFORGE project (Stg-2012-307877) and in particular our software prototype IceSL. We aim at unlocking the full potential of additive manufacturing in terms of the complexity of the parts that can be designed and manufactured and in terms of customization possibilities by non-experts in computer aided design. A key challenge of additive manufacturing is to deal with extremely complex designs having micron-scale details in possibly meter-scale objects. Such a profusion of details is both a challenge for the engineers -- manually creating such details while following precise specifications is a daunting task -- as well as a technical challenge due to the size and complexity of the considered geometries. Another challenge is to allow non-expert users to customize parts and to adapt them to a specific usage. Our software prototype IceSL has the potential to answer both challenges. Complex objects are described as combinations of base shapes (e.g. union, intersection, difference, offsets). IceSL stores this list of operations in a digital blueprint that retains design parameters such as construction rules and dimensions. The blueprint is many times smaller than a triangle mesh of the full final object. The decisive advantage of IceSL compared to other software is that it directly produces instructions for the manufacturing process from its digital blueprint. It allows the interactive visualization of the final object as well as the interactive edition of the blueprint parameters. The goal of the ICEXL project is to turn the research prototyped in IceSL into a software product, and to demonstrate its applicability on industrial case studies. Potential customers include preliminary contacts within the medical, automotive, aerospace and consumer market domains.

Mots-clés : additive manufacturing,solid modeling,slicing,micro structures
Projet ERC : Plat-IL-1 (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and Immunotherapy
Entité participante : University Hospital Bonn — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1488853.75 €

The Interleukin (IL)-1 family of pro-inflammatory cytokines are among the most potent pyrogens, and their excessive production can cause several auto-inflammatory syndromes. Additionally, overabundance of IL-1 cytokines can trigger, or contribute to a range of inflammatory and metabolic disorders. The expression of the key members of the IL-1 family, such as IL-1β and IL-18, is regulated at both the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. IL-1β and IL-18, are produced as inactive precursors, which require activation of caspase-1 by the inflammasomes for their maturation and release by from cells, occasionally at the cost of caspase-1 mediated-cell death. We have recently discovered that inflammasomes are released into the extracellular space where they remain active after the demise of activated cells, and that extracellular inflammasomes can amplify inflammation by sustaining extracellular production of IL-1β. However, the sources of extracellular pro-IL-1β are not known. Recent advances in platelet proteomics have revealed that these non-nucleated cells are able to produce their own cytokines, including soluble IL-1β and membrane-bound IL-1α, and are able to significantly magnify IL-1 production by immune cells. As platelets outnumber leukocytes by several folds, they could potentially be the major source of extracellular inflammasomes in the body, or be a major producer of IL-1 precursors that are cleaved by extracellular inflammasomes released from dying immune cells. In this proposal, we will investigate the mechanism(s) by which platelets produce IL-1, and the specific contribution of platelet-derived IL-1 to sterile inflammation, or host resistance to bacterial and viral infection. We believe that a deeper understanding of platelet-IL-1 and their interaction with immune cells during sterile inflammation, or infection might help to uncover new targets for immune-therapies.

Mots-clés : inflammasomes,bacterial infection,virus infection
Projet ERC : RAVEN (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas — Pays : Grèce — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FORTH;ΙΤΕ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The Internet is a critical infrastructure that is composed of The Internet is a critical infrastructure that is composed of tens of thousands of networks and is required to work reliably 24/7. An integral functionality to achieve this is stable, efficient and secure routing of data traffic across several network domains. The current inter-domain routing protocol, BGP, facilitates the exchange of control-plane information (i.e., reachability of Internet resources over network paths) in a scalable and expressive manner; however, the lack of inherent security (e.g., authentication) mechanisms in its design frequently results in routing attacks. We focus on BGP prefix hijacking attacks, where a network, either due to malicious intent or because of a misconfiguration, advertises fraudulent/invalid information to the BGP routers of other networks; this information is propagated to the entire Internet, eventually leading to traffic being directed to invalid destinations (ending up dropped or intercepted and manipulated). Available proactive defenses are typically limited and inefficient. In our previous work, we have developed an advanced production-grade detection and mitigation tool that works reactively to counter these attacks. However, in practice, network operators cannot even measure how exposed their networks are to hijacking attempts, as well as their potential impact. In this project, we address exactly this need and aim to build a Proof of Concept (PoC) of a BGP hijacking vulnerability assessment service employing real-world experimentation, accurate simulations and realistic emulations. We aim to evaluate this PoC on at least two real networks, and refine its design using feedback from its future users, i.e., the network operators. We further plan to investigate key challenges towards the commercialization of such a service, namely estimating the costs for rolling out a global peering infrastructure that is needed, and defining the associated product offering.

Mots-clés : vulnerability assessment,bgp prefix hijacking,bgp security,networking security,emulation,simulation,testbed,peering,routing
Projet ERC : MIRAGE (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : Pompeu Fabra University — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UPF
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1485500.0 €

The Internet was expected to make citizens considerably more informed and better able to hold politicians and powerful interests accountable. Many predicted it would also effectively complement traditional media and improve news reporting. These expectations have not been met. There is no evidence that citizens have become more informed; they have, however, become more ideologically polarized, possibly due to online media overexposing users to like-minded content. At the same time, traditional media are struggling: competition from online platforms has slashed advertising revenues forcing newspapers to close or downsize. These changes risk undermining the quality of reporting and making media more vulnerable to capture by special interests. My project examines how the Internet has transformed the way news is produced and disseminated, both directly and through its influence on traditional media, and its ultimate effect on media independence and content quality. To this end, I tackle three distinct but intertwined questions. First, I study how lower advertising revenues affect newspapers’ organization and content quality by exploiting the staggered introduction of advertising platform Craigslist across the US. Second, I examine how media dependence on advertisers influences news bias by testing the relationship between advertising spending by car manufacturers and coverage of car safety recalls in US newspapers. Finally, I study how the dependence of media on banks affects coverage of financial issues; focusing on Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, I test whether newspapers linked to banks with higher exposure to risky debt endorsed different crisis-management measures. My results will shed light on the deep transformations the media industry is undergoing and their implications for the quality of democracy.

Mots-clés : mass media,internet,search engines,media capture,advertisers,banks,newspapers
Projet ERC : LightZymes (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : University of Greifswald — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1302875.0 €

The LightZymes project aims to create artificial enzymes (LightZymes) catalyzing selective light-driven conversions of small organic molecules. Enzyme catalysis has a large potential in the development of a sustainable, bio-based economy and is increasingly applied on industrial scale. Nature’s repertoire of enzymatic reactions is huge, but for many reactions developed by chemists, no natural enzyme is available. I envision expanding the chemical diversity of enzymes to photoredox catalysis. Chemists perform this type of reactions by employing photo(organo) redox catalysts (PC). However, achieving regio- and stereoselectivities is challenging, because radical intermediates generated during the reaction are difficult to control. To solve this problem, I will combine the strength of bio- and photocatalysis: organic PCs as artificial cofactors provide new reactivities, and the proteins will be evolved to render the reactions highly selective. This approach differs from artificial photosynthesis: instead converting light energy in high-energy cofactors (NADPH, ATP), light will directly enable selective synthesis reactions. Efficient directed evolution requires an easy assembly of the catalyst, preferentially inside the cell. I propose to apply genetic code engineering and to supply the PC in the form of non-canonical amino acids (ncAA). Engineered amino acyl tRNA synthetases will incorporate the PC directly during ribosomal synthesis. This will facilitate–for the first time–the assembly of hybrid catalysts in the cytoplasm without needing further modifications or purifications. This opens the door for applying high-throughput screening based on mass spectrometry and FACS to generate highly selective variants. By bridging the concepts of photoorganocatalysis and biocatalysis, LightZymes will substantially expand the chemical repertoire of naturally evolved enzymes. This paves the way to directly using light as energy source to drive biocatalytic asymmetric reactions.

Mots-clés : artificial hybrid enzymes,protein engineering,photoredox catalysis
Projet ERC : ICCION (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Autonomous University of Barcelona — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UAB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The Local Indicators of Climate Change Impacts project (771056-LICCI-ERC-2017-COG) explores the potential of Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) to contribute to climate research, but only tangentially addresses the marginalized position faced by Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLC) to bring their knowledge and perspectives to climate change research and policy fora. This PoC will bring IPLC knowledge and perspectives to climate change research and policy fora by 1) engage with IPLC on the co-design of a digital Indigenous Climate Change Impacts Observation Network (ICCION) and 2) engaging with the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) of the UNFCCC, which has the mandate to strengthen IPLC knowledge and efforts related to addressing and responding to climate change. ICCION holds social, political, and technological innovative potential. The creation of an Indigenous Climate Change Impacts Observation Network is an innovative response to the IPCC call for more ground level data, as it will bring expand the geographical and temporal coverage of data collection on local indicators of climate change impacts. Moreover, partnering with IPLC and international organizations constitutes an important social innovation, as these alliances might facilitate the process of establishing a continuous, iterative, and bidirectional dialogue that foster IPLC effective participation in climate change science-policy fora. Finally, ICCION innovates in developing technological solutions to address technical (i.e., low internet access) and social concerns (i.e., Indigenous data sovereignty) that are of particular relevance for IPLC, but which have often been neglected in other technological developments. The long-term establishment of the observation network proposed here will contribute to give IPLC a more relevant voice in global climate policy fora, not only by informing climate change impact research, but also making it more socially acceptable.

Mots-clés : climate change impacts,indigenous and local knowledge,indigenous data sovereignty,indigenous peoples and local communities,knowledge systems,science policy fora
Projet ERC : MA.D.AM (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HZG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999587.0 €

The MA.D.AM project addresses the strong need of wire-based additive manufacturing (AM) for customized value-added metallic materials that are not established yet. The project aims at establishing novel scientific knowledge for the fabrication of novel wire materials and AM parts with hitherto not reached properties, based on the application of high-strength Al-Cu-Li alloys, as cutting-edge candidates for AM in aerospace applications. For this purpose, innovative solid-state materials development and AM processes are utilized to obtain alloys beyond the known thermodynamic borders. The solid-state Friction Extrusion process allows generating phases under non-equilibrium conditions, leading to so far unexplored microstructural states, enabling to produce novel high-performance wire material with tailored properties. To avoid microstructural deterioration and preserve or even improve the beneficial properties of the designed wires, the Solid State Layer Deposition process is employed. The overarching objective of MA.D.AM is to establish the real-world process chain paired with numerical approaches, leading to a digital twin to achieve a hitherto unavailable decryption of the composition-process-microstructure-property relationships for solid-state materials development and AM. To achieve this objective, a systematic multidisciplinary approach based on the combination of sophisticated physical modelling concepts, advanced experimental approaches including characterization techniques and machine learning is pursued. The selected modelling approaches along computational thermodynamics, microstructure and process modelling, together with special-designed (in situ) experiments will establish a clear link between process characteristics and evolution mechanisms such as phase formation and recrystallization kinetics. The digital twin will be built via a novel hybrid modelling strategy based on experimental and numerical data developed on the concepts of machine learning.

Mots-clés : solid state processes,friction extrusion process,solid state layer deposition,computational mechanics,modelling and experiment,machine learning,digital twin
Projet ERC : MAGnUM (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Université Gustave Eiffel — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UGE
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1832900.0 €

The MAGnUM project aims to (i) create a consistent set of interrelated dynamic and multimodal traffic models able to capture driver behaviours at the different urban scales and (ii) apply this variety of models to design efficient and green traffic management strategies. Traffic flow dynamics is well reproduced at a local urban scale by the kinematic wave model and its numerous extensions. Even if this model is parsimonious compared to other modelling approaches, it can hardly be applied at larger urban scales for traffic control applications. Very recently, a new modelling approach has been proposed to represent congestion dynamics at large scales. It relates the total travel production to the vehicle accumulation in a traffic network with for now a restrictive condition about network homogeneity. This approach is very promising for designing new traffic management systems but heterogeneous situations should be handled by properly connecting with the local scale to account for the effects of the local distributions and variations of the driver behaviour (demand) and the network structure (supply). Investigating these relationships and proposing a full set of consistent models representing traffic dynamics at several relevant scales (successive spatial and temporal integration) is very challenging with high potential gains for traffic control applications. This is the primary goal of MAGnUM and will be achieved by mixing analytical investigations on idealized but insightful test cases with explanatory approaches based on data gained from dynamic simulations or serious game sessions on more realistic and complex cases. The second goal of the project concerns the design of innovative traffic management strategies at multiple urban scales. Breakthroughs will be achieved by considering multiple and competitive objectives when optimizing with a tight focus on environment issues and multi-modality.

Mots-clés : aggregated traffic modelling,drivers behaviour,traffic flow theory,multimodal,multiscale,urban road networks,sustainable traffic management,congestion,behavioural studies
Projet ERC : MINIRES (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Politecnico di Milano — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : POLIMI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The MINIRES project aims at developing and bringing to the market a revolutionary bioelastomer material based on a novel strategy of structural modification of a “minimalist” peptide sequence derived from Resilin (Res), i.e., a polymeric rubber-like natural protein with outstanding elasticity, critical in the flight and jumping systems of insects. In the course of the ERC funded Starting Grant FOLDHALO (grant agreement no. 307108), I focused on the modification of a repeat sequence of the Exon-1 (~320 amino acids) of Res. We found that a biomimetic chemical modification of this sequence (i.e., halogenation) induces the emergence of elastomeric properties resembling those of the full-length Res protein. This is surprising for such a short peptide, and the unmodified peptide, in fact, does not show such properties. Halogenation determines a huge change in the material properties due to the induced physical (supramolecular) cross-linking of the peptide chains. The main advantage of the novel “minimalist” bioelastomer that we developed lies in its chemical and structural simplicity. This simplicity allows foreseeing easy industrial scalability at low costs, trivial processing, either as pure compound or component of elastomeric formulations, as well as possibility of further chemical and structural modifications (opening up a family of small elastomeric peptides). Expected outcomes of the MINIRES project are to perform a technical and commercial feasibility study to move the developed “minimalist” bioelastomer from the lab to the market. In particular, within the MINIRES project, we intend to accelerate the maturity level of this technology, by technically validating it, as well as scouting market opportunities and setting up a suitable exploitation strategy (licensing vs. start-up creation) for valorizing the patent that has being deposited.

Mots-clés : peptide,elastomer,resilin,halogenation,bromine