Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : AnalysisSpectralEEG (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
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 : 150000.0 €

A general methodology based on modeling, data processing and classification is still lacking to predict the brain response to sedation during anesthesia. In this project, we propose to develop a mathematical approach of the brain signal revealed by EEG behavior. We will use modeling to identify features present in frequency bands, to predict the brain response. Using spectral analysis, we will study the time-frequency of the dominant frequency band of the EEG signal. We propose to develop algorithms dedicated to study the brain dynamics based combining transient motifs of the EEG signal. Finally, the present approach will be tested in different hospitals for adults and children. We will specifically focus on predicting the depth of anesthesia. To conclude, the present method could provide new tools to practitioners to prevent deep sedation and possible post-anesthetic complications.
Projet ERC : BARISTA (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
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 : 150000.0 €

Fighting emerging viruses has been a major challenge in the development of novel therapeutics. With the current global changes and massive modification of the biosphere, the issue will surely increase in the future. To overcome this challenge, we will demonstrate on influenza that we are capable to produce active antiviral against a strain that is not yet existing. The BARISTA project will allow to develop a novel therapeutic approach allowing to preserve therapeutic activities over a wide range of influenza strains and we will demonstrate its efficacy on the influenza strain of the next outreach. This achievement will be obtained by guiding the design of chemically optimized siRNA by detailed NMR structural analysis. Those molecules will be tested both in vitro and ex vivo and their broad-spectrum activity will be demonstrated on past, present and future influenza strains. This project will therefore open the way to therapies that can be designed and optimized, even before the appearance of a novel strain, providing an invaluable help in fighting emerging viruses.
Projet ERC : RealEase (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
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 : 150000.0 €

Access to drinking water is one of the major issues of this century. Saltwater resources could constitute an almost infinite source of drinking water, but their desalination remains expensive and technically challenging, thus limiting its deployment.  RealEase aims to develop easily deployable, cost-effective, and more sustainable desalination solutions to preserve water resources.  This project relies on innovative technology developed at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS Paris) and proposes to offer a novel and promising desalination solution. Unlike traditional desalination methods, which require the application of extremely high pressures (which can exceed 60 bars, equivalent to the pressure under a 600m dam), our approach exploits unconventional nanofluidic transport phenomena to purify water through commercial desalination filters, using only low electric fields. This allows desalination with less demanding, less expensive, and safer equipment for operators.
Projet ERC : Data4ML (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université technique de Munich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

It is difficult to build high quality machine translation systems for less-resourced languages, such as the minority languages of Europe. State-of-the-art machine translation is trained on large parallel corpora, texts and their translations. But such corpora are not available for less-resourced languages. We will provide a system for the rapid and inexpensive creation of new parallel corpora. Our PoC project will both produce an open-source prototype utilizing findings from the PI's ERC StG, and determine IPR and future funding. The key innovation of the prototype will be that it can be used by the less-resourced language community themselves. Current systems require extensive background in natural language processing. Allowing the community to create and curate parallel data has clear social benefits. The creation of high quality machine translation systems for less-resourced languages will allow for more content creation in these languages, playing a strong role in the preservation of these languages. Curated parallel data will also be useful in activities such as education and cultural heritage research. Government funding is available for digital language preservation for many of the 7000 languages spoken on Earth. Companies with online translation systems such as Google and DeepL/Linguee are not addressing this market, as the ROI is too low. It makes more sense to empower local communities to create such parallel data. We will carefully evaluate our prototype to ensure that it meets their needs. Along with the creation of the prototype, we will determine how best to structure the IPR to support future development. Consulting, which we have already carried out for the Sorbian community, and a certification scheme for users of our system are two possibilities we will consider, along with commercial machine translation and multilingual classification problems such as hate speech detection.
Projet ERC : TELOVACCINE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : IFOM — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The immune system is remodeled with age, going through a series of changes known as “immunosenescence’, including the involution of primary lymphoid organs, the contraction of the immune repertoire, a progressive lineage skewing towards the myeloid lineage and a low-grade pro-inflammatory status. A consequence of immunosenescence impacting the morbidity and mortality of infectious diseases is a dramatically reduced vaccine response in the elderly. Thus, reducing the burden of immunosenescence has the potential to impact the effectiveness of vaccine response. An established hallmark and driver of age-associated functional decline is telomere dysfunction. Dysfunctional telomeres are actively transcribed to generate telomeric non-coding RNAs (tncRNA) which are essential to recruit DNA Damage Response (DDR) factors at damaged telomeres, thus fueling DDR and causing cellular senescence initiation and maintenance. Sequence-specific telomeric antisense oligonucleotides (tASOs) target these tncRNAs and effectively inhibit DDR activation, ameliorating age-related phenotypes in mouse models. The telomerase-deficient (Terc-/-) mouse model, causes telomere shortening and dysfunction, recapitulating features of immunosenescence: immune system reactivity reduction, decreased long term renewal of hematopoietic stem cells and lymphocytes numbers, increased neutrophil count. tASOs treatment has beneficial long-term effect in this model, by decreasing immunosenescence and counteracting inflammation. We now plan to test the efficacy of tASOs treatment on ‘rejuvenating’ the immune system of aged wild type mice, a ‘physiological’ setting for aging. The final goal will be to assess if tASOs impact on vaccine response in both models: young Terc-/- mice and aged WT mice. In summary, we plan to determine the efficacy of tASOs to improve immune responses, including vaccines, in the elderly.
Projet ERC : versacomb (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université libre de Bruxelles — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ULB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Frequency combs are optical sources that can be used as rulers. Any unknown frequency can be very precisely measured by comparing it to the nearest tooth of the comb. The technology has revolutionized metrology and spectroscopy among others and its inventors were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2005. To obtain a frequency comb, a periodic optical pattern must be generated. There are different ways of forming optical patterns and different technologies are used, depending on the required comb spacing (which corresponds to the repetition-rate of the pattern). For example, high repetition rate combs used for calibration of astronomical spectrographs, while low repetition rates are used for spectroscopy or ranging. We propose to fabricate a completely novel device whose repetition rate can be tuned over three orders of magnitude, covering most applications of frequency combs. The device would merge the advantages of the existing technologies, in terms of power and stability. We expect our device to have a strong impact on the market of frequency comb generators and will investigate different paths towards commercialization of the prototype.
Projet ERC : SEMISOFT (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Milan — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 123000.0 €

The goal of this proposal is the production of the SEMISOFT software and an associate web platform for spectroscopic molecular characterization and early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. SEMISOFT will be designed to decipher complex IR/Raman spectra which are currently hampering development of new clinical protocols and other technological advances. This will be achieved upon implementation of the innovative semiclassically approximate quantum dynamics methods, developed in the parent ERC-CoG SEMICOMPLEX project, which allow for a simplification of complex spectra and unprecedented quantum mechanical accuracy. To further increase the level of accuracy in SEMISOFT simulations, a new machine-learning based force field for biological systems will be developed and incorporated in the software.  The SEMISOFT web platform will be accessible to non-expert users from any browser without desktop installation and based on a flexible drop-down menu instructing the user step by step. The user will be able to reproduce IR/Raman spectra and identify molecular species in gas, liquid, or solid state. The web platform will find immediate application in a “freemium” version thanks to an industrial partner laboratory whose goal is to find biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease in human saliva. This pilot test will allow the team to tune the web platform for future commercialization.   An analysis of economic, social and market prospects will be performed to define a value proposition and an appropriate business model, by comparing the feasibility and relative impact of licensing, paid access through a user account, and spin-off. The definition of an appropriate intellectual property protection strategy will be also part of the project. SEMISOFT is expected to have a long-term impact too. Raman and related spectroscopies are widespread in laboratories for chemical characterization and this computational tool will boost spectroscopy applications in material, physics and chemical sciences.
Projet ERC : NICHILD (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Milan — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 70000.0 €

Despite their astonishing clinical success on adults, there are still no mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based products approved for paediatric use. Preclinical studies support a potential beneficial role of MSC therapy to prevent progression in diseases called childhood interstitial lung disease (ChILD). However, MSCs still suffer from the cost of culturing and storage facilities and a lack of standardization of cell populations, their quality and quantity, donor-related factors, protocols for isolation, in vitro expansion cell delivery and dosing. Our goal is to standardize and automatize the production of MSC secretome and validate it for its translation to paediatric use to treat ChILD. We will explore the feasibility of a “secretome factory” based on (1) isolation of MSCs from donor bone marrow, (2) expansion of MSCs in a micro scaffold called nichoid and (3) long-term culture of MSC for secretome production in an optically monitored bioreactor called MOAB-nichoid. To achieve these goals, in this PoC we will validate the main key performance indicators of the production process and prepare a go-to-market strategy for the secretome biodrug. Our outcomes will be 1) a MOAB-nichoid production line, with total costs compatible with its industrial production and marketing by a pharmaceutical company; 2) standard operating procedures (SOP) for the production process in full compliance with the GMPs in the sector of cell and tissue therapy products (PTC); 3) secretome quality parameters obtained through a comprehensive characterization; and 4) demonstration in vitro of the safety and therapeutic efficacy in the pathologies studied. The outcome of this project will provide a national and international reference point for the industrial production of MSC secretome to treat ChILD and then extending this approach to other pathologies, also affecting adult patients, including chronic intestinal disease and osteoarticular diseases.
Projet ERC : DYNALIP (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
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 : 150000.0 €

Liquid phase adsorption technology is crucial in industrial sectors focused on the separation, purification, or extraction of liquids or dissolved species such as petrochemical, water treatment, and pharmacologic industries. However, the characterization of the adsorption capacity of sorbents towards adsorptives in the liquid phase is still complex. Commonly used procedures for liquid phase adsorption characterization are tedious, time consuming, and manually done. This is mainly due to the lack of standardized procedures and the absence of specialized instrumentation to automatize the measurements. Thus, the transfer of liquid phase adsorption methods to a wider market of laboratory instrumentation has significant market potential for SMEs and promotes materials discovery in industry. Dynamic (flexible) porous materials such as metal-organic frameworks are already recognized as highly selective adsorbents suitable to revolutionize separation technologies. In order to completely unlock the potential of dynamic porous sorbents, industrial R&D Departments, research institutes, and academic institutions require advanced instrumentation for assessing the liquid phase adsorption capacity of dynamic porous materials. DYNALIP aims to develop a novel advanced on-line liquid phase adsorption technology to perform quantitative and exact liquid phase adsorption measurements. The successful project completion will allow the commercialization of an advanced device for laboratory use to promote the discovery and analysis of novel porous materials for highly selective liquid phase separation applications.
Projet ERC : INPATT (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Bologne — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 60000.0 €

Light activation finds a widely spread application to produce photochemically solid organic resins at low irradiation intensity from liquid organic precursors. The main advantages of this process are that it can be activated locally, by focusing a light beam, remotely, and switched on/off easily, in a safe and convenient irradiation regime. For these features, light-activated polymerization is used for patterning organic structures in fields of high technological, economic and social impact such as stereolithography and tooth restoration. Recently we demonstrated that a similar result can be achieved by photochemical generation of an acid or a base in a suitably designed precursor solution and that this approach can be easily extended to inorganic materials such as insoluble carbonates and phosphates. On the basis of these results, our project INorganic photochemical PATTerning (INPATT), hence the photochemically-controlled production of a solid inorganic matrix instead of an organic resin will offer a solution to the market for the problem of patterning inorganic materials with light. The ambitious objective of INPATT is to provide new liquid formulations suitable for applications in stereolithography, patterning, and tooth and art restoration.
Projet ERC : MICROSEM (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Nederlandse organisatie voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : NWO
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Super-resolution microscopy has revolutionized imaging by breaking what was believed to be unbreakable: the diffraction limit – which determines what a microscope can resolve. However, many disciplines in science and engineering cannot benefit from super-resolution microscopy, because practically all current super-resolution microscopes require fluorescence, often introduced by labelling – that is chemically modifying – the samples of interest. The semiconductor industry is the driver of digitization by producing ever smaller integrated circuits for faster computer chips, and has worldwide importance. The critical dimensions of the latest generation of chips are in the nanometer range, enabled by the breakthrough technology of extreme-ultraviolet nanolithography. An efficient production process requires constant quality inspection of the printed features, either directly on the integrated circuits or on dedicated metrology targets. However, the resolution of current all-optical microscopy-based metrology methods cannot keep pace with the fast development of smaller structures by nanolithography. Within my ERC Starting Grant, I demonstrated that high-harmonic generation – that is the frequency upconversion of laser pulses – can be optically suppressed and spatially confined in semiconductors without the need for labelling. This can be utilized as sub-diffraction emission for super-resolution scanning microscopy. I will further develop this technique in MICROSEM in order to reach resolution below 100 nm in a conventional optical microscope operating in the visible and ultraviolet region, without the need of complicated vacuum equipment. This will enable crucial applications for semiconductor wafer metrology. I will demonstrate new in-device metrology, and pave the way for additional advanced at-resolution metrology schemes. To ensure knowledge transfer I enlisted one of the key players in the semiconductor industry as collaborator for MICROSEM.
Projet ERC : eMob-Twin (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
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 : 150000.0 €

As efforts for environmental protection become a major priority, Electric Vehicles (EVs) have started to emerge as one of the main components of sustainable traffic systems in cities worldwide. Indeed, some countries have started to incorporate plans to phase-out conventional vehicles during the next few years with a view to reducing carbon emissions. However, this shift towards an electrified traffic network involves several challenges that need to be met for EVs to become a mainstream feature. On the consumers’ side, one of the most common complaints about EVs is the lack of appropriate charging infrastructures that would make for seamless day-to-day mobility. On the side of city officials and stakeholders, EVs could have a great impact on the power network infrastructure by overloading congested nodes, but at the same time, EVs could be actively used to benefit the power network if Vehicle-to-Grid connections became commonplace. In order to leverage these opportunities for e-flexibility, it will first be necessary to model the power requirements and the energy consumption of EVs in time and space, which are linked to the mobility patterns of people in urban areas as they go about their everyday lives. eMob-Twin is a digital-twin based on a macroscopic model in which urban EV mobility is combined with an energy model describing vehicles’ State-of-Charge, which can run simulations with a fine space/time granularity. eMob-Twin will also include charging stations along with their exact locations and power characteristics. eMob-Twin will thus become a key tool for making full use of the potential advantages of e-flexibility in a wide range of business and industrial contexts, including fleet transportation services, integration of renewables, charging station companies, electricity aggregators, Transmission System Operators, Distribution System Operators, and electricity markets.
Projet ERC : AMELI (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
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 : 150000.0 €

AMELI aims at developing a family of hot carrier devices that operate on a technology discovered by the PI during the course of his ERC-CoG project. This hot carrier technology does not rely on a P-N junction (or one of its many derivatives) to create electricity, giving access to a parameter space that is different from that of traditional solar cells. The goal of AMELI is to assess the potential for disruption of this approach and to propose a first proof of concept photovoltaic (if we can reach a 10% energy conversion efficiency threshold) or photodetector prototype at the end of the project.
Projet ERC : LUMITOOLS (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Gand — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UGent
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Thermal monitoring plays a paramount role in disease diagnosis. The currently available techniques are not performing satisfactorily for sophisticated in vivo temperature mapping. Employing luminescence for in vivo temperature assessment has attracted substantial interest in the past decade. However, despite their great promise and impact, to date, luminescent nanothermometers have not surpassed preclinical stages. Here, nano-safety, toxicity, and biocompatibility remain vivid issues, as the majority of the proposed fluorescent nanothermometers are built of heavy metals (rare-earth nanoparticles, quantum dots). In order to move towards usage of luminescent nanothermometers on the clinical level there is a clear need to resolve these obstacles, which is the goal of project LUMITOOLS. To achieve this goal, at this stage moving away from nanothermometers built of heavy metals seems well judged, at least until current toxicity and accumulation risks can be suitably addressed and rectified. The project aims at building nanothermometers from luminescent degradable nanomaterials without the usage of heavy metals. The aim is to develop stable, well-performing nanothermometers, which thoroughly annihilate after they have done their job, would constitute an important advancement for future research efforts on in vivo thermometry applications. This project would allow delivering nanothermometers with true potential for implementation in clinics.