Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : DepSHOCK (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative B iology : from Genes and Genomes to S ystems
Entité participante : Human Technopole — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HT
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999455.0 €

The “oncogenic shock” model has been introduced to describe the interplay between pro-survival and pro-apoptotic signals that follow an oncogene's inactivation and lead to cancer cell death. In my recent work, I demonstrated that identifying novel cancer dependencies through systematic computational analyses of CRISPR functional genetic screens and multi-omic data is an excellent means to discover and prioritise new anti-cancer therapeutic targets. Here, I extend the oncogenic shock concept to any cancer dependency gene. I call “cancer dependency shock” (DepSHOCK) the signal dynamics’ interplay that follows the ablation of any gene essential for cancer cell survival, i.e., cancer dependency gene. Any DepSHOCK triggers the sudden inactivation of pro-survival pathways and activates death- inducing signals, with both events impacting down-streaming transcription factors, leaving a measurable gene expression footprint. My hypothesis is that each DepSHOCK footprint can be deconvoluted to infer transcriptional markers of signals that emanate from a dependency gene and drive cancer cell survival through the constitutive activity of specific biological pathways. Here I propose to investigate this hypothesis across tissues, canonical oncogenic addictions, and novel candidate cancer therapeutic targets. To this aim, I plan to establish an experimental/computational platform for the generation and the analysis of unprecedented transcriptional datasets obtained at single-cell resolution upon genetic perturbation of a rationally selected panel of cancer cell lines and therapeutically relevant dependency genes. My overarching goal will be to study the information content of the DepSHOCK footprints and their potential use as computational tools in early anti-cancer drug discovery through new statistical and machine-learning methods delivering mechanistically grounded therapeutic markers and hints for the design of combinatorial therapies.

Mots-clés : cancer dependencies,single cell crispr,target discovery,machine learning,therapeutic markers,predictive models,early drug discovery
Projet ERC : EpiC (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Materials Engineering
Entité participante : École supérieure Sainte-Anne de Pise — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999625.0 €

The materials on the outer plant surface create the world's largest bio-air interface. Invisibly, this surface spontaneously charges when hit by raindrops and solid materials. This is due to contact electrification, a phenomenon used in technologies like printing and energy harvesting. Yet, extraordinarily little is known about its role in nature and how biosurfaces charge. EpiC will target two exciting and unresolved questions: a) can one exploit the generated charges to power high-tech devices at the leaf-air interface? and b) how is the organism affected by the electric fields generated on the outer leaf surface? The core of EpiC is thus a detailed surface analysis to gain the highest resolved insights in solid and liquid contact electrification of biosurfaces. To achieve this, I will combine studies of materials surface charging, chemical, and topographical analyses with observations of cellular responses, plant growth, and adaptation. This data set will then indicate how to engineer material systems named 'artificial leaves' that can be installed on the plant leaf or sprayed on it to harvest the contact charges for technical purposes. EpiC will eventually enable energy harvesting, environmental and plant health sensing, communication with robots, and electrocatalytic reactions - autonomously driven by electricity and reactants from the leaf environment. Moreover, I will develop additional features in the materials of the artificial leaf to specifically protect the plant and to boost its growth during energy harvesting. The result of EpiC will be new insights into contact charging of materials in nature, its effect on plant life, and a ground-breaking, energy-autonomous, and sustainable technology platform for the world's most significant bio-air interface with cross-disciplinary impact in materials science, environmental sensing and robotics, smarter agriculture, and plant-based bioelectrochemical systems.

Mots-clés : contact electrification,plant surfaces,energy harvesting,soft robotics,biohybrid systems
Projet ERC : BREATHE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : École supérieure Sainte-Anne de Pise — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2344135.0 €

Airflight and spaceflight gave mankind different perspectives and opened new paths for communication. A gap remains, between 50 km and 250 km of altitude, where the rarefied atmosphere makes it hardly viable to operate with either spacecraft or planes. Air-breathing Electric Rockets (AERs) will allow to close this gap, lowering the altitude of spacecraft operations below 250 km, in the so-called Very Low Earth Orbits (VLEOs). Operations in VLEOs will give radical advantages in terms of orbit accessibility, payload performance, protection from radiations, and end-of-life disposal. AERs combine an intake to collect the residual atmosphere in front of the spacecraft and an electric thruster to ionize and accelerate the atmospheric particles. Such residual gas can be exploited as renewable resource not only to keep the spacecraft on a VLEO, but also to remove the main limiting factor of spacecraft lifetime, i.e., the amount of stored propellant. Several realizations of the AER concept have been proposed, but limited evidence of the concept feasibility is available. The few end-to-end experimental campaigns highlighted the need to improve the AER functional design and the representativeness of simulated atmospheric flows. The difficulty in recreating the VLEO environment in a laboratory limits the data available to validate scaling laws and modelling efforts. The objective of BREATHE is to increase the understanding of air-breathing electric propulsion and to pave the way toward the in-orbit demonstration of the AER concept. With this aim, project activities will focus on: 1) Developing theoretical models and simulation tools, to characterize atmospheric flows and low-temperature plasmas; 2) Merging on-ground testing and virtual simulations, to provide a controlled environment for the characterization of prototypes and the extrapolation to flight conditions; 3) Identifying the main scaling laws governing AERs and, thus, the optimal operating principle and design.

Mots-clés : electric propulsion,air breathing propulsion,very low earth orbits,vacuum testing
Projet ERC : Units (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université d'Helsinki — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1719081.0 €

We are constantly surrounded by measuring systems ranging from pedometrics, timesheets, and impact factors to carbon footprints, happiness barometers, or risk assessments. Quantity-assessment systems are always at work to allocate value to our actions. This research project sets out to study diverse valuation regimes with an emphasis on their material and conceptual linkages with the worlds they measure. The project studies the properties of different units, measures, and standards to analyse how a choice of unit affects the numeric representation of human values. It approaches this task through a primary focus on ethnographic data from Oceania, but employs a comparative research design that draws out the usefulness of small-scale, ethnographic analyses for global issues. The project introduces a unit-centred context-dependent approach. It assumes that the need to establish a fixed point of comparison is something common to all measuring scales: any yardstick of valuation requires a basic unit, a standard equivalent that serves as the basis of a scale. The “Properties of Units and Standards” (PrUS) research project sets out from the commonplace observation that the units used for measuring value are specific rather than universal equivalents, and as such possess properties and affordances that hook up with people’s social worlds and material surroundings in various different ways. This, in turn, makes the choice of measure a consequential act with material, economic, and eventually more far-reaching socio-cultural effects. In short, the project assumes that there are no “neutral” units, and that by focusing specifically on the base units underlying numerical representation on any scale, we can call attention to both the material and the moral, political, even cosmological ideas linked to particular measures. A measuring scale highlights some phenomena but omits or obfuscates others: its deployment has consequences beyond the simple act of creating numbers.

Mots-clés : value,oceania,number,standardisation
Projet ERC : UNDERGOV (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : École supérieure Sainte-Anne de Pise — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999392.0 €

UNDERGOV investigates the role of transnational criminal groups in migration governance. Although this topic has attracted increasing global attention due to the intersection of migration management and crime, academic research remains limited. Most studies tend to view criminal groups merely as threats to migration governance or as peripheral actors. UNDERGOV advocates for a significant paradigm shift in conventional debate on transnational governance. Rather than merely viewing criminal groups as global challenges for various actors to tackle, we should acknowledge them as pivotal actors influencing these challenges. My decade-long empirical research on migrant smuggling and human trafficking has deepened my understanding of the complex relationships between these criminal actors, migrants, and other crucial participants in migration governance. UNDERGOV builds on and moves beyond this experience, positing that criminal groups not only disrupt but also actively shape migration governance, and may even play a crucial role in the functioning and reproduction of its legal apparatus. In so doing, the project transcends both mainstream perspectives that view crime as a mere challenge to migration governance and critical studies that frame the role of crime in migration governance solely in terms of a state-driven process of “criminalization”. The project aims to revolutionize our understanding of migration governance through empirical research and theory-building in Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. It will compile a unique ethnographic collection to illuminate the operations of transnational crime within migration governance, addressing the current data shortage that hinders theoretical development. Simultaneously, it will develop new theories about the role of crime in migration governance, contributing to social anthropology, migration studies, and filling a significant gap in our understanding of transnational governance.

Mots-clés : transnational migration governance,ethnographic research,human smuggling,transnational criminal groups,social anthropology,migration studies
Projet ERC : PALAI (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
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 : 2244662.5 €

PALAI will study palimpsests using advanced imaging and artificial intelligence. Palimpsests, or recycled manuscripts, especially those from Northern Italy in the early Middle Ages, are known as a treasure trove of lost texts. The reuse of ancient manuscripts shaped the scene upon which the Carolingian renaissance emerged, and is thus a missing link between classical Antiquity and the first period of major cultural renewal in the Middle Ages throughout the West. PALAI proposes to investigate where the recycled manuscripts came from, how they were selected and prepared for reuse, and what their reuse tells us about scribal communities’ worldviews. Doing so requires multispectral and XRF imaging, to recover the erased features of the original manuscripts. A major issue with such imaging is the post-capture data processing, which is both excessively time-consuming and often fails to extract the relevant data for scholars to examine: crucially, PALAI proposes the first large-scale exploration of machine learning models in order to solve this image processing bottleneck issue, which will have numerous applications to erased or damaged documents from other areas and periods. Using these technologies, PALAI will track the production of palimpsests in Northern Italy from the late 6th to the early 9th century, by investigating, on the level of individual manuscripts, the cultural entities that fostered it; it will analyze scribes’ and readers’ intellectual practices, their relation to past cultures, to their present environment, and to innovation and creation for the future; and it will put forward in narrative form a multicausal theory of manuscript reuse bringing to light an ecology of writing in which long-term sustainability of texts was paramount. PALAI’s methodology is designed to combine approaches that are traditionally compartmentalized, such as manuscript studies, close reading and history, in order to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

Mots-clés : sh5 11 digital humanities sh6 07 analysis of digital data sh6 13 cultural history,intellectual history
Projet ERC : SilkRoadLanguageWeb (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Université de Leyde — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999863.0 €

On the crossroads between China, India and the Eurasian Steppes, the Tarim Basin in present-day Northwest China was a crucial part of the famous Silk Road trading network. Today, the main languages of the area are Uyghur and Mandarin, but numerous manuscript finds are proof of a past rich in entirely different languages. Next to literary languages like Sanskrit, the local vernaculars were Middle Indic, Tocharian, and the Iranian languages Khotanese and Tumšuqese. All Indo-European and hailing ultimately from the west, these languages show the effects of intricate patterns of long-term influence, thus forming a network of linguistic contact: the Silk Road Language Web.  The interpretation of this intriguing linguistic complex has been dominated by the narrative that the Tocharians are to be identified with the Bronze Age “Tarim Mummies”, to the detriment of other groups. However, in concordance with genetic evidence, the linguistic findings of the PI’s ERC-Starting Grant and NWO-VIDI projects show that the Tocharians arrived much later, while the Iranians arrived earlier and spread over a larger area than previously assumed. Thus, an entirely new approach to the linguistic past of the Tarim Basin is called for.  Based on the evidence from long-term language contact contained in the Silk Road Language Web, this project will unravel the linguistic past of the Tarim Basin to make a groundbreaking contribution to the linguistic and migrational prehistory of Eurasia. Reconstructing the dates of the splits and spreads of Khotanese, Tumšuqese and Tocharian, it will establish their routes and dates of entry into the Tarim Basin. Further, Khotanese and Tocharian vocabulary of unclear origin will be scrutinised for traces of languages of the earlier Bronze Age populations. Finally, the linguistic developments will be followed into historical times, tracing how the attested languages were eventually shaped by the later formative impact of Middle Indic and Middle Iranian.

Mots-clés : historical linguistics linguistic prehistory language contact indo european tarim basin
Projet ERC : COMPASS (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cell Biology, Development, Stem Cells and R egeneration
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 : 2376824.0 €

In multicellular organisms, cell division not only drives the separation of the mother cell into daughter cells but also dictates the organization of the cells in a tissue, their identities, and functions. In walled organisms such as plants, the division plane's position irreversibly defines tissue topology and is tightly controlled. While the importance of division plane orientation for tissue topology is uncontested, research on division plane positioning primarily focuses on cell-autonomous cues. It has been hypothesized that tissue-scale mechanical stress may influence division plane orientation. Still, it needs to be clarified how such clues, let alone local tissue topology, are integrated into division plane positioning. Here, I will tackle this fundamental knowledge gap by integrating the cell division process in a multicellular context and considering cell division as a non-cell autonomous mechanism, relying on cues from the local environment. I propose a radical change of view where integrated mechanical (and possibly other) information at tricellular junctions provides a positional hallmark to guide division. This hypothesis stems from preliminary data in my team that further identified the actin cytoskeleton as a central actor in the perception/processing of mechanical cues, thereby locally integrating tissue topology to orient division. Using a combined approach of cell biology, genetics, and mechanical modeling at multiscale, we will investigate how plant cells orient their division by integrating biophysical and biochemical signals from surrounding tissues. In particular, we will address: How the dividing cell integrates the local neighborhood to orient the division plane? What are the molecular cues incorporating the mechanical and geometrical features to instruct cell division? What is the role of the cell division orientation at the organ scale? This work will allow me to build a mechanistic, multiscale vision of plant cell division positioning.
Projet ERC : bypassNMR (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Entité participante : Université de Dortmund — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999833.0 €

My objective is to establish methodology expanding the detailed characterization and exploitation of backbone dynamics in complex proteins up to 80-100 kDa monomer molecular weight. Experimental elucidation of protein motion is imperative for fundamental understanding of enzymatic and regulatory features. However, with a limit of regularly around 40-50 kDa maximum total mass, the more complex targets of current scientific interest usually evade solution NMR backbone resonance assignment and remain inaccessible for the majority of sophisticated methods for protein dynamics. This paradigmatic shortcoming has led to serious limitations in the understanding and exploitation of protein dynamics. Here I aim to achieve a two-fold expansion of the accessible molecular-weight range by an unprecedented hybrid strategy. Based on the unmatched prospects of 4D and 5D solid-state NMR (ssNMR) assignment data for a 2x72 kDa protein, I will establish proton-detected, higher-dimensionality ssNMR methodology as a powerful framework for NMR assignment in an unprecedented size range. Subsequently, developing strategies utilizing ssNMR assignments as a springboard to solution NMR will enable detailed characterization of those targets under close-to-physiological conditions. This fundamentally new BYPASS strategy will allow understanding of intramolecular regulatory circuits and coupled motional networks in innumerable, previously inaccessible complex proteins, with a transformative impact for dynamics, in particular allosteric regulation, in structural biology. Fueled by my role as a key player in revolutionizing solid-state NMR via proton-detected, fast magic-angle spinning NMR methodology, my achievements will be paradigmatic for the accessibility and utility of dynamics for the structure-dynamics-function relationship of proteins and will have widespread consequences for a wide range of structural biology and downstream applications such as pharmacology and biotechnology.

Mots-clés : solid state nmr spectroscopy,protein nmr,methods development
Projet ERC : SeaSALT (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
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 : 1999804.0 €

Seafloor spreading is the process that single-handedly shapes 2/3 of our planet, modulates the dynamics of deep ocean currents, controls the composition of seawater, and supports unique ecosystems that thrive in extreme environments. Discovered in the 1960s, it is now explained as the slow and steady divergence of 2 tectonic plates accommodated by magma emplacement and faulting at a mid-ocean ridge axis. In the current paradigm, the texture of the seafloor is primarily determined by the magmatically-accommodated fraction (M) of plate separation at the ridge axis. However, we do not know what sets the M fraction in the first place, and why it is subject to spatiotemporal fluctuations that can cause drastic shifts in seafloor spreading regimes. SeaSALT tackles this issue by rethinking seafloor spreading as a succession of discrete magmatic and tectonic events which, by inhibiting or triggering one another, self-consistently distribute magmatic and tectonic strain. To test this hypothesis, we will design brand-new simulations of seismo-volcanic cycles in which dike intrusions, earthquakes, or aseismic slip transients may occur in response to far-field extension and pressurization of a shallow magma reservoir. Each component of the model will be constrained by groundbreaking observations of seafloor spreading events and inter-event stress build-up at 3 target sites. This includes the most ambitious seafloor seismo-geodesy experiment to date across a ridge axis, and the development of a novel “hydrothermal geodesy” method that constrains sub-seafloor stress changes via the perturbations they impart on black smoker temperatures. The success of our new framework will be indexed on its ability to spontaneously generate the types of events documented at each site, while accounting for the M fraction and its multiscale variability, as recorded in high-resolution bathymetry. It will also help forecast hazards to rift populations and key submarine infrastructure.

Mots-clés : seafloor spreading mid ocean ridges faulting magmatism hydrothermal circulation