Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : E3-SUBSTRATES (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative B iology : from Genes and Genomes to S ystems
Entité participante : Université de Cambridge — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1528843.0 €

As the primary route through which eukaryotic cells achieve selective protein degradation, the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) plays a key role in virtually all critical cellular processes. A major unresolved question concerns how the ubiquitin system attains such high selectivity towards its myriad of substrates. The main specificity determinants are the E3 ubiquitin ligases, which recognise cognate ‘degron’ motifs found in substrate proteins. However, for the majority of the ~600 E3 ligases encoded in the human genome we still have little or no knowledge as to their substrates, and our understanding of degron motifs remains limited. This knowledge gap prevents us from appreciating how key cellular processes are regulated and impedes the development of small molecules capable of either inhibiting or hijacking E3 ligases for therapeutic benefit. To complement the biochemical and proteomic techniques that have served as the primary route to discovery in the field, we seek to exploit functional genetic approaches to understand how E3 ligases recognise their substrates. Leveraging an expression screening platform that enables proteome-wide stability profiling, our specific goals are to: (1) identify physiological substrates regulated via degrons lying at their extreme C-termini, (2) define novel mechanisms through which conditional protein degradation is achieved via phospho-degrons, and (3) characterise the spectrum of degradative pathways responsible for the instability of hundreds of the most short-lived cellular proteins. For each goal, we will first provide global insight by systematically interrogating the proteome for relevant substrates; for the most interesting candidates, we will then seek detailed mechanistic understanding to illuminate new biology. Successful completion of this work will transform our understanding of how specificity is achieved within the UPS and greatly facilitate its future therapeutic manipulation.

Mots-clés : ubiquitin proteasome system protein degradation genetic screens
Projet ERC : VIBEBOT (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université technologique de Dresde — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Dresden
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 620750.0 €

Wireless micro-robots hold great potential for minimally-invasive medicine, since they may allow for targeted drug delivery, in vivo sensing, stimulation, and even new surgical procedures. However, the biggest hurdle for biomedical applications is the penetration of real biological media, for instance, mucus, vitreous, blood clots and tumour tissues. Most current micro-/nano-robots can propel in water, however, the same propulsion mechanisms do not readily transfer to viscoelastic biological media. One major bottleneck is that it is not possible to exert enough force for propulsion in a system that could one day also accommodate a human. The overall goal of this proposal is to develop vibrational microdevices that can actively propel and wirelessly sense in viscoelastic biological tissues. The excited mechanical vibration is coupled with the frequency-dependent fluidic rheology to increase the energy release rate, to reduce the penetration force needed for tissue rupture, and thus to facilitate an easier penetration of the tissues. We will investigate the fundamental mechanisms of propulsion at low Reynolds number in viscoelastic materials. The microrheology of the biological fluids will be measured and modelled, and it will allow us to optimize the shape and gait of the micro-robot to exploit the complex rheological properties of biological tissues and generate propulsion. The proposed work will also advance three-dimensional fabrication technologies for asymmetric micro-/nanostructures as key elements to interact with tissues to facilitate efficient locomotion. We will also develop novel sensing methods for in vivo sensing and localization of the microdevices. Our research will lead to a new class of micro-robots - the VIBEBOTS that will be able to actively penetrate real tissues, and open up outstanding opportunities for useful biomedical applications.

Mots-clés : bio rheology,mechanical vibrations,micro robotics,micro propulsion,microdevices,biomedical engineering
Projet ERC : PhotoMat (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Entité participante : Université technologique de Dresde — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Dresden
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1493750.0 €

The PhotoMat project will develop highly accurate methods for the prediction of excited-state properties and dynamics of materials interfaces based on ab initio Green's function theory in the GW approximation. Insight into the intricate processes unfolding after photoexcitation is crucial to realizing the vision of ‘materials by design’. A detailed understanding of experiment requires aid from theory. However, currently there is no computational method available, which can provide reliable excited-state nuclear forces for materials. I propose here to advance the GW-Bethe-Salpeter equation formalism (BSE@GW), which is computationally very expensive. While GW is considered the gold standard for the computation of band structures, the BSE@GW scheme is the method of choice for describing the formation of excitons (bound electron-hole pairs) in materials. I recently contributed to pushing GW to system sizes of up to 1000 atoms, often required to model materials interfaces. I will leverage these advancements to overcome the restriction of BSE@GW to small systems, enabling calculations of similar size. This will be achieved by reducing the scaling of the BSE step with respect to system size combined with an efficient implementation of periodic boundary conditions and optimization of the algorithm for execution on the emerging generation of exascale supercomputers. Excited-state geometry optimization will be enabled by implementing accurate analytic nuclear BSE forces. Non-adiabatic molecular dynamics will be unlocked by combining the low-scaling BSE energies and forces with surface hopping schemes and machine learning potentials. I will employ the newly developed methods to investigate promising candidates for tailored photonic devices. This will include the study of photoisomerization reactions at 2D materials and the formation of charge-transfer excitons in moiré structures. PhotoMat is here the crucial link that bridges the divide between theory and experiment.

Mots-clés : theoretical spectroscopy,gw,bse,green s function theory,non adiabatic molecular dynamics,high performance computing,excited state forces,machine learning
Projet ERC : BIOCOMP (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Université technologique de Dresde — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Dresden
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499830.0 €

Forests play a central role for global carbon cycling and biodiversity. Yet, the unabated continuation of climate change and increasing anthropogenic pressure on forest resources are altering forest ecosystems by modifying species composition and ecosystem processes. Increasing temperatures are likely to increase decomposition rates and thus carbon emissions, while the opposite effect may be expected from loss of decomposer biodiversity as land-use intensity increases. However, it remains unknown how climate change and land use interactively shape decomposer communities, decomposition rates and carbon fluxes. This limits the ability to model the future of the global forest carbon sink as well as of forest policy and management to counteract undesired developments. Here, I will investigate the joint effects of climate change and land use on decomposer communities and carbon fluxes from wood decomposition at the global scale, as well as the underlying processes and mechanisms. Making use of an operating network of 60 research sites on six continents, I will study how biodiversity-decomposition relationships and effects of land use change along global climate gradients. Empirical results will be used to model carbon fluxes from wood decomposition at the global scale and to generate projections of carbon fluxes under different scenarios of forest use and climate change. Extensive experiments will be conducted both in the field and in walk-in climate chambers to identify which facet of biodiversity drives wood decomposition and to unravel the mechanisms behind the climate-dependency of biodiversity-decomposition relationships. The BIOCOMP project will bring about a new level of understanding of how biodiversity and carbon cycling in forest ecosystems worldwide will change as a result of climate change and land use, and it will provide the data and strategies to tackle one of the most pressing challenges of current climate and forest policy.

Mots-clés : biodiversity change,carbon cycling,forest,insect decline
Projet ERC : ENZYME-DCC (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
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 : 1499993.0 €

Biomolecular templates define the outcomes of enzymatic reactions in some of the most fundamental of biological processes, such as DNA replication, transcription and translation. In synthetic chemistry, molecular templates have enabled the synthesis of highly complex molecular architectures and interlocked structures. The possibility to use synthetic templates to direct enzymatic reactions and obtain alternative products to those generated in Nature will be investigated in this project. The overall objective of this research programme is to explore a conceptually new approach to the use of enzymes for chemical synthesis and thus establish a new synthetic methodology - Template-Directed Enzyme-Mediated Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry. We will exploit the inherent reversibility of enzymatic reactions to generate dynamic chemical networks, which can be manipulated via supramolecular interactions with artificial template molecules to promote the preferential synthesis of specific products. To implement this novel concept, we will develop an unprecedented, templated, enzymatic approach to oligosaccharide synthesis. We will explore dynamic systems of interconverting glycans with the goal of accessing unusual or challenging oligosaccharide products. The specific aims are: 1. To achieve templated enzymatic selective synthesis of large-ring cyclodextrins (cyclodextrins (CDs) with more than 8 glucose units). 2. To explore cyclodextrin glucanotransferase-mediated dynamic mixtures of modified CDs, and, using thiol-functionalised CDs, develop a doubly dynamic system that combines reversible transglycosylation with disulfide exchange. 3. To generate phosphorylase-mediated dynamic mixtures of linear α-1,4-glycans and employ templates to achieve length- and sequence-selective synthesis. 4. To establish a fuelled far-from-equilibrium system for continuous large-ring CD synthesis using templates together with a series of interconnected dynamic enzymatic transformations.

Mots-clés : dynamic covalent chemistry,systems chemistry,enzymology,carbohydrates
Projet ERC : POLLCLIM (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Université de Lund — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Pollinator population declines and changes in assemblage composition are among the best documented and most worryDeclines in pollinator populations and changes in the composition of local pollinator assemblages are among the best documented and most worrying consequences of ongoing environmental disruptions. The POLLCLIM project aims to better understand the consequences of these changes in “pollination climate” for animal-pollinated plants. We will develop a novel conceptual framework for analysing plant adaptation to a functionally diverse set of pollinators and apply it in empirical studies of a pollination-generalized wildflower. Through observational field studies, controlled experiments and tailored statistical modelling approaches, we will evaluate the contributions of individual pollinators to natural selection on flowers and other plant phenotypic traits functionally involved in the pollination process, and how well these refined estimates of pollinator-mediated selection extrapolate to evolutionary population divergence. Our conceptual framework emphasizes the (likely non-additive) individual contributions of each pollinator species in pollination-generalized plants visited by a functionally diverse set of pollinators. Building on three years of preparatory work, we will study a set of 50 plant populations in southern Scandinavia. Annual population surveys will inform on phenotypic adaptation to local pollinators, well-replicated selection studies will inform on spatio-temporal variation in selection, single-pollinator flight-cage experiments will allow us to estimate the contribution of each pollinator taxon to selection, and quantitative-genetic analyses will evaluate the relative influence of natural selection and genetic constraints in population divergence. The expected results will be of direct value for understanding plant responses to pollination climate change, and more generally the role of selection in the link between micro- and macroevolution.

Mots-clés : quantitative genetics,generalized pollination systems
Projet ERC : REF-FIN (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université de Lund — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1498756.0 €

Over the last decade, following a general decline in aid from traditional bilateral and multilateral donors, the international community has dramatically changed the way in which it seeks to fund humanitarian responses to refugee flows, with an increasing reliance on 'refugee finance'. Refugee finance is the term used to refer to new financial instruments aimed at attracting private capital: refugee bonds, technical assistance funds and concessional loans. These instruments are promoted by international organizations, international financial institutions and states as inevitable solutions to the societal challenges raised by large-scale refugee flows. However, we know very little about the socio-economic, legal and financial implications of this paradigmatic shift 'from funding to financing'. Refugee finance has the potential to dramatically affect not only the refugee funding paradigm, but also the economy of the countries hosting refugees, and the way in which international refugee protection itself is conceptualized and implemented. According to its proponents, refugee finance promises to ensure refugees' resilience and self-reliance, whilst at the same time supporting the economic development of the host communities. There is, however, insufficient evidence to support these promises and a limited understanding of how these financial instruments operate. REF-FIN will advance both theoretical and practical knowledge of the political, financial and legal processes enabling refugee finance, and of its longer-term socio-economic implications through a comprehensive study of its frameworks practices and emerging patterns.

Mots-clés : financing for development,development finance,humanitarian responses for refugees
Projet ERC : FABRIC (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université de Lund — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1487796.0 €

FABRIC develops a new ethics of migration by understanding and utilizing the moral insights and the moral ideas that faith-based refugee relief organizations develop and deploy in practice for the cross-disciplinary debate about the ethics of forced migration in Europe. Globally, forced migration is one of the most pressing and one of the most pervasive challenges. Europe has been pushed to a social and political breaking point over migration. The fallout is a death toll that makes the border around the continent the deadliest border in the world. Faith-based organizations (FBOs) have been at the forefront of this challenge, preventing the collapse of the infrastructures of care, combatting racist discourse and religious discrimination. Yet there is very little knowledge about the refugee relief of these FBOs so their significance for the ethics of migration has been neither analyzed nor assessed. FABRIC addresses this lack by conducting a comprehensive and comparative empirical exploration of FBOs at an unprecedented scale, covering activities by FBOs from all three Abrahamic faiths in mono- and multi-religious settings across the continent. Countering the lack of interaction between empirical and evaluative approaches so characteristic of the study of forced migration, FABRIC presents a pragmatist understanding of ethics to enquire into the conditions, constraints, and consequences of practicing justice. It offers a concrete account of faith-based refugee relief in order to formulate a new concept of mobility justice that considers cross-connections between social, racial, and climate justice on regional, national, and global scales. Thus, FABRIC formulates a new ethics of migration from the bottom up, putting the debate about the ethics of migration on an empirically more perceptive and ethically more productive footing that advances knowledge production on forced migration across the academy.

Mots-clés : ethics,migration,faith based organizations,europe,philosophy,sociology,religious studies
Projet ERC : IMMERSION (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
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 : 1500000.0 €

Decision-making is a core element of human activity, and the decisions we make can have significant consequences for ourselves, others, and the world we live in. Thus, the ability to explain and predict decision-making is vital for improving individual and societal outcomes, especially when addressing global challenges like climate change, sustainable energy, ageing populations, and public health. Mathematical models of decision-making can help us to understand and predict human behaviour.  Despite significant progress, several scientific challenges persist in the applicability of advanced behavioural models to real-world problems. Many models focus on predicting decision outcomes rather than explaining the decision process itself. Information contained in neurophysiological process data that emerge during decision-making are often ignored, and methods for collecting behavioural data fail to create realistic impressions of scenarios representing the future.  IMMERSION aims to advance the study of human decision-making by developing new innovative methods for combining choice and process data. This includes new models for integrating choice and process data, new statistical inference procedures tailored to such models, and new methods for collecting rich behavioural data in immersive experiments. The proposed research will create a paradigm shift in behavioural research with impacts on many application domains. IMMERSION will equip researchers with a new powerful toolkit for extracting deep behavioural insights from rich data using advanced models.  The proposed research includes substantial empirical work applying IMMERSION’s methodological innovations to real-world problems with implications for the human-centric design of future transport systems. This work includes case studies to explain and predict human decision-making in the contexts of transportation infrastructure development, pedestrian-autonomous vehicle interactions and pedestrian wayfinding.

Mots-clés : choice modelling,decision making,discrete choice analysis,behavioural modelling,extended reality,data collection,human centric transport systems
Projet ERC : MigPerform (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Université de Lund — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499921.0 €

Advances in tracking technology during the last decade have shown that migratory birds have the capacity to fly longer and faster than we previously thought was possible. Yet, we do not know how birds perform these seemingly impossible travels as it previously only was possible to record spatiotemporal patterns. The overall aim of this project is to reveal constraints and the behavioural and physiological adaptations that has evolved to overcome them, thus making the extreme performances of migratory birds possible. This goal will be met by using novel tracking devices, multisensor data loggers, that in addition to spatiotemporal patterns also record behaviour, including flight altitudes, temperature and detailed timing of flights and stopovers during the entire migration cycle. The few multisensor tracking studies carried out to date have provided hints of stunning new insights, and seriously challenged previously assumed limits on peak flight altitudes, in-flight changes of altitudes, and duration of individual flights. In particular, I have together with colleagues discovered a totally unexpected altitudinal behaviour: some bird species change their flight altitude between night and day, and fly at extremely high altitudes during the day (up to 6000-8000 m). But what makes a migratory bird fly as high as Mount Everest, even when there are no mountains to cross? By launching an extensive multisensor data logging programme, combined with wind tunnel experiments and field studies, the proposed project will change our understanding of the possibilities and limitations of bird migration. This will be done by disentangling the causes and consequences of bird’s altitudinal behaviour, the flexibility, timing and duration of migratory flights (if birds only use diurnal or nocturnal flights, if they prolong flights to last both day and night or even fly nonstop between wintering and breeding grounds), and the costs and consequences of these seemingly extreme behaviours.

Mots-clés : migration ecology,migratory performance,ornithology