Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : BACTODRY (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Rennes — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNIVRENNES
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1498436.0 €

Bacteria abound in the soil, contributing to major global geocycles and plant growth. Bioaugmentation, the stimulation or tuning of this natural microbiome to optimize its function for human gain, has recently been used with success to manipulate biological interactions. However, we lack the understanding of the impact of bacteria on the physics of soil that would be necessary to direct bioaugmentation toward abiotic goals such as limiting water loss to drying – one fifth of all water deposited on land is rapidly lost back to the atmosphere by this process. Using novel experimental and theoretical approaches, BACTODRY will bring bioaugmentation for reduced drying toward feasibility by harnessing the control bacteria exert on macroscale drying via alteration of the physico-chemistry of the numerous microscopic air–water interfaces in a drying porous soil. We will develop microfluidic devices capturing features of air–water interfaces at the scale of one to a few pores while giving unprecedented access to bacterial and interfacial dynamics at the microscale (WP1–2), and use them to gain quantitative insight into the bio-physico-chemical couplings that set fluid flows and evaporative rate. How these microscale relations upscale will be tested in granular column experiments, shedding light on interface dynamics in complex 3D structures (WP3). We will then develop an in situ selective chip for isolating natural bacteria that impact drying (WP4). Building on the insights gained in WP1–4, we will demonstrate how soil can be bioaugmented with bacteria selected from the environment to achieve reduced evaporative drying in the field (WP5). BACTODRY’s novel methods and insights will have far-reaching impacts on our understanding of natural surface-active molecules, the study of microbial life in unsaturated soil and its impact on natural cycles, and the development of novel bioaugmentation tools grounded in the biophysical coupling between microbial life and abiotic phase.

Mots-clés : bacterial biosurfactants and biopolymers capillary and interfacial flows marangoni dynamics of air water interfaces bacterial motility and dispersal soil drying and multiphase flows in porous media water dynamics in unsaturated soils bioaugmentation
Projet ERC : deuterON (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: B iological  Mechanisms , Structures  and Functions
Entité participante : Forschungsverbund Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FVB
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499469.0 €

The ideal microscopy experiment would take place in native cells without genetic engineering, with 3-dimensional resolution on the single molecule scale (<10 nm) by observing the endogenous molecule itself. I propose the introduction and use of deuterium (“deuterON”) as a general method for a multimodal approach, to i) synthesize a first-in-class deuterated cyanine (Cy) fluorophore for super-resolution imaging, ii) to design and test deuterated, next-level photoswitches to restore vision, and iii) use these probes and deuterated drugs for direct and bioorthogonal, spectroscopic imaging. In particular, deuterated Cys will allow stochastic reconstruction microscopy (STORM) by using near infra-red light to break new ground in protein localization in live tissue, opening the gates for thick sample imaging (~100 m axial) with retained super-resolution (~20 nm). In addition, deuterated azobenzene photoswitches will be designed to finally reach the indispensable, and to-date unobtained light sensitivity to remote control neural signalling in vivo. Lastly, the use of "label-free" labelling and imaging will be explored with deuterated drugs to observe drug uptake and metabolism by utilizing the unique properties of the carbon-deuterium bond in Raman spectroscopy. Coupled to a confocal microscope, deuterated drugs will be tracked in native and live cells, without any genetic engineering strategies, and on the molecule of interest itself, reducing perturbations and artefacts to a minimum. This ground-breaking approach holds promise to be generalizable to Chemical Biology disciplines, and as an unconventional, yet attractive and powerful method to design and synthesize next generation small molecule probes. Developing a pipeline for these aims will be a game changer, with ramifications for the life sciences, cell biology, drug development and with prospective translational impact.

Mots-clés : deuterium,fluorescence,microscopy,photoswitches,raman spectroscopy
Projet ERC : MaMo (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : University College de Londres — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UCL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499394.0 €

Intergenerational mobility, measuring the ability to achieve economic success regardless of family background, is a critical reflection of a society’s commitment to equality of opportunity. Rising income inequality has raised concerns about the potential erosion of upward mobility. While education has traditionally been viewed as the path to mobility, its transformative power is facing challenges in a rapidly evolving job market. This project reorients the focus of intergenerational mobility research by highlighting the labor market as an arena for the reproduction of advantage. It employs a comparative approach, using administrative data from four countries: Sweden, Austria, England, and the United States. It also incorporates evidence from a broader set of nations through cross-national surveys, longitudinal household surveys, labor force surveys, secondary data, and digital trace data. The project employs cutting-edge empirical methods, including quasi-experimental designs, event studies, within-family comparisons, decomposition analyses, counterfactual simulations, and diagnostic checks to rigorously assess the extent of inequalities in the labor market. The research investigates how family background influences the sorting of individuals to employers and workplaces, accounting for education and occupation, and explores variations in career progression within and between employers. It comprehensively catalogues and assesses mechanisms shaping workplace inequality, contributing to the development of social closure theory. Additionally, the project evaluates intervention strategies, encompassing both employer practices and government actions, to promote fair opportunity in the labor market.

Mots-clés : economic mobility,income mobility,intergenerational mobility,inequality,social stratification
Projet ERC : OMEGA (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative B iology : from Genes and Genomes to S ystems
Entité participante : Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : VIB
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1496250.0 €

Genomics research combined with revolutionary genome editing tools has created new opportunities to explore fundamental aspects of biology and develop novel (bio)technologies for medicine, agriculture, and industry. The OMEGA project is designed to build on these developments by enabling Megabase-scale engineering of plant genomes. Experimentally-determined lists of essential genes have been crucial for such large-scale projects in other species but are currently unavailable in plants. Therefore, the OMEGA project needs to determine which plant genes are essential for growth and development. However, the standard technologies used to identify essential genes are limited by genetic interactions (e.g. redundancy, synthetic lethality). My group is developing multiplex CRISPR screens in plants to specifically overcome these limitations. The OMEGA project will use this capability to identify genome-wide essential genes and genetic interactions in Physcomitrium patens. This will be the first systematic genetic interaction screen in plants and will likely identify interactions conserved across the green lineage. The OMEGA project will also develop technologies to move, edit, and delete DNA at the Megabase scale. As proof-of-concept, I aim to reduce ~10% of the P. patens genome and remove all non-essential DNA from one chromosome. The SCRaMbLE system will be adapted for P. patens and used as an alternative approach to minimize chromosomes and also perform in planta directed evolution. Lastly, we will use a DNA assembly method developed in my lab to build biosynthetic pathways in vivo using modular DNA assembly methods. These tools will create opportunities to explore fundamental aspects of genomics, chromosomal biology and synthetic biology. The objectives of project OMEGA are necessarily ambitious as these technologies will allow us to perform controlled, Megabase-scale engineering projects in plant genomes not possible with the current generation of genome editing tools.

Mots-clés : genetic interactions,essential genes,crispr screens
Projet ERC : ChOICE (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative B iology : from Genes and Genomes to S ystems
Entité participante : Université Radboud de Nimègue — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Cells are incredibly complex out-of-equilibrium systems that constantly react to changing environments in an efficient and strategic manner. As a consequence, it is necessary for cells to make fast and accurate decisions about their functional roles to fit their needs both at short and long timescales. Throughout the decision-making process fluctuations in protein levels, called noise, play a pivotal role. A high amount of noise allows probabilistic decision-making and enhances fitness when cells find themselves in variable environments. However, noise can be detrimental for commitment to cellular decisions, requiring cells to implement strategies to minimise noise when it is unfavourable. Due to the prevalence and importance of cellular-decision making in healthy and pathogenic cells, it is highly important to identify the molecular events that drive and modulate noise throughout the decision-making process. This requires single-cell approaches that identify the molecular drivers, modulators, and enforcers of cellular decisions at both short and long timescales.   In Chance Or Intentional: Cellular decisions Explored, we will identify the molecular drivers of cellular decision, the feedback architectures that modulate commitment to decisions, and physical properties that enforce memory of decisions. We propose an ambitious research program that maps the mechanisms underlying cellular decision-making by combining single-molecule imaging, single-cell sequencing, and time-lapse microscopy with mathematical models. The results will provide a much-needed quantitative characterization of the decision-making process at three distinct timescales. Since protein noise has been associated with various pathological conditions, including infections and cancer, the results from ChOICE will have a wide-ranging impact.

Mots-clés : cell to cell variability,single cell,transcriptional bursting,noise,feedback
Projet ERC : HearingHands (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Université Radboud de Nimègue — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499988.0 €

Human communication in face-to-face conversations is inherently multimodal, combining spoken language with a plethora of multimodal cues including hand gestures. Although most of our understanding of human language comes from unimodal research, the multimodal literature suggests that hand gestures are produced in close synchrony to speech prosody, aligning for instance with stressed syllables in free-stress languages like English. Furthermore, prosody plays a vital role in spoken word recognition in many languages, influencing core cognitive processes involved in speech perception, such as lexical activation, segmentation, and recognition. Consequently, viewing gestural timing as an audiovisual prosody cue raises the possibility that the temporal alignment of hand gestures to speech directly influences what we hear (e.g., distinguishing OBject vs. obJECT). However, research to date has largely overlooked the functional contribution of gestural timing to human communication. Therefore, HearingHands aims to uncover how gesture-speech coupling contributes to audiovisual communication in human interaction. Its objectives are [WP1] to chart the PREVALENCE of the use of gesture-speech coupling as a multimodal prominence cue in production and perception across a typologically diverse set of languages; [WP2] to capture the VARIABILITY in production and perception of gesture-speech coupling in both neurotypical and atypical populations; [WP3] to determine the CONSTRAINTS that govern gestural timing effects in more naturalistic communicative settings. These objectives will be achieved through cross-linguistic comparisons of gesture-speech production and perception, neuroimaging of multimodal integration in autistic and neurotypical individuals, and psychoacoustic tests of gestural timing effects employing eye-tracking and virtual reality. Thus, HearingHands has the potential to revolutionize models of multimodal human communication, delineating how hands help us hear.

Mots-clés : gesture speech coupling,multisensory integration,audiovisual prosody,cross linguistic comparison,magnetoencephalography
Projet ERC : synERgy (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Université Radboud de Nimègue — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Brain function relies on neurotransmission at synapses, where local increases in calcium trigger the fusion of synaptic vesicles and release of their neurotransmitters. Decades of research yielded detailed knowledge on synaptic vesicles and the individual proteins that mediate neurotransmission. Conversely, we know surprisingly little about the synaptic contribution of the largest organelle in neurons: the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER). Aberrant alterations in ER shape are, however, associated with many neurologic disorders, highlighting the importance of understanding the role this organelle plays in the neuron. Taking into consideration the mere quantity and range of specialized ER functions such as calcium signalling and lipid synthesis, the neuronal ER has received very little attention. I therefore strive to shed light on the major, unresolved questions of the field, namely what the ER protein composition is in synapses and how the ER contributes to important neuronal functions such as neurotransmission.  To dissect ER function in neurons I will first characterize the composition of neuronal ER proteins and identify the key players that regulate ER degradation. Second, I will manipulate ER content, localization and degradation to understand how the ER contributes to neurotransmission and development. Finally, I will investigate the importance of ER and ER degradation for physiological and pathophysiological processes in vivo. To this end, I propose a multidisciplinary approach using advanced imaging techniques, endogenous protein tagging and proteomics to study ER function and its regulated degradation in neurons. These studies will yield innovative fundamental insights into the role of synaptic ER and thereby fill a crucial knowledge gap in neuroscience. Furthermore, they will provide a better understanding and explanation of how defects in ER and ER degradation cause neurodegenerative diseases.
Projet ERC : EmoDevo (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : VIB
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Emotion regulation and responses to fear and stress are vital for survival and interactions with the environment. Within the brain, the amygdala governs emotional states through specialised nuclei and connectivity, controlling anxiety, fear reactions, and emotional learning. In mammals, amygdala circuits mature postnatally and are influenced by mother-offspring bonding, which impairment causes early-life stress and leads to lasting consequences on anxiety. However, the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying amygdala neuron differentiation and wiring, their reliance on intrinsic programs, potential sex differences, and impact of early-life experiences remain poorly understood. Here, I hypothesise that the differentiation of amygdala neurons relies on transcriptional programs, which vary between sexes and are modulated by early-life stress. Building on advanced technologies and expertise for single-cell gene expression, spatial position and connectivity analyses, that I developed in my prior work, I propose to test this in the amygdalae of female and male mice, by: 1. Identifying transcriptional programs guiding neuron differentiation using single-nucleus and spatial transcriptomics. 2. Characterizing projection development and intrinsic programs using barcoded axon tracings combined with transcriptomics. 3. Determining the role of intrinsic determinants and the impact of early-life stress on projection development and function using CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene manipulation, maternal separation, 3D axon tracings, and anxiety/emotional memory tests. These experiments will reveal transcriptional programs governing amygdala circuit development and sex dimorphisms. They will identify amygdala neuron types sensitive to environment, potentially more prone to be affected in diseases. This research will contribute to understanding the genetic and environmental aspects of emotional dysregulation, a common feature in neuropsychiatric disorders, including anxiety disorders.

Mots-clés : amygdala neuron differentiation axon development sexual dimorphism early life stress maternal separation single cell rna sequencing spatial transcriptomics gene expression manipulation
Projet ERC : HYPERCAN (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Université de Montpellier — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UM
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 730971.25 €

Transmissible cancers are fascinating recently discovered biological entities. They have acquired the ability to cross host boundaries and spread between animals, even sometimes interspecifically, by the direct transfer of cancerous cells. In addition, despite asexual reproduction they have been shown to persist for hundreds or thousands of years in host populations. Importantly, in the absence of known sexual-like reproduction mechanism, transmissible cancers must cope with clonal degeneration. One challenging question that arises is to understand the evolutionary processes and molecular mechanisms by which genetic diversity can maintain in such a long-term clonal context. Several transmissible cancer lineages have been described in Bivalvia and they have all in common hyperploidy. Some distinct sub-lineages (with a common founder host) coexist in host populations with specific degrees of hyperploidy (2 to 10 times the host cell DNA content). Hence, the hypothesis that hyperploidization concurs to the persistence and long-term evolution of these transmissible cancers must be considered. HYPERCAN aims to decipher the evolutionary significance of hyperploidy and of its variation to amplify clonal heterogeneity in mussel transmissible cancers (MtrBTN). We will use a multi-disciplinary approach combining phenotyping and “multi-omics” in order to test evolutionary hypotheses. We will answer 3 main questions: 1. Ploidy and fitness. Does a correlation exist between ploidy degrees and fitness? 2. Evolutionary dynamics. How does evolution proceed in MtrBTN cancers? 3. Hyperploidization mechanisms. How is hyperploidy generated and what is the fate of newly evolved hyperploid lineages? The project will have multiple outputs and applications among which to understand the genetic mechanisms driving the evolution of long-living cancers and to provide useful elements for the assessment of evolutionary and phenotypic effects associated with hyperploidization in cancers.

Mots-clés : long term evolution,transmissible cancers,ploidy variations,whole genome duplication,clonal reproduction,cell cell fusion,marine mussels
Projet ERC : IQ-SCORES (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Entité participante : Université Radboud de Nimègue — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2147846.0 €

It is a long-held dream of physical chemists to explore and ultimately control interactions between individual molecules and atoms at the full quantum level. Crossed-molecular-beam methods combined with recent technology allow for highly-detailed experimental studies of molecular collisions. Yet, achieving fully-controlled reactive collision experiments with predetermined outcomes still remains an immense challenge, requiring control and detection of all relevant reactant and product parameters. Our world-unique crossed-beam setup combining Zeeman deceleration and velocity map imaging would enable us to finally tackle this challenge, when combined with recent cutting-edge technologies. This setup has been used successfully to perform high-resolution inelastic collision studies, and we recently started investigating reactive scattering. Here, I propose to perform the first fully-controlled reaction experiment with predetermined outcomes. To this end, I will upgrade our setup to reach collision energies as low as 6 mK, implement laser alignment for manipulating reactant orientations, and employ 3D imaging for detecting product orientations.  To achieve this aim, we will first explore resonances and nonstatistical effects in the prototypical S + H2 → SH + H insertion reaction to demonstrate our ability to reach low energies. Simultaneously, we will laser align H2 molecules and employ 3D imaging in a separate setup to decipher molecular orientation (stereodynamical) effects in collisions involving H2. Eventually, all techniques will be merged for a fully-controlled S + H2 reaction experiment, enabling us to dictate the reaction outcome.  IQ-SCORES promises profound insight into the reaction (stereo)dynamics at the full quantum level and the long-desired power to dictate reaction outcomes with exceptional precision, thus providing an ultrasensitive test for theory. This pioneering and groundbreaking research will thereby truly revolutionize molecular reaction dynamics.

Mots-clés : molecular collisions,crossed molecular beams,reactive scattering,inelastic scattering,zeeman deceleration,velocity map imaging,stereodynamics