Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : CellCourier (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Helmholtz Zentrum München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HMGU
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

CellCourier aims to revolutionize mRNA delivery by enabling precise cell-type-specific targeting through a data-driven platform that integrates single-cell genomics, computational modeling, and generative AI. Conventional approaches often suffer from off-target effects, leading to unintended side effects. To address this, CellCourier leverages combinatorial peptide binder design to achieve precise cell-type recognition, enabling next-generation delivery modalities such as LNPs or STVs. At the core of CellCourier is a computational pipeline that defines unique surface codes for target cells using single-cell transcriptomic data from the Human Cell Atlas (HCA). This process is enhanced by Nicheformer, a model for predicting cell-cell interactions, and Prophet, a deep-learning model for multi-omics perturbation prediction—both key outcomes of the ERC AdG DeepCell grant. Using these refined surface codes, we apply our all-atom generative model to design peptide binders optimized for high specificity and stability. A competitive binding pipeline, which has shown a threefold increase in hit rates, further refines peptide selection. The process is validated both in silico and in vitro. During the ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) period, we will focus on demonstrating feasibility by targeting the lung using insights from the Human Lung Cell Atlas (HLCA), paving the way for novel treatments for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, and lung cancer. Beyond technical validation, we will implement intellectual property (IP) protection strategies, securing patents for advanced peptide binders and their integration into innovative delivery systems. We will also explore commercialization pathways, including spin-off formation and pharmaceutical partnerships for out-license protected IP. By providing the critical tools for precise, cell-type-specific mRNA delivery, CellCourier will establish a scalable and versatile platform, unlocking next-generation targeted therapeutics and transforming personalized medicine.
Projet ERC : LEARN-DO (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université libre d'Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Background. Without blood donors, there are no blood products to transfuse and no plasma for pharmaceutical drug production. Four million patients are annually treated with blood derived products in Europe alone, given by voluntary donors. Yet, as little as 2-3% of the population is registered as blood donor and donor numbers are decreasing during the last decades. At the same time, the demand for specific blood products is increasing. Hence, it is crucial that a country’s donor pool is sufficient to ensure access to every needed blood type and plasma product. Targeted recruitment and retention of donors is vital to meet these demands. Aim. LEARN-DO intends to develop and market a fun and interactive knowledge intervention to stimulate key motivators and overcome key barriers for individuals to become a blood donor. Approach. We target two main stakeholder groups with this intervention. Individuals (children and adults) who can be potential future donors and blood collection agencies that need to recruit future donors to meet the demands for blood products. We propose three installation elements that manipulate key barriers and motivators of blood donation. A Donor Picture Pillar that provides information about blood donation and shows patient and donor stories. A "Donation Experience" to decrease fears and psychological distance towards blood donation and a Conversation Couch to stimulate talking about donation among participants. Organisation and Impact. The project is organised in four work Packages (WP). The overarching project management (WP1, led by the PI at the host institute) will ensure that the impact proposition will include all scientific (WP2), technical/education (WP3) and business (WP4) aspects. LEARN-DO can thoroughly change the recruitment of future donors and improve the recruitment strategy of blood collection agencies by making them more evidence-based, fun and interactive and targeted to specific groups, including families and members from ethnic minorities.
Projet ERC : PowerPact (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université technique du Danemark — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : DTU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 100000.0 €

Waste heat makes up a very large fraction of the energy produced today. The process chain of energy conversion of chemical energy into power is subject to up to 72% loss. Recovering this waste heat will be crucial for enhancing the efficiency of processes. Today approaches such as thermoelectric energy conversion are receiving interest due to their ability to turn waste energy back into useful electrical energy. However, the wider adoption of this technology is being held back due to the low efficiency (< 5-8%) of current thermoelectric devices, the need for a temperature gradient, and the scarcity of state-of-the-art materials. Recently, a new device, the 'thermal battery', was proposed. Until now, the thermal battery concept has been explored using liquid electrolytes. However, liquid electrolytes severely restrict the operation temperature range to ΔT<50 K. In PowerPact, the goal is to create a pioneering prototype that features a high-temperature battery made of solid-state electrolytes and electrodes using "artificial oxide heterostructures," which can stack together on demand. This design will enable the battery to charge at high temperatures and discharge at low temperatures, effectively using waste heat recovery. The overall goal is to achieve a proof of concept capable of storing energy within the range of milliampere-hours (mAh) to watt-hours (Wh) that is suitable for small consumer electronics. Through this development, we seek to lay the basis for a new class of 'thermal battery' that directly captures and stores waste heat. To realize this vision, we need to radically redesign the 'thermal battery' technology, where our thermal battery features a unique charging mechanism; it operates at a constant temperature. This breakthrough advances a new concept in thermal batteries, designed to connect current thermoelectric technologies with solid-based thermal batteries. To date, however, solid-state thermal batteries have remained elusive.
Projet ERC : RNable (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Lund — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Every year, more than 50 000 patients receive blood stem cell transplantation as a curative treatment for diseases such as leukemia, immune deficiencies, and sickle cell anemia. For a successful transplantation, a matching donor who is willing to donate blood stem cells needs to be found. Worldwide, around 30% patients in need of a transplantation cannot find a suitable donor. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is an easily obtainable alternative source of blood stem cells, but unfortunately most UCB units do not contain enough stem cells for a successful transplantation, which is why UCB is currently only rarely used in the clinic. Within the ERC project UNEXPECTED, we have identified several small RNA biomolecules that can be used to expand engraftable blood stem cells efficiently. However, it is difficult to safely deliver molecules to blood stem cells, and currently used methods are highly toxic. We recently applied cutting edge nanotechnology to solve this long-standing problem in stem cell biology. We established nanostraws as an efficient and gentle alternative delivery method with which both cell function and viability are fully maintained. Our method that allows efficient non-toxic delivery of blood stem cell-expanding RNAs will allow us to greatly increase the number of UCB units that can be used for transplantations. Our approach could provide a life-saving treatment option for the thousands of patients yearly with malignant or inherited diseases that currently are ineligible for a stem cell transplantation procedure.
Projet ERC : MIN CO2 (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université technique du Danemark — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : DTU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The goal of MIN CO2 is to test the innovation and commercialisation potential of an idea for: i) increasing sustainability, ii) decreasing atmospheric CO2 and iii) producing a valuable, low CO2 footprint building material from noncombustible solid waste. Results from our ERC research led to the idea: Can we react waste materials with CO2 and water to produce fine grained material of value for new concrete? Current solutions for CCS are expensive and require extensive infrastructure but if this idea works, the technology will generate income; our estimates suggest ~ 50 €/T from the sale of the end product. In MIN CO2, we shall test the idea and optimise the system parameters at bench scale, then design, build and test a laboratory prototype reactor, where rate of reaction and formation of a minimum viable product can be achieved in a flowthrough process, bringing us from our current TRL 2 to TRL 4. One patent has been submitted; others will follow as appropriate. Our preliminary market analysis and business case, as well as discussions with potential partners (waste suppliers, a local waste-to-energy plant and a concrete company), bode well for writing a proposal for Innovation Funding at the end of the POC grant. Larger company stakeholders promise investment when we are able to demonstrate viability in a factory pilot (TRL 6). Our long term goal is a startup, that sells CO2 Traps and knowhow for installation into existing factory chimneys, for European and eventually global markets. Initial discussions with members of the public and the media range from positive to enthusiastic because most of society’s fears about CCS are avoided with our approach. As our prospective partner from the concrete industry summarised, “If this works, it will be big”. Our small, dedicated team is convinced that it will.
Projet ERC : TAPAS (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Lund — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Separation of blood components is of high importance in healthcare and often require fractionation of blood in its subcomponents by centrifugation. There are several scenarios that calls for improved resolution:  1. When blood is drawn from a donor and a specific cell type is extracted while returning remaining blood components. 2. In cancer immunotherapy where T-cells are isolated from the blood and then genetically reprogrammed to be re-infused in the patient where they seek up and destroy cancer cells. 3. Circulating tumor cells, which are involved in the process of formation of metastases in cancer patients, can be detected and monitored by extracting cancer cells in large volumes of blood. 4. Improving the quality and reducing the number of manual procedures in diagnostic instrumentation that analyzes blood.  Centrifugation has the fundamental drawback of having rotating parts, and thereby taking up space and being difficult to implement for flow-through processing which is desirable both for integration in analytical equipment and for processing blood for continuous re-infusion into a person.  We will investigate an alternative to centrifugation wherein blood components are separated by a sound field. Cells will be separated based on differences in density and size while flowing through an acoustic separator module. Recent ERC-funded research indicates that this approach is feasible, but three scientific questions has been identified with fundamental impact on the commercial potential of this technology:  1. How selectively can sub-groups of blood cells be separated by acoustic separation? 2. Can acoustic separation be scaled for high throughput applications? 3. Can acoustic separation affect blood cells?  To address this, my team will design and build two prototype systems for whole blood processing and evaluate the quality and throughput of the separation with the ultimate goal of bringing this technology to the market for the benefit of society.
Projet ERC : ELASTIC (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université technique du Danemark — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : DTU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The generation of optical frequency combs through nonlinear optical processes is an enabling technology for a wide range of applications. These combs, consisting of equally spaced coherent light frequencies, are highly valued in applications such as communications, LiDAR, and microwave photonics. The first generation of combs, developed using mode-locked lasers, expanded their spectrum through nonlinear media to create broadband frequency combs. Initially, these systems relied on bulky free-space optical components. Efforts to reduce the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of these systems led to the development of microcomb technology. Dissipative Kerr soliton (DKS) microcombs—generated via nonlinear optical processes in microresonators—have emerged as a more compact, scalable, chip-based alternative, offering higher repetition rates, lower power consumption, and simplified broadband spectrum generation and attracting significant market interest. Despite their advantages, DKS microcombs face several bottlenecks, including limited tunability, sensitivity, and poor conversion efficiency. The ELASTIC project aims to address these issues by leveraging the high thermo-optic coefficient and nonlinearity of the AlGaAsOI platform combined with a novel pump scheme. This approach will enable low-power, highly tunable, and insensitive chip-scale comb systems for emerging applications like massively parallel frequency-modulated continuous-wave LiDAR and wavelength-division multiplexing systems.

Mots-clés : integrated optics,microresonators,soliton microcombs,kerr frequency combs,
Projet ERC : GenomeDia (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Centro de Regulación Genómica — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CRG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Diabetes Mellitus affects nearly 600 million people worldwide. It is a major cause of premature death, blindness, end stage kidney disease, and limb amputation. However, it is not a single disease. Most patients are catalogued as type 2 diabetes, which is itself highly heterogeneous, while others have autoimmune type 1 diabetes. Genetic testing is currently able to define the precise cause of diabetes in a small group of young patients, although the categorization of diabetes subtypes is in most cases largely based on clinical judgement, rather than on specific tests. It is known, however, that the classification of diabetes subtypes has major implications for treatment. The emergence of whole genome sequencing in clinical practice provides new opportunities for classification of diabetes subtypes, but also entails major challenges such as the interpretation of non protein-coding variants. The recently funded ERC project DecodeDiabetes analyzed sequences from nearly 1500 young patients who had typical features of genetic forms of diabetes, but negative genetic tests in specialized genetic diagnostic laboratories. This study revealed different groups of genetic variants that cause diabetes in young patients with diabetes. It also developed approaches that leverage regulatory genomic knowledge to define noncoding genetic defects underlying human disease. The current proposal aims to compile new findings with existing knowledge, and to build a genetic interpretation solution to subcategorize young patients with diabetes. It will then validate this tool in patient cohorts. This proposal can thus translate fundamental knowledge derived from the ERC-funded Decode Diabetes project into applications whose valorization can bridge the gap to market and provide added value for society.
Projet ERC : Cytodesign (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Centro de Regulación Genómica — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CRG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Cytokines are biomolecules of great potential interest for human therapy. They modulate the immune system and play an important role in cancer, inflammation, immune response and tissue regeneration. Despite their great potential, there are only a handful of cytokines approved for therapeutic purposes. This is because many of them can have adverse side effects as they usually target different cell types, which adds to their low serum half-life, high production costs, or lack of physiological efficacy. Different methods have been proposed to improve the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of selected cytokines. However, other properties do also need improvement, such as achieving effective local concentration at the target site; promoting the right activity in cytokines with dual functionality and decreasing toxicity by removing binding to unwanted cell types. To help solving these issues, we have developed a new protein design strategy that can be applied to all helix-bundle cytokines, many of which have been shown to be therapeutically relevant. The resulting products are uniquely modified cytokines with improved properties. Amongst such properties, our products show increase stability, higher affinity and specificity for their target receptors and should have reduced toxicity, all of which translate into greater safety and efficacy. We have initial evidence both (in vitro and in vivo) of the superiority of our designs over conventional cytokines, and in this project we will fully validate our technological platform and advance in the development of a business plan following the advice of several venture capital and pharma companies contacted to date, with the idea of laying the basis for the creation of a new start-up company.
Projet ERC : muTWIN (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : KU Leuven — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Tailoring the microstructural features in metal additive manufacturing (AM) products is still a great challenge, limiting the design flexibility and full exploitation of the technique. The aim of muTWIN is to implement and validate an innovative digital twin concept of microstructure evolution in technical alloys. The new concept allows for fast and accurate computation of local microstructures in AM parts as a function of local composition and temperature history. When integrated in thermal and mechanical Finite Element (FE) approaches it will enable realistic predictions of properties, performance and reliability of the printed parts. Moreover, it allows for fast and high-dimensional computational ‘search’ through the huge design space accessible with AM, to find the compositions and processing parameters resulting in the most superior properties. With muTWIN, AM companies can drastically reduce the time-to-market and experimentation cost for new products. This brings new opportunities to design structurally and functionally graded materials and discover new alloy compositions and processing routes and will drive innovation in many other areas as well, such as medical applications, aerospace, construction and energy. The patentability of this idea and interest from industrial partners will be examined and a strategic plan for valorisation and possibly commercialisation of the product will be developed.
Projet ERC : POLIRNA (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : École polytechnique de Turin — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Currently, RNA therapies are available on the clinics to treat liver diseases and as COVID-19 vaccines. Hence, their therapeutic potential still remains largely unexploited for the treatment of other disorders, such as age-related, rare genetic and infectious diseases. One key problem for effective preclinical research on new RNA therapies is the lack of safe, efficient and cell-specific delivery vehicles. Gold-standard cationic lipid transfection reagents suffer from dose-dependent cytotoxicity, inability for cell-targeted delivery and poor stability. Clinically approved lipid nanoparticles efficiently target liver cells, while attempts to target other cell types have achieved limited success. In POLIRNA I will develop and validate a new safe, efficient, and versatile platform for RNA release to target multiple cell types, based on ligand-functionalized polymer-lipid nanocarriers, by exploiting a new patented method from my ERC-funded project BIORECAR (772168). POLIRNA consists of “kits for research use”, allowing user-friendly preparation of nanocarriers able to effectively deliver non-coding RNAs (such as siRNAs and microRNAs) to target cardiomyocytes and skeletal muscle cells for preclinical research studies on cardiac regenerative medicine and muscle-related diseases (e.g., neuromuscular diseases). Technology development and validation will benefit from collaboration with major experts in the fields and companies supporting the innovation route from lab-to-market. My previous experience as coordinator of research and innovation projects and as co-founding member of an academic spin-off company, and the current involvement of my team in business plan competitions will drive the process of technology validation, with the aim to strengthen technology value proposition versus current gold-standard solutions, found a start-up company and attract investments.