Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : DEMI (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de la Ruhr à Bochum — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2498079.0 €

It is our aim to transform the research field of electrocatalysis from the established “initial (as-synthesized) state approach” to a data-centric understanding of the metastable active interface of electrocatalysts, constantly evolving under reaction conditions. We want to overcome the limitations of elemental or binary alloy catalysts by exploring and exploiting high entropy materials (HEM) as a discovery platform for sustainable materials, with the aim to identify in the extremely large, multidimensional search space new electrocatalysts that are both stable and active. To understand and control the active interface of HEM electrocatalysts, we combine the core expertises of the PIs: theoretical modelling and simulations, high-throughput synthesis and characterization, nanoparticle synthesis, electrochemical operando techniques as well as machine learning. Our synergistic approach will significantly advance these individual competences by key conceptual innovations: (i) Evolutionary screening of micro-libraries to efficiently identify stable materials covering the complete HEM composition space; (ii) Accelerated atomic-scale characterization of HEM surfaces by combining combinatorial HEM synthesis with atom probe tomography; (iii) High-throughput operando experiments with thin film material libraries; (iv) Developing inverse activity-structure relationships and theoretical descriptors for metastability; v) Implementing active learning approaches based on materials informatics and using a semantic data lake. We will establish a theory of metastability as a core concept for the understanding of electrocatalysis for the most important energy conversion reactions: oxygen reduction and evolution, and CO2 reduction. Instead of passively accepting the degradation of catalysts during operation, we will direct the evolution through the highly multidimensional space towards long-lasting, active HEM interfaces.

Mots-clés : electrocatalysis,high entropy alloy catalysis,materials discovery,stability degradation
Projet ERC : CircuitEvolution (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Institut Francis Crick — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : The Crick
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 429031.25 €

Animals display remarkable diversity in their behaviors, yet very little is known about how nervous systems evolve to generate such variation. CircuitEvolution will answer two fundamental questions: 1. How does brain wiring change across species as novel behavioral traits evolve? 2. What core features of brain circuits are deeply conserved across species? We will use electron microscopy connectomics, the only method that enables unbiased, brain-wide structural analysis of the synaptic connectivity between all neurons. Building on recent rapid progress in Drosophila melanogaster, the frontier of whole brain connectomics, we will target drosophilids at a strategically selected range of evolutionary divergences. Two PIs (Cardona, Jefferis) are pioneers in Drosophila connectomics, and our third PI (Ruta) and collaborators (Prieto-Godino, Benton) have pioneered molecular genetic investigation of behavioral and circuit evolution across drosophilids. Crucially, with our fourth PI (statistical physicist, Sales Pardo), we will identify conserved and divergent neurons and circuits across increasingly distant species, developing new inference methods for connectome alignment, simplification, and neuron annotation. Working together on this project we can develop a new field of whole-brain comparative connectomics. With cutting edge technology, we will obtain and share multiple connectomes for 7 species. These unique datasets will allow comparisons across species, sexes and developmental stages and support three areas of biological investigation within this grant: olfactory circuits, courtship behavior and the conserved core of the insect brain. This will generate many hypotheses that will be tested experimentally by the PIs, collaborators and laboratories worldwide. The insights and methods will have a major impact on understanding conserved and evolving circuit function across phyla all the way to mammalian brains and impact the design of artificial intelligence systems.

Mots-clés : connectomics,neuronal evolution,neural circuits,drosophila,olfaction,sexual dimorphism,network analysis
Projet ERC : MEMELAND (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1760399.36 €

MEMELAND will pioneer the creation of Europe's first species-level ecological history, spanning the Roman era to the present day. Our research will unveil the persistent medieval influences in contemporary landscapes and biodiversity. This historical insight will inform proactive land management, conservation, and heritage-informed restoration, crucial for climate change mitigation. Our approach involves sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA), lipid biomarkers, multi-method chronologies, and archaeobotanical analysis at 50 strategically selected lake-pairs across northern and central Europe within three archaeological zones. Additionally, we will go deeper in time and investigate medieval landscape-lake interactions in 3 of the lake pairs. We'll reveal species-level biodiversity, for plants, animals (livestock, fish, birds and invertebrates) and plants-animal-soil pathogens (hologenomic level). Additionally, we'll explore sub-species and landraces within critical taxa (e.g. cereals and domestic livestock).  The geography of present biodiversity is a testament to medieval and early-modern agronomy, population, elite influence (lordship, ecclesiastical), cultivation systems (open-field system), technology (heavy plough) and natural ideologies. By using pairs of lakes, one associated with a high-status site and a nearby lakes with little archaeology, we'll generate geographically representative biodiversity data. This data will enable us to test hypotheses against archaeological, pollen and climate records, and reveal the geographic reality of the ‘medieval agricultural revolution’. Recent advances in sedaDNA analysis, and molecular preservation in temperate climates make MEMELAND a groundbreaking project in both Archaeology and European ecological history. Our work promises to reshape our understanding of the historical interplay between culture and nature and provide critical insights for sustainable land management and climate change mitigation in Europe.

Mots-clés : medieval archaeology,human ecodynamics,vegetation history,sedadna,biomarkers,landscape history,biodiversity,palaeolimnology,historical ecology,heritage management
Projet ERC : SUNRISE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2602644.0 €

Paediatric tumours represent a challenge in the landscape of cancer research. Unlike adult cancers, they typically originate from embryonic cells, from which they inherit characteristic embryonic features. This is exemplified by neuroblastoma (NB), the most common solid tumour in young children. NB is a heterogeneous cancer with aggressive metastatic forms, which emerges from neural crest cells. These cells normally undergo a complex migratory process that depends on the functions of cell surface signalling receptors. In a recent, ground-breaking study we found that NB cells co-opt one specific family of these receptors (UNC5) and the ligand GPC3 to disseminate (Cell 2022). Disruption of this interaction in vivo impacted on cell cohesion, migratory properties and redirected tumour localisation. Here we provide unpublished data analysis, suggesting that an entire UNC5 interaction network, involving multiple different ligands besides GPC3, is at play in malignant NB. Understanding the mechanisms driving NB cell aggressive behaviours requires investigation of this network in the embryonic context. A key strength of the proposal is our unique approach bringing molecular/structural biology to in vivo experiments. Our strategy maximises the use of targeted, structure-based perturbation experiments, where we control the activity of individual receptor interaction precisely, in vivo. We also have the necessary access to patient samples and will use our innovative avian xenograft model which recapitulates the embryonic environment of NB. In a final workpackage we will apply our strategy, developed with a focus on NB, to two other paediatric cancers where UNC5 is expressed. In sum, the results of SUNRISE will produce a first detailed picture of the ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ UNC5 network interactions drive paediatric cancer biology, and could lead to new therapeutics, for example, using nanobody technology.

Mots-clés : membrane receptor,cell migration,cell cell interactions,neuro developmental cancer,neuroblastoma,structural biology,embryonic neuro development
Projet ERC : OCEAN (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Warwick — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

Until recently, most of the major advances in machine learning and decision making have focused on a centralized paradigm in which data are aggregated at a central location to train models and/or decide on actions. This paradigm faces serious flaws in many real-world cases. In particular, centralized learning risks exposing user privacy, makes inefficient use of communication resources, creates data processing bottlenecks, and may lead to concentration of economic and political power. It thus appears most timely to develop the theory and practice of a new form of machine learning that targets heterogeneous, massively decentralized networks, involving self-interested agents who expect to receive value (or rewards, incentive) for their participation in data exchanges.  OCEAN will develop statistical and algorithmic foundations for systems involving multiple incentive-driven learning and decision-making agents, including uncertainty quantification at the agent's level. OCEAN will study the interaction of learning with market constraints (scarcity, fairness), connecting adaptive microeconomics and market-aware machine learning.  OCEAN builds on a decade of joint advances in stochastic optimization, probabilistic machine learning, statistical inference, Bayesian assessment of uncertainty, computation, game theory, and information science, with PIs having complementary and internationally recognized skills in these domains. OCEAN will shed new light on the value and handling of data in a competitive, potentially antagonistic multi-agent environment, and develop new theories and methods to address these pressing challenges. OCEAN requires a fundamental departure from standard approaches and leads to major scientific interdisciplinary endeavors that will transform statistical learning in the long term while opening up exciting and novel areas of research.

Mots-clés : machine learning,federated learning,computational game theory,multi armed bandits,bayesian inference,markov chain monte carlo,multi agent reinforcement learning,online matching markets,data market,incentive
Projet ERC : DECOLeishRN (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Institut Pasteur — Pays : France — Rôle : CO-PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3134594.0 €

Darwinian evolution plays a central yet poorly understood role in human disease. Iterations between genetic mutation and environmental selection drive cancer development, microbial infection and therapeutic failure, thus increasing human mortality. The molecular mechanisms that harness the deleterious effects of genome instability to generate beneficial phenotypes in these pathogenic systems are unknown. Here we investigate this important unsolved question in the protozoan parasite Leishmania that causes devastating human infections. In the absence of transcriptional regulation, these early-branching eukaryotes exploit genome instability to regulate expression by gene dosage. Leishmania thus represents an ideal system to investigate how genome instability drives fitness gain in fast evolving, eukaryotic cells, such as observed during cancer development. Synergizing our expertise in genomics, evolution, systems and RNA biology, we have recently made several breakthrough discoveries that link parasite fitness gain to epistatic interactions between co-amplifying genes of small, non-coding RNAs, which program epitranscriptomic and translational regulation. We hypothesize that these genome/RNome interactions generate the phenotypic landscape underlying Leishmania fitness gain. Our proposal investigates this ground-breaking concept through two Specific Aims that (i) combine experimental parasite differentiation and evolution in vitro and in vivo to reveal molecular mechanisms underlying Leishmania predictive adaptation and fitness gain, and (ii) investigate how RNA modification and non-coding RNAs contribute to adaptation by regulating mRNA stability and translational control. Our findings will be highly relevant to other fast growing, eukaryotic systems that rely on genome instability, such as cancer or fungal pathogens.

Mots-clés : eukaryotic fitness gain,genome instability,leishmania,non coding rna,post transcriptional control,translational regulation
Projet ERC : MaScAmp (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3035485.0 €

MaScAmp proposes a new paradigm for fundamental interactions in physics in the form of a unified mathematical approach to scattering amplitudes. The project brings together a multidisciplinary team with expertise in pure mathematics and theoretical physics who will develop a set of novel and efficient algorithmic methods with applications in mathematics, particle physics and gravity.  Discoveries in many areas of fundamental physics depend upon a detailed understanding of the scattering of particles. Modern experiments, such as particle colliders and gravitational-wave detectors, demand high-precision theoretical computations to make new discoveries. These are deduced from physical models by a highly labour-intensive process relying on the calculation of scattering amplitudes, which assign probabilities to particle interactions. Despite a tremendous worldwide effort over many decades, the methods used to compute increasingly complex scattering amplitudes remain disparate and fragmented. The work of the PIs in distinct domains suggests unexpected symmetries and universal rules obeyed by scattering amplitudes in different-looking areas of physics. This calls for a radically new way of studying scattering amplitudes.  MaScAmp will create a unified framework for the calculation of general scattering amplitudes by building upon the latest research in mathematics, notably in algebraic geometry and number theory. As a result, MaScAmp will overcome longstanding computational bottlenecks, push the boundaries of numerous areas of theoretical physics, such as quantum field theory, gravity and string theory, and inspire new mathematical research. A widely applicable computer software implementation will enable physicists to make previously inaccessible predictions for present and future experiments. A project of MaScAmp’s scope and ambition is only achievable by combining the unique expertise of the PIs in complementary areas of mathematics and physics.

Mots-clés : scattering amplitudes,feynman integrals,iterated integrals,periods,motivic galois theory,string theory,symbolic integration,moduli spaces,modular forms,polylogarithms
Projet ERC : MakingBlood (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de technologie d'Eindhoven — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 967355.0 €

Life-saving blood cell replacement depends on voluntary donors. Availability is a challenge for specific groups, and 25% of patients needing blood stem cell transplants lack a compatible donor. The ideal alternative is clinical-scale production of Haematopoietic Stem Cells (HSC) from laboratory-maintained tissue-compatible sources, to provide an off-the-shelf source of blood cells. HSC are generated in the aorta/gonad/mesonephros region of the embryo, expand in the foetal liver, and are maintained in the bone marrow of adults. Current attempts to generate HSC in vitro do not consider the changing cellular, chemical, and physical characteristics of the different environments met by HSC in vivo from embryo to adult, and have been unable to reliably produce functional HSC. MakingBlood aims to establish a proof-of-concept platform for robust generation of human HSC from pluripotent stem cells by developing a self-organising gastruloid model of embryonic HSC generation without genetic manipulation, and successively recapitulating the natural foetal and adult HSC development environments. MakingBlood brings together an expert in HSC embryonic development, a national blood bank research director with expertise in adult HSC, an expert in molecular regulation of cell fate choices, and a bioengineer with expertise in mechanical and chemical integration for tissue production to deliver this breakthrough platform. By using state-of-the-art technology and multidisciplinary approaches, we will systematically detangle cellular, chemical, and physical properties of natural HSC generation, amplification and maintenance microenvironments, and iteratively identify essential elements that enable and promote HSC function. We will integrate key elements into modular scalable engineered niches to establish a HSC production platform, which can be developed as a bioreactor for on-demand blood production, and eventually replace donations as the clinical source of HSC and mature blood cells.

Mots-clés : gastruloids,engineered stem cell niches,mechanobiology,hematopoietic stem cells,developmental hematopoiesis
Projet ERC : CartoHostBug (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Institut Karolinska — Pays : Suède — Rôle : CO-PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2827592.22 €

Microbiome-host crosstalk is crucial for gut homeostasis and its dysregulation is a hallmark of diseases such as colorectal cancer (CRC) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Despite its key relevance for a holistic understanding of the human superorganism and its (patho-)physiology, how local host-microbiome interactions form specific niches in the gut and how these niches function at the cellular and molecular level remains unexplored, mainly due to a lack of suitable technologies. To fill this gap, we propose to jointly reconstruct the host transcriptional and microbiome compositional landscape of the human gut across a large number of healthy individuals as well as IBD and CRC patients. For this, we will leverage a combination of novel spatial profiling technologies for unbiased transcriptome sequencing and microbiome profiling at single-cell resolution in situ. First, we will spatially delineate local niches formed of specific microbes and host cells. To dissect this complex crosstalk into specific interactions, we will secondly use in vitro and in vivo models to introduce perturbations either on the host or the microbiome side. Finally, we will integrate the resulting data to deconvolute host-microbiome circuits computationally and to predict functional niches, in particular host responses to pathogens of relevance in IBD and CRC. Interesting predictions will be tested in organoid and animal models. Developing a spatially resolved computational model of the gut ecosystem will allow us to predict early local events in disease onset; from these we will identify and validate prognostic IBD and CRC biomarkers for future clinical translation.  This work will revolutionize our understanding of intestinal host-microbiome interactions by adding a first-ever functionally resolved spatial dimension with clinical relevance for the future diagnosis and treatment of intestinal disorders.

Mots-clés : spatial transcriptomics spatial microbiome analysis host microbiome interactions mucosal immunology intestinal diseases colorectal cancer gut
Projet ERC : Bright Chips (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de technologie d'Eindhoven — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : CO-PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 5089483.25 €

Our vision is to revolutionize information and quantum technologies by blending photonic and electronic functionality onto a single chip. This long-standing challenge has remained unattainable because chips, fabricated by mainstream silicon technology, cannot emit light. Computer chips would be much faster and consume far less energy if they would operate with light. In addition, optical functionality will be transformative for quantum computation since silicon technologies are by far the most scalable allowing the connection of millions of quantum bits using light. We envision to realize light-emitting chips by changing the most fundamental property of a given material – the way in which the atoms are arranged in space. Hereby, we explore a novel material, hexagonal SiGe, with an atomic arrangement that differs from the natural cubic material, rendering it optically active. We will understand light emission mechanisms in the classical and quantum regimes, when many, few and even single photons are generated on demand. Moreover, we will elucidate the optical and electrical properties of quantum structures, aiming for landmark experiments, each of which can open a new research field: i) a SiGe-based laser, which demonstrates the photonic potential of the material, and is a device directly relevant for optical communication on a chip, ii) a SiGe quantum light source, which uniquely combines the stability of the quantum state with optical functionality and iii) spin quantum bits that can be rapidly manipulated, upscaled and are long-lived due to the expected material properties.  In the ultimate experiments, we connect the advantageous opto-electronic properties of this new material system and investigate i) active photonic circuits in which light is switched by light, and ii) the transduction of a static electronic quantum state (spin) into a propagating photonic state to connect distant qubits.

Mots-clés : crystal growth,nanolaser,quantum photonics,silicon quantum electronics,spin qubit