Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : STUOD (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Institut français de recherche pour l'exploitation de la mer — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Ifremer
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2550325.0 €

71% of Earth is covered by ocean. The ocean has absorbed 93% of the heat trapped by human’s greenhouse gas emissions. The ocean’s future responses to continued warming are uncertain. Our project will deliver new capabilities for assessing variability and uncertainty in upper ocean dynamics. It will provide decision makers a means of quantifying the effects of local patterns of sea level rise, heat uptake, carbon storage and change of oxygen content and pH in the ocean. Its multimodal monitoring will enhance the scientific understanding of marine debris transport, tracking of oil spills and accumulation of plastic in the sea. Our approach accounts for transport on scales that are currently unresolvable in computer simulations, yet are observable by satellites, drifters and floats. Four scientific capabilities will be engaged: (i) observations at high resolution of upper ocean properties such as temperature, salinity, topography, wind, waves and velocity; (ii) large scale numerical simulations; (iii) data-based stochastic equations for upper ocean dynamics that quantify simulation error; and (iv) stochastic data assimilation to reduce uncertainty. These four scientific capabilities will tackle a network of joint tasks achieved through cooperation of three world-calibre institutions: IFREMER (ocean observations, reanalysis); INRIA (computational science); and Imperial College (mathematics, data assimilation). Our complementary skill sets comprise a single systemic effort: (1) Coordinate and interpret high-resolution satellite and in situ upper ocean observations (2) Extract correlations from data needed for the mathematical model (3) Perform an ensemble of computer simulations using our new stochastic partial differential equations (SPDE) which are derived by matching the observed statistical properties (4) Apply advanced data assimilation and computer simulations to reduce model uncertainty The key to achieving these goals will be synergy in our combined expertise.

Mots-clés : observation technology,device implementation,data analysis,theoretical modeling with stochastic mathematics,computational simulation and data assimilation for fluid dynamics
Projet ERC : PHENOSPACE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : Imperial College London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1917847.0 €

A central goal of precision medicine is to tailor treatments for individuals based on their genomic sequence. However, many common diseases are associated with mutations in multiple genes and drugs often interact with multiple targets, making it difficult to go from genome sequence to drug selection. Spontaneous locomotion in the nematode C. elegans provides a model to address fundamental questions about the mapping between chemical and genetic perturbation and complex phenotypes. To take full advantage of this potentially powerful model system, we will develop high-throughput tracking technology, both hardware and software, and use it to measure changes in worm behaviour in response to treatment with small molecules and genome-wide RNA interference. The result will be an unprecedented view of a multidimensional phenotype space in a genetically tractable model animal that will allow us to predict mechanisms of action, discover new gene-behaviour associations, and suggest new indications for approved drugs. We will then analyse this mapping to define design principles for combination therapies and test them quantitatively in vivo. The final aim is to combine automated phenotyping and liquid handling with a genetic algorithm to evolve complex drug cocktails. The result will be a better understanding of the potential of precision medicine and progress towards quantitative methods to realise that potential with combination therapies.
Projet ERC : NEWSPIN (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Institute of Photonic Sciences — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ICFO;ICFO-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1921067.0 €

A central goal of quantum optics is to realize efficient, controlled quantum interfaces between atoms and photons. Such interfaces enable broad applications from quantum information processing to quantum nonlinear optics to metrology, and also open a route toward creating exotic quantum states of light and matter. Today, our major paradigm for realizing an efficient interface is based upon the concept of collective enhancement, where using a large number of atoms creates an enhanced coupling to a preferred optical mode over undesired emission into other directions. However, our known error bounds for applications decrease very slowly as a function of system resources, such as the optical depth, thus posing a great challenge for future technologies. In NEWSPIN, we propose a remarkable new way forward, based upon the realization that these conventional error bounds are derived without accounting for multiple scattering and wave interference between emitting atoms. We aim to establish that interference in light emission is in fact a much more powerful resource than the level that we currently exploit it. In particular, beyond the usual collective enhancement, it can simultaneously enable a much stronger collective suppression of emission into undesired directions, and which can yield exponentially better error bounds than was previously known. Underlying this powerful paradigm shift will be the development of a quantum many-body theory of multiple scattering involving photons and atoms, which takes advantage of state-of-the-art tools from condensed matter physics. Beyond robust new routes toward applications, our theory will also reveal exotic new quantum phenomena and lead to new insights into fundamental questions in optics, such as the physical limits to how large the refractive index of an optical material can be. In total, we anticipate that NEWSPIN could greatly enrich our understanding of atom-light interactions and their realm of possibilities.

Mots-clés : quantum optics,atom light interactions,atomic ensemble
Projet ERC : ACE-OF-SPACE (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : University of Konstanz — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499866.26 €

A central problem in developmental biology is to understand how tissues are patterned in time and space - how do identical cells differentiate to form the adult body plan? Patterns often arise from prior asymmetries in developing embryos, but there is also increasing evidence for self-organizing mechanisms that can break the symmetry of an initially homogeneous cell population. These patterning processes are mediated by a small number of signaling molecules, including the TGF-β superfamily members BMP and Nodal. While we have begun to analyze how biophysical properties such as signal diffusion and stability contribute to axis formation and tissue allocation during vertebrate embryogenesis, three key questions remain. First, how does signaling cross-talk control robust patterning in developing tissues? Opposing sources of Nodal and BMP are sufficient to produce secondary zebrafish axes, but it is unclear how the signals interact to orchestrate this mysterious process. Second, how do signaling systems self-organize to pattern tissues in the absence of prior asymmetries? Recent evidence indicates that axis formation in mammalian embryos is independent of maternal and extra-embryonic tissues, but the mechanism underlying this self-organized patterning is unknown. Third, what are the minimal requirements to engineer synthetic self-organizing systems? Our theoretical analyses suggest that self-organizing reaction-diffusion systems are more common and robust than previously thought, but this has so far not been experimentally demonstrated. We will address these questions in zebrafish embryos, mouse embryonic stem cells, and bacterial colonies using a combination of quantitative imaging, optogenetics, mathematical modeling, and synthetic biology. In addition to providing insights into signaling and development, this high-risk/high-gain approach opens exciting new strategies for tissue engineering by providing asymmetric or temporally regulated signaling in organ precursors.

Mots-clés : embryonic development,signal transduction,zebrafish,systems biology,self organization
Projet ERC : ChromADICT (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: Biological Mechanisms, Structures and Functions
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 514036.06 €

A central question in chromatin biology is how to organize the genome and mark specific regions with histone variants. Understanding how to establish and maintain, but also change chromatin states is a fundamental challenge. Histone chaperones, escort factors that regulate the supply, loading, and degradation of histone variants, are key in their placement at specific chromatin landmarks and bridge organization from nucleosomes to higher order structures. A series of studies have underlined chaperone-variant partner selectivity in multicellular organisms, yet recently, dosage imbalances in natural and pathological contexts highlight plasticity in these interactions. Considering known changes in histone dosage during development, one should evaluate chaperone function not as fixed modules, but as a dynamic circuitry that adapts to cellular needs during the cell cycle, replication and repair, differentiation, development and pathology. Here we propose to decipher the mechanisms enabling adaptability to natural and experimentally induced changes in the dosage of histone chaperones and variants over time. To follow new and old proteins, and control dosage, we will engineer cellular and animal models and exploit quantitative readout methods using mass spectrometry, imaging, and single-cell approaches. We will evaluate with an unprecedented level of detail the impact on i) soluble histone complexes and ii) specific chromatin landmarks (centromere, telomeres, heterochromatin and regulatory elements) and their crosstalk. We will apply this to determine the impact of these parameters during distinct developmental transitions, such as ES cell differentiation and T cell commitment in mice. We aim to define general principles for variants in nuclear organization and dynamic changes during the cell cycle/repair and in differentiation and unravel locus specific-roles of chaperones as architects and bricklayers of the genome, in designing and building specific nuclear domains.

Mots-clés : chromatin,histone variants,histone chaperones,centromere,telomere,dna damage,repair,replication,cell differentiation and commitment,t cell lineage,es cells
Projet ERC : ChromADICT (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: Biological Mechanisms, Structures and Functions
Entité participante : Institut Curie — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1985660.94 €

A central question in chromatin biology is how to organize the genome and mark specific regions with histone variants. Understanding how to establish and maintain, but also change chromatin states is a fundamental challenge. Histone chaperones, escort factors that regulate the supply, loading, and degradation of histone variants, are key in their placement at specific chromatin landmarks and bridge organization from nucleosomes to higher order structures. A series of studies have underlined chaperone-variant partner selectivity in multicellular organisms, yet recently, dosage imbalances in natural and pathological contexts highlight plasticity in these interactions. Considering known changes in histone dosage during development, one should evaluate chaperone function not as fixed modules, but as a dynamic circuitry that adapts to cellular needs during the cell cycle, replication and repair, differentiation, development and pathology. Here we propose to decipher the mechanisms enabling adaptability to natural and experimentally induced changes in the dosage of histone chaperones and variants over time. To follow new and old proteins, and control dosage, we will engineer cellular and animal models and exploit quantitative readout methods using mass spectrometry, imaging, and single-cell approaches. We will evaluate with an unprecedented level of detail the impact on i) soluble histone complexes and ii) specific chromatin landmarks (centromere, telomeres, heterochromatin and regulatory elements) and their crosstalk. We will apply this to determine the impact of these parameters during distinct developmental transitions, such as ES cell differentiation and T cell commitment in mice. We aim to define general principles for variants in nuclear organization and dynamic changes during the cell cycle/repair and in differentiation and unravel locus specific-roles of chaperones as architects and bricklayers of the genome, in designing and building specific nuclear domains.

Mots-clés : chromatin,histone variants,histone chaperones,centromere,telomere,dna damage,repair,replication,cell differentiation and commitment,t cell lineage,es cells
Projet ERC : PREVENT RA (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Stockholm County Council — Pays : Suède — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 491376.31 €

A common feature of autoantibody-positive autoimmune disease is that the disease-associated autoimmunity often appears many years prior to clinical onset and can hence be used to identify risk groups for future disease development. Autoantibody-positive (seropositive) rheumatoid arthritis (RA) provides a unique setting due to recent insights in the longitudinal development of the disease, suggesting that autoantibodies develop in genetic susceptible individuals as a consequence of specific environmental challenges (such as smoking) to only later on target the joints. The main objectives of the current program are: (1). To dissect the longitudinal development of seropositive RA and gain a detailed understanding of the processes responsible for autoantibody generation outside the joints, and specifically at the mucosal sites. (2). To develop new ways to identify seropositive disease-susceptible individuals and map targetable life style factors and immune events responsible for this susceptibility. (3). To elucidate the mechanisms by which systemic autoimmunity targets the joints to first induce bone loss and pain and only in a second phase chronic joint inflammation. If successful our project will not only allow efficient identification of RA-susceptible individuals, but also deliver new tools for risk estimation in each of these individuals and novel ways of intervention in order to delay, or in the best case prevent disease development. By shifting the time (to phases before joint damage and disability occurs) and the ways (to drugs targeting early previously unknown pathogenic mechanisms) of interventions, expected results from the current project are beyond the current state of the art in RA.

Mots-clés : rheumatoid arthritis
Projet ERC : HOPE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : University of Bergen — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2278884.0 €

A critical question in Earth system science is what was the impact of prehistoric people on the biosphere and climate? There is much information about human impact through clearance, agriculture, erosion, and modifying water and nutrient budgets. Humans have greatly changed the Earth in the last 8000 years, but did humans modify the major ecological processes (e.g. assembly rules) that shape community assembly and dynamics? Did inter-relationships between processes change in response to human impact? Lyons et al. & Dietl (2016 Nature) suggest that human activities in the last 6000 years had such impacts. Dietl proposes that using past ‘natural experiments’ to predict future changes is “flawed” and “out is the use of uniformitarianism”. As using natural experiments is a common strategy and uniformitarianism is the major working concept in Earth sciences, it is imperative to test whether prehistoric human activity changed major ecological processes determining community development. To test this hypothesis, patterns in pollen-stratigraphical data for the past 11,500 years from over 2000 sites across the globe will be explored consistently using numerical techniques to discern changes in 25 ecosystem properties (richness, evenness, and diversity; turnover; rates of change; taxon co-occurrences, etc.). Patterns in these properties will be compared statistically at sites within biomes, between biomes, within continents, and between continents to test the hypotheses that prehistoric human activities changed the basic ecological processes of community assembly and that their inter-relationships changed through time. These areas provide major contrasts in human prehistory and biomes. HOPE is interdisciplinary: pollen analysis, databases, multivariate analysis, ecology, new statistical methods, numerical simulations, statistical modelling. HOPE’s impact goes beyond human effects on the biosphere and extends to the very core of Earth science’s basic conceptual framework.

Mots-clés : pollen analysis,europe,america,africa,holocene,ecosystem properties
Projet ERC : HEFT (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : BOKU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1401941.0 €

A forest transition, i.e. forest expansion after a long period of deforestation, has occurred in many, mostly industrialized countries. Forest transitions have recently resulted in declining rates of global net deforestation and contributed to carbon (C) sinks in terrestrial ecosystems. Studies have shown the concurrence of forest transitions and industrialization processes, but the systemic links between forest transitions, their underlying socio-metabolic processes and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been neither systematically explored nor quantified. HEFT introduces the idea of “hidden emissions of forest transitions”, i.e. the GHG emissions from socio-metabolic processes reducing pressures on forests. Hidden emissions may stem from processes such as substitution of fuelwood by modern energy sources, intensification of agriculture, and externalization of biomass production to remote regions. Building on the concept of socio-ecological metabolism, HEFT develops a consistent methodological framework to quantify the full GHG emissions and sinks from socio-metabolic and ecological processes in the course of forest transitions, within which their hidden emissions are identified. Forest transitions in multiple contexts are analyzed at local, national and supranational scales: in Europe since c. 1850, North America since c. 1880, and South East Asia since 1980. A coarse global-scale assessment complements the regional case studies. We will integrate sources and analytical methods from environmental and social sciences as well as the humanities to analyze context-specific trajectories and general features of socio-ecological GHG budgets and their respective socio-political contexts since the onset of forest transitions. The sound understanding of hidden emissions will be used to identify the least GHG-intensive trajectories and to draw lessons for future climate-friendly forest transitions.

Mots-clés : forest transition,socio ecological metabolism,land use change,full carbon accounting,long term socio ecological research
Projet ERC : uEcologies (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : National Institute of Advanced Studies — Pays : Inde — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : NIAS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 230847.19 €

A fundamental dimension of planetary urbanization is its radical transformation of nature. Domestic animals now make up more than twice the biomass of humans on the planet. They are vital to livelihoods of the urban poor in the global south, providing economic opportunities, yet posing zoonotic risks. In contrast, cities of the north are marked by the paucity of animals and concomitant health concerns. Yet, urban ecologies – relations between people and animals, and their interactions with the built environment – have received scant systematic attention in the social sciences. The objective of this project is to lay bare how regulating nonhuman life is fundamental to governing global cities. How are human-animal dynamics differentially composed in cities of the global south and north? What social, economic and spatial forces structure these dynamics? Most global cities regulate animal presence, albeit with varying degrees of success. How then might an expanded notion of urban governance incorporating ecology reorient urban studies? And finally, how might such an analysis help promote resilient and sustainable cities? The project tackles these questions through a comparative analysis focused on New Delhi, Guwahati and London. Using a combination of conventional ethnographic research methods and innovative ecological perspectives, it will generate novel explanatory concepts for understanding urban ecologies and their implications for governing global cities. This research is ground-breaking in four ways: 1) by addressing an uncharted but critical field of human action, it sheds new light on urban governance; 2) by integrating adjacent disciplines that seldom interact, it pushes the frontiers of urban studies; 3) by combining social and ecological perspectives, it adds to methodological innovation in the social sciences; 4) by accounting for how ecology shapes marginalized lives, it contributes to new agendas of making cities resilient for the urban poor.

Mots-clés : political ecology,urban,governance,animals,comparison,ethnography