Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : LONGSPIN (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CEA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1998423.0 €

With the miniaturization of electronic devices, the semiconductor industry has to deal with complex technical barriers and is forced to introduce novel and innovative concepts. The project proposal is exactly in line with this new paradigm as it proposes to divert CMOS technology to explore a new path for quantum spintronics. Concretely the project aims at using spin-orbit interaction present in the valence band of silicon to drive ultra-fast and ultra-coherent hole spin quantum bits (qubits). The proposal builds on the first demonstration by the principal investigator of a hole spin qubit electrically driven in silicon. While spins are excellent quantum bits, their long-range coupling remains a challenge to tackle towards complex quantum computing architectures. Here I propose to take up this challenge using a microwave photon as a quantum mediator between qubits in silicon. The LONGSPIN project presents a unique approach by leveraging a standard silicon-on-insulator CMOS process for the implementation of the qubits co-integrated with superconducting microwave resonators. This research project will provide a CMOS quantum toolkit with optimized designs and materials for fast and coherent qubits with a profound understanding of the physical limitations to hole spin coherence and hole qubit gate fidelity in silicon. Eventually a microwave photon used as a quantum bus will allow the transfer of quantum information between distant spin qubits.

Mots-clés : quantum dot,spin qubit,cmos technology,silicon,superconducting microwave resonator
Projet ERC : VAPLCS (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Tel Aviv University — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1449528.0 €

With the proliferation of multi-core processors, concurrent programming regularly appears at the core of heavily relied-upon systems, where both performance and correctness are of paramount importance. The canonical concurrency model is sequential consistency-identifying concurrent programs with all possible interleavings of operations of their constitute threads. It is a simple model for programmers, but unsatisfactory as a programming language concurrency semantics. First, performance-wise, it is too costly to implement. In fact, no commodity hardware provides sequential consistency. Second, the number of interleavings is often so large, posing the infamous "state explosion problem" as the utmost obstacle to any verification attempt. Our overarching goal is to develop a novel concurrency semantics for programming languages that will: allow efficient implementation; provide easily usable guarantees, sufficiently strong for concurrent algorithms; and be amenable to scalable verification. To achieve this, we will leverage our recent advances in addressing the flaws in the C/C++ and Java specifications and in model checking under certain weak concurrency semantics. Moreover, we will develop practical verification methods to facilitate the task of concurrent programming. This proposal makes a conceptual leap beyond the state-of-the-art, by identifying the development of a weak concurrency semantics not only as an unfortunate necessity, but also as an opportunity to revolutionize software verification. It is high-risk: it tackles a longstanding open problem in programming languages. It is also high-gain: it will significantly increase the applicability of verification, bridge a major gap between verification research and practical concurrent programming, and shed light on the role of the underlying semantics. I aim for the proposed concurrency semantics to provide new foundations for the specifications of mainstream and emerging programming languages.

Mots-clés : semantics,verification,concurrency,weak memory,weak consistency
Projet ERC : NanoMMES (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Imperial College London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499871.0 €

With the rapid development of renewable energy such as solar and wind power, energy storage technologies are in urgent need to integrate the low carbon energy into the power grid. Redox flow batteries are promising for grid scale energy storage owing to their scalable storage capacity, decoupled power and energy, long-term cycle performance, and quick response time. Membrane separators play a crucial role in flow batteries by selectively transporting ions while preventing the crossover of redox-active materials. Commercial Nafion membranes are being widely used for flow batteries, however, their high costs limit the large-scale application of this promising technology. Next-generation low-cost membranes with high ionic conductivity and selectivity, and durability are desirable for flow battery energy storage. This proposal NanoMMES aims at designing and nanoengineering low-cost, high-performance, ion-selective microporous membranes for redox flow battery energy storage applications. The objectives of NanoMMES will be achieved through curiosity-driven research into (1) designing the structures of microporous polymers to precisely tune the pore size and ion-conducting functionality required for batteries with different redox chemistries; (2) processing and nanoengineering polymers into highly conductive and selective membranes, and understanding the mechanisms of transport of ions and redox materials; (3) combining the designer membranes with redox flow battery chemistries to achieve efficient and stable energy storage. NanoMMES will undertake interdisciplinary research combining the molecular design of microporous polymers, membrane science and engineering, and redox flow battery chemistry and technology. The ultimate goal of the project is to generate design principles for next-generation ion-selective membranes that will have broad implications on advanced batteries for energy storage, helping the EU develop renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Projet ERC : DistMaP (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 792000.0 €

With the rapidly growing size of the data and the pervasiveness of distributed systems and networks, it is a certainty that distributed and parallel computations will play a vital role in the computations of the future. This project aims to advance our understanding of the foundational aspects of these areas. We tackle some of the central questions in distributed algorithms and massively parallel algorithms for graph problems, which require us to go well-beyond the current state of the art. Our research plan involves three directions: - Developing efficient and particularly polylogarithmic-time deterministic distributed algorithms for some of the central graph problems of the area. Our hope is to do this through a general derandomization method that removes the randomness from efficient randomized algorithms. This question underlies some of the well-known open problems of the area. - Developing improved and particularly sublogarithmic-time randomized distributed algorithms for some of the central local graph problems of the area, thus hopefully narrowing or ideally closing this decade old gap to the respective lower bounds. - Developing improved massively parallel algorithms for some of the fundamental graph problems, with a special focus on the challenging regime of lower memory machines, which remains widely open. Given the high risk nature of these questions, in each direction, besides our plan of attack on the bigger and more ambitious objectives, we also explain a number of smaller problems, which should be more feasible, and which would serve as stepping stones toward the bigger goal. Moreover, we are hopeful that the simultaneous study of distributed algorithms and massively parallel will lead to a strengthening of the connections between these two areas and would also bring the related scientific communities closer to each other.

Mots-clés : distributed graph algorithms,massively parallel graph algorithms,local algorithms,theory of distributed computing
Projet ERC : PLASMECS (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : TU Wien — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TUW
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1497550.0 €

With their unparalleled mass and force sensitivities, nanomechanical resonators have the potential to considerably improve existing sensor technology. However, one major obstacle still stands in the way of their practical use: The efficient transduction (actuation & detection) of the vibrational motion of such tiny structures. Localized plasmon resonances "focus" optical fields below the diffraction limit of light and present a powerful new method to optically transduce the vibrational motion of nanomechanical structures. The objective of this project is to establish for the first time a complete plasmonic transduction in novel NanoPlasmoMechanical Systems (NaPlaMS). This new method is easy to implement and enables the freespace addressability and efficient transduction of mesoscopic (sub-wavelength) plasmonic pillar arrays. I will explore the ground-breaking new properties of NaPlaMS pillar arrays in three mutually supporting subprojects (SP). SP1 studies fundamental aspects of plasmomechanics by integrating nanoplasmonic antennas of various geometry and materials on highly force sensitive string resonators. These devices allow the unique optical and mechanical study of i) plasmonic quantum tunneling and ii) optical forces between plasmonic nanostructures of various shapes and materials. SP2 will make use of the strong plasmomechanical light-interaction of the high frequency NaPlaMS pillars for the development of next generation reconfigurable metamaterial for optic modulation. Compared to state-of-the-art bulky and powerhungry modulators, NaPlaMS modulators will be low-power and sub-wavelength-size as required for future optic telecommunication and consumer products. SP3 utilizes the exceptional mass sensitivity of NaPlaMS pillar arrays to create unique mass sensors. The goal is to create a sensor for native & neutral protein mass spectrometry to provide a revolutionary small and cheap tool for proteomics, which will accelerate the development of protein drugs.
Projet ERC : USNAC (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
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 : 1437188.0 €

With this proposal I aim at removing astrophysical biases in SN cosmology that limit improvements in the derivation of properties of the dark energy (DE). DE is the cause of the recent acceleration of the expansion of the Universe and accounts for ~70% of its total energy. The initial discovery based on distance measurements from Type Ia Supernovae (SNeIa) has since been confirmed with several independent probes. Today, the goal of cosmology is to understand the nature of DE, and SNeIa remain a central probe for this endeavor. However, the nature of SNeIa remains largely unknown, which limits our ability to accurately trace the properties of the Universe. The proposed research program focuses on solving this problem. The project takes place at the frontier between astronomy, cosmology and data-science, and consists of three main interconnected work-packages: 1. Understand the influence of the interstellar dust on the SN reddening, based on the unique combination of ground based spectrophotometry and high-resolution HST (space) UltraViolet-photometry; 2. Map SN progenitor variations across environments through next-generation large-scale transient surveys; 3. Combine the knowledge of the two former packages into a unique SN framework capable of adapting as the Universe evolves across time and distance. This will be used to derive accurate measurement of the Hubble constant and the dark energy equation of state parameters. The project is made possible by a combination of state-of-the-art SN and galactic datasets from ZTF, SNfactory and an ongoing Hubble Space Telescope program of up to 136 orbits (PI: Rigault). The HST data will enable the first measurement of stellar-age and the interstellar dust at the SN location.

Mots-clés : supernova
Projet ERC : BioInspired_SolarH2 (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Institut Català d'Investigació Química — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ICIQ;ICIQ-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

With this proposal, I aim to achieve the efficient conversion of solar energy to hydrogen. The overall objective is to engineer bio-inspired systems able to convert solar energy into a separation of charges and to construct devices by coupling these systems to catalysts in order to drive sustainable and effective water oxidation and hydrogen production. The global energy crisis requires an urgent solution, we must replace fossil fuels for a renewable energy source: Solar energy. However, the efficient and inexpensive conversion and storage of solar energy into fuel remains a fundamental challenge. Currently, solar-energy conversion devices suffer from energy losses mainly caused by disorder in the materials used. The solution to this problem is to learn from nature. In photosynthesis, the photosystem II reaction centre (PSII RC) is a pigment-protein complex able to overcome disorder and convert solar photons into a separation of charges with near 100% efficiency. Crucially, the generated charges have enough potential to drive water oxidation and hydrogen production. Previously, I have investigated the charge separation process in the PSII RC by a collection of spectroscopic techniques, which allowed me to formulate the design principles of photosynthetic charge separation, where coherence plays a crucial role. Here I will put these knowledge into action to design efficient and robust chromophore-protein assemblies for the collection and conversion of solar energy, employ organic chemistry and synthetic biology tools to construct these well defined and fully controllable assemblies, and apply a complete set of spectroscopic methods to investigate these engineered systems. Following the approach Understand, Engineer, Implement, I will create a new generation of bio-inspired devices based on abundant and biodegradable materials that will drive the transformation of solar energy and water into hydrogen, an energy-rich molecule that can be stored and transported.

Mots-clés : electronic properties,molecular architecture,structure properties relations,coherence enhanced function
Projet ERC : PneumoCaTChER (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and Immunotherapy
Entité participante : University of Lausanne — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNIL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999735.0 €

Within clonal bacterial populations not all cells exhibit the same phenotype, even though they grow in the same environment. The molecular sources contributing to phenotypic variation are diverse and can originate from noise in gene expression to heterogeneity in growth rates or cell cycle state. Phenotypic variation helps pathogenic bacteria to elude the host immune response or resist antibiotic pressure. Vice versa, there is cell-to-cell variability in the host’s response towards pathogens that can be exploited by bacteria. How the combined cellular heterogeneity of both host and microbe contribute to infection outcome is poorly understood. The role of phenotypic variation on antibiotic resistance development is also unclear. Recently, we developed novel single cell imaging systems as well as genetic engineering and screening platforms for application to the important opportunistic human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae. In addition, we generated a dual-transcriptomics overview of pneumococcal infection of human lung epithelial cells and setup collaborations to perform several infection models. This now places us in an excellent position to investigate the mechanisms and the importance of single cell behaviour for pneumococcal virulence and antibiotic resistance. The driving hypothesis of this application is that the combined heterogeneity of host cells and pneumococci influences infection and antibiotic therapy outcome. To test this, we will use innovative approaches for infection biology by combining synthetic biology and quantitative single cell biology including single cell RNA-seq, CRISPRi, engineered bistable switches and microfluidics. We will reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying cell-to-cell variability and its importance in virulence and antibiotic resistance. Insights obtained in this project will lead to a better understanding of phenotypic variation and might result in new treatment strategies for pneumococcal infections.

Mots-clés : streptococcus pneumoniae,stochasticity,bistability,host microbe interaction,antibiotic resistance,heteroresistance,rna seq,single cell analysis,noise,microfluidics,crispri
Projet ERC : PsychAID (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : University of Münster — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WWU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149375.0 €

Within the frame of the ERC LiPsyD we have shown that recently discovered that the phospholipid LPA acts as a synaptic modulator playing a major role in regulating cortical excitability and being involved in psychiatric disorders (Trimbuch et al., 2009; Unichenko et al., 2016; Vogt et al., 2016; Vogt et al., 2017). Using specific small molecule inhibitors like PF8380, which target the LPA-synthesizing molecule autotaxin (ATX), we were able to decrease cortical hyperexcitability and to rescue disease-specific behavior in different animal models for schizophrenia to wild type (WT) levels. These results generated within the ERC LiPsyD demonstrate that ATX-inhibition is effective in treating psychiatric disorders (Vogt et al., 2016). Since current therapy for schizophrenia targeting cortical hyperexcitability is not available, ATX-inhibitors which act on excitatory neurotransmission and are effective in treating psychiatric disorders have a huge commercial potential in this 120 billion euro market (Olesen et al., 2012). To proceed towards the commercial application of ATX-inhibitors, the PI has teamed up with Merck and was granted a patent for the use of ATX-inhibitors for brain disorders (WO 2017/071799). Briefly, the patent covers the use of the ATX-inhibitors for the therapy of brain diseases (covering psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and eating disorders but also cerebrovascular disorders) and the use of a latest generation of ATX-inhibitors (MSC 2285264 and MSC2358829), which are comparable to the most potent currently available ATX-inhibitors, are suitable for in-vivo application and have a positive toxicological profile. However, before starting clinical trials, the pharmacological profile and the effectiveness of the novel ATX inhibitors for treatment of psychiatric disorders have to be assessed. This PoC aims therefore to the preclinical characterization of these ATX-inhibitors which is a critical step towards their commercialization

Mots-clés : psychiatric disorders,schizophrenia,bioactive phospholipids,synapse,atx inhibitors,animal models
Projet ERC : WoCaFi (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Aalto University — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1481008.0 €

WoCaFi envisions a game-changing approach for the production of bio-based carbon fibers in which the drawbacks of traditional cellulose and lignin fibers are entirely bypassed by a new type of hybrid precursor fibers containing simultaneously all wood biopolymers cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. These unique fully wood-based multi-component filaments are accessible via a novel ionic liquid-based dry-jet wet spinning technique. The process provides the possibility to orientate lignin and hemicellulose embedded in a cellulose matrix. The special morphology of the resulting composite filaments is envisioned to increase the mechanical properties of thereof derived carbon fibers significantly, targeting 2000 MPa tensile strength and 200 GPa tensile modulus. These bio-based, low cost carbon fibers will reduce the dependency on non-renewable petroleum-based feedstocks and are highly suitable for lightweight applications in the automotive, sports and leisure sectors. Most distinctively, our technique also enables us to spin wood almost in its native form. Thus, the pretreatment steps and intensity can be reduced drastically and pronounced synergistic effects between the bio-polymers are created. This will lead to higher carbon yields and a significantly enhanced graphitization. In very recent initial trials on a continuous single tow carbonization line we found indicators that the oxidation step, typically accounting for almost 50% of the carbonization heating energy costs, can be reduced or omitted completely depending on the lignin content of the precursor fiber. This – in combination with activated wood as low cost raw material – would be the absolute game changer in developing low-cost, bio-based carbon fibers. In this project the PI, who has developed the spinning technique and a strong background in organic chemistry and spinning physics, will lead a group of 2 PhD students and 1 Postdoc. The Postdoc will complement the team with enhanced spectroscopic knowledge.