Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : Archean Park (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Brême — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3252571.0 €

The biological conversion of inorganic to organic carbon, autotrophic CO2 fixation, is arguably the most important biosynthetic process on Earth. Having been established early in the Archean Eon, a period characterized by an atmosphere rich in CO2, this metabolism helped spark and fuel the evolution of early microbial life. Mounting evidence suggests that exceedingly high levels of CO2 select for energetically efficient CO2 fixation pathways, immensely affecting carbon cycling. We hypothesize that CO2-rich subsurface ecosystems still harbor microbes that prefer or even require extremely high CO2 concentrations; we refer to these microbes as carbodioxyphiles. Accordingly, elevated CO2 levels would impact the thermodynamics of the microbial central carbon metabolism, enhancing autotrophy and hindering remineralization of organic matter by heterotrophs. To this end, we will study microbial life in CO2-rich subsurface environments and elucidate ancient metabolic pathways rendered obsolete by the CO2 levels of most modern environments. Each of the research team’s members has contributed to prior breakthroughs in novel autotrophic pathways, environmental genomics, metabolomics, and/or the biogeochemistry of deep subsurface environments. Establishing optimal synergy in this wealth of expertise and experience, we will describe novel modes of microbial carbon fixation in CO2-rich settings and elucidate the importance of carbodioxyphily for microbial evolution. Archean Park will provide a unique window through which to study a new mode of cellular biochemistry, the relicts of primordial carbon fixation, and Earth’s earliest carbon cycle. We will comprehensively characterize the metabolic mechanisms exploited by microbes to achieve evolutionary dominion in these relict environments. Our findings will stimulate biotechnological and geotechnical innovations ranging from enhanced autotrophic biomass production to improved carbon sequestration and storage.

Mots-clés : autotrophy,metabolism,carbon cycle,deep biosphere,microbial physiology
Projet ERC : FireSpace (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Brême — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 5336866.25 €

The "FireSpace" research proposal aims to address the critical challenge of fire safety in space exploration, particularly in environments with increased oxygen concentrations, reduced pressure, and reduced gravity. The main objective is to generate fundamental knowledge on the fire behavior of materials used in spacecraft and habitats under these extreme conditions and to develop strategies for mitigating fire risks. This will be achieved through a combination of experimental investigations, the development of fire-retardant (FR) materials, and advanced numerical simulations. The key objectives of the project are to: 1. Passive fire mitigation: Understand the fire behavior of FR materials in reduced gravity and oxygen-rich environments. Develop new FR materials and advanced diagnostics for testing these materials in microgravity. 2. Active fire mitigation: Formulate strategies for controlling flame spread through environmental perturbations such as acoustic or electromagnetic waves. 3. Numerical simulations: Perform detailed simulations of fire spread from material to compartment scales, predicting the effectiveness of fire safety strategies in spacecraft and space habitats. 4. Risk management: Consider the interplay between fire safety and other critical habitation systems, ensuring a balanced approach to risk management in space missions. The research will be structured into seven work packages (WPs) involving the design of FR materials, development of experimental rigs for microgravity platforms, and integration of fire safety into spacecraft design. This holistic approach will generate groundbreaking knowledge to enhance the fire safety of future space missions.

Mots-clés : fire retardancy,flame retardant,flammability,fire safety,combustion,fire spread,cfd modeling,numerical simulation,reduced gravity,space exploration,spacecraft,diagnostics
Projet ERC : CHIRAL-PRO (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Anvers — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3095500.0 €

Chirality, or the absence of mirror symmetry, is omnipresent in both biological and abiological forms of matter. Rapid progress has recently been achieved in the synthesis of chiral inorganic nanoparticles (NPs), of great interest because of the giant optical activity observed in individual NPs and their assemblies. Such nanostructures yield chiral features at multiple length scales, resulting in a huge diversity of chiral morphologies. The field is expanding toward connecting chirality across the worlds of nano and bio, linking optical and biological chiral functionalities. However, what is currently hampering real-world applications is the step from intuitive synthesis of chiral nanostructures to a purposeful design for specific interactions with biological components. The main objective of CHIRAL-PRO is to develop a widely applicable methodology to design chiral NPs with exceptional optical activity, for strong and predictable enantioselective interactions with nanoscale biological entities, such as proteins and amyloid fibrils. The fundamental understanding of the role of chirality in the recognition between inorganic and biological chiral structures will be used for the programmed assembly into optically active nanofibers and for case studies in sensing and metamaterials. To reach this ambitious goal, the complementary expertise of all three partners involved will be essential: synthesis and assembly of chiral plasmonic NPs (Liz-Marzán); three-dimensional electron microscopy of NPs, and the visualization of their interactions with biomolecules in liquid (Bals); and self-assembly methods and computational predictions for chiral multiscale interactions (Kotov).  In addition to groundbreaking advancements in fundamental research, the high gain of this work can be found in the generation of a toolbox enabling the scientific community to shift from guessing to precise design of chiral nanostructures with predefined properties.

Mots-clés : nanoparticle synthesis,chirality,metal nanoparticles,nanoplasmonics,nanoparticle assemblies,transmission electron microscopy,electron tomography,predictive machine learning,nanoparticle protein interactions,protein detection
Projet ERC : Synergy-Plague (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Glasgow — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

Synergy-Plague is a multi-disciplinary project to bring our knowledge and understanding of plague, past and present, to new heights. Focussing on the environmental, biological, and societal aspects of plague outbreaks in Eurasia between circa 1300 and 1900 CE, it will address four main questions: (1) Why/how did plague re-emerge in 14th century Central Asia? (2) Why/how did plague re-occur and spread in Eurasia after the Black Death? (3) Why/how did clinical and demographic patterns of plague infection differ across space and time? (4) Why/how did plague disappear from Europe and the Middle East in the 18th and 19th centuries? Our project is based on the hypothesis that plague waves and clinical differences resulted from unique alignments of multiple events: environmental (climatic and soil-chemical), biological (from individual to ecosystem) and societal (demographic, socio-economic and political). Four PIs from the natural sciences and humanities, together with their team members, will jointly study how plague re-emerged in 14th century Central Asia and radiated repeatedly from Eurasian wildlife reservoirs in the following centuries, only to disappear in the 18th-19th centuries. We will develop and analyse new dendrochronological and (paleo-)soil data, textual documentary evidence, and epidemiological models. To understand how plague reached and spread in human populations, paleo-environmental and historical data together with relevant experimental work will be combined with statistical and mathematical modelling. To appreciate why clinical signs and mortality rates varied in space and time, historical evidence will be examined together with new entomological data and ancient DNA (aDNA) of historical plague strains (from humans and anthropophilic rodents). Synergy-Plague will revolutionise our understanding of plague and contribute to our ongoing struggle with epidemic diseases, present and future.

Mots-clés : black death,plague pandemics,rodent burrow systems,human and rodent ectoparasites,plague reservoirs,soil properties,past cimate,epidemiology,statistical and mathematical modeling,experimental work
Projet ERC : WHIRLS (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université du Cap — Pays : Afrique du Sud — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UCT
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2237021.0 €

WHIRLS is about small processes having large-scale impacts. Heat and carbon are the currencies of regional and global climate, constantly exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere. This exchange is strongly influenced by fine-scales ocean eddies—whirls—that flux heat and carbon towards, or away from, the air-sea interface. When the ocean gives up heat and carbon to the atmosphere, climate is warmer and wetter, and vice versa. Carbon that is fluxed towards the air-sea interface, where sunlight is available, can be taken up by phytoplankton that form the base of the oceanic food web. Eddies and fronts alter vertical nutrient fluxes and ocean stratification which help shape biodiversity and ecosystems. The proliferation of fine-scale processes, and their interdisciplinary and large-scale impacts are poorly understood. In WHIRLS we will use a synergistic and interdisciplinary approach to study fine-scale processes across a continuum of scales (1–100 km) and assess their impacts on air-sea exchange and marine biogeochemistry and biodiversity. We focus on the Agulhas Current System around South Africa because it is a global hotspot of eddy activity, ocean-atmosphere heat exchange, and marine productivity and diversity It is also a region that plays a key role for the global ocean circulation and global climate and climate change. We will use multiple coordinated observing strategies, including research vessels and a large ensemble of autonomous platforms, to collect physical, chemical, and biological datasets across scales. These data will be supplemented by high-resolution models of the ocean and the atmosphere, developed with a focus on the Agulhas Current System, as well as the latest data science methodologies. WHIRLS will improve the understanding of fine-scale processes and its representation in future earth system models for better predictions and projections of the future climate.

Mots-clés : submesoscale and mesoscale ocean dynamics,air sea exchange,biogeochemistry,ocean and climate modelling,climate change,agulhas current system
Projet ERC : Resilience (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : CO-PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3279125.0 €

There is an urgent need to understand the catastrophic effects that global environmental and climate change can have on the Earth, its system components and ecosystems. One area of critical concern is the imminent high-impact, abrupt and irreversible tipping of ecosystems. Recent discoveries indicate that tipping could be evaded and even reversed in ecosystems through spatial pattern formation of vegetation, thereby creating pathways of resilience. Many undiscovered pathways of resilience through spatial pattern formation could exist for tipping-prone ecosystems. This resilience could be even enhanced by the unexplored connection between spatial pattern formation and community assembly. The aim of RESILIENCE is to fundamentally advance our understanding and predictions of tipping and critical transitions in ecosystems and reveal how these can be evaded and even reversed through spatial pattern formation. The RESILIENCE team consists of field-leading and complementary PI’s and is capable of addressing all aspects of this overarching project, linking theory and observation, spanning the fields of ecology, physics and mathematics. RESILIENCE will develop a new theory for emerging resilience through spatial pattern formation and link this with real tipping-prone biomes undergoing accelerating global change: savanna and tundra. Central to our theoretical approach is the novel mathematical connection between the origin of the formation of patterns and their resilience once they emerged. Our empirical approach will include the analysis of existing and new data from in situ observations and drone and satellite-based remote sensing. Our research will reveal which conditions and spatial patterns lead to the evasion and even reversal of tipping. Identifying these conditions and patterns will also expose how human interventions can prevent or reverse tipping and uncover that tipping-prone ecosystems could be much more resilient than currently thought.

Mots-clés : self organisation,spatial pattern formation,tipping points,critical transitions
Projet ERC : PushingCell (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2601375.0 €

The ability of cells to sense environmental cues and respond to them by adjusting their shape and motion is fundamental for biological processes ranging from animal development to disease. Much is known about how cells sense and respond to the geometry and mechanics of their environment by adhering to and pulling on the substrate. However, recent studies demonstrated that cells also strongly depend on non-adhesive interactions with the environment and that they probe, sense and deform their surroundings by pushing into them. The goal of this project is to address the mechanisms controlling cell shape and cell-substrate interactions via pushing forces. We will focus on three levels of cell organization: 1. Nanoscale pushing: We will investigate how cells locally sense and respond to obstacles without adhering to them and quantify the associated forces. Using micro-engineered substrates and tissue mimics, we will molecularly and biophysically dissect, biochemically reconstitute and theoretically model the interface between an obstacle, the plasma membrane and the actin cortex. 2. Mesoscale cell mechanics: We will investigate how actin, microtubules and intermediate filaments collaborate to generate and extend mesoscopic cell protrusions that push by adhesion-independent mechanisms. We will combine cell biological experiments and optogenetics with modeling and bottom-up reconstitutions. 3. Global force balance: We will examine adhesion-independent mechanisms that allow a cell to coordinate competing protrusions, maintain its integrity and translocate in complex environments. Using biophysical measurements and local molecular perturbations, we will test models of long-range communication within cells. Our work will provide new fundamental insights into biological and physical principles underlying the control of cell shape, integrity and motility, which are key to most physiological processes from development and homeostasis to cancer, immune responses and regeneration.

Mots-clés : cell shape cell motility cytoskeleton actin microtubules membrane shaping proteins active gel
Projet ERC : Archean Park (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GFZ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3364473.0 €

The biological conversion of inorganic to organic carbon, autotrophic CO2 fixation, is arguably the most important biosynthetic process on Earth. Having been established early in the Archean Eon, a period characterized by an atmosphere rich in CO2, this metabolism helped spark and fuel the evolution of early microbial life. Mounting evidence suggests that exceedingly high levels of CO2 select for energetically efficient CO2 fixation pathways, immensely affecting carbon cycling. We hypothesize that CO2-rich subsurface ecosystems still harbor microbes that prefer or even require extremely high CO2 concentrations; we refer to these microbes as carbodioxyphiles. Accordingly, elevated CO2 levels would impact the thermodynamics of the microbial central carbon metabolism, enhancing autotrophy and hindering remineralization of organic matter by heterotrophs. To this end, we will study microbial life in CO2-rich subsurface environments and elucidate ancient metabolic pathways rendered obsolete by the CO2 levels of most modern environments. Each of the research team’s members has contributed to prior breakthroughs in novel autotrophic pathways, environmental genomics, metabolomics, and/or the biogeochemistry of deep subsurface environments. Establishing optimal synergy in this wealth of expertise and experience, we will describe novel modes of microbial carbon fixation in CO2-rich settings and elucidate the importance of carbodioxyphily for microbial evolution. Archean Park will provide a unique window through which to study a new mode of cellular biochemistry, the relicts of primordial carbon fixation, and Earth’s earliest carbon cycle. We will comprehensively characterize the metabolic mechanisms exploited by microbes to achieve evolutionary dominion in these relict environments. Our findings will stimulate biotechnological and geotechnical innovations ranging from enhanced autotrophic biomass production to improved carbon sequestration and storage.

Mots-clés : autotrophy,metabolism,carbon cycle,deep biosphere,microbial physiology
Projet ERC : PushingCell (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy 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 : 4695875.0 €

The ability of cells to sense environmental cues and respond to them by adjusting their shape and motion is fundamental for biological processes ranging from animal development to disease. Much is known about how cells sense and respond to the geometry and mechanics of their environment by adhering to and pulling on the substrate. However, recent studies demonstrated that cells also strongly depend on non-adhesive interactions with the environment and that they probe, sense and deform their surroundings by pushing into them. The goal of this project is to address the mechanisms controlling cell shape and cell-substrate interactions via pushing forces. We will focus on three levels of cell organization: 1. Nanoscale pushing: We will investigate how cells locally sense and respond to obstacles without adhering to them and quantify the associated forces. Using micro-engineered substrates and tissue mimics, we will molecularly and biophysically dissect, biochemically reconstitute and theoretically model the interface between an obstacle, the plasma membrane and the actin cortex. 2. Mesoscale cell mechanics: We will investigate how actin, microtubules and intermediate filaments collaborate to generate and extend mesoscopic cell protrusions that push by adhesion-independent mechanisms. We will combine cell biological experiments and optogenetics with modeling and bottom-up reconstitutions. 3. Global force balance: We will examine adhesion-independent mechanisms that allow a cell to coordinate competing protrusions, maintain its integrity and translocate in complex environments. Using biophysical measurements and local molecular perturbations, we will test models of long-range communication within cells. Our work will provide new fundamental insights into biological and physical principles underlying the control of cell shape, integrity and motility, which are key to most physiological processes from development and homeostasis to cancer, immune responses and regeneration.

Mots-clés : cell shape cell motility cytoskeleton actin microtubules membrane shaping proteins active gel
Projet ERC : BREAKDANCE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Laboratoire européen de biologie moléculaire — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : EMBL
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2841355.0 €

Understanding the establishment of an animal body plan is an important challenge of modern biology. Progress has been mainly limited by (1) a separation of research fields studying genetic and biophysical mechanisms, and (2) a lack of approaches to mimic multicellular tissue organization from first principles. In a cross- disciplinary effort, we will focus on the earliest stages of animal development, when first steps of cell differentiation define the primary body axis through spatial symmetry breaking, laying the foundation for the future body plan. Our goal is to identify the fundamental mechanisms controlling this symmetry breaking process. To this end, we will study in detail the interplay between global tissue geometry (shape, size, and dimension), physical boundary conditions, and mechano-chemical cell interactions. Therefore, we address the following questions: (i) How do global shape and size control local cellular states and interactions? (ii) How do local cellular states and interactions induce robust symmetry breaking at the tissue level? (iii) To which extent can geometry control cell fate specification in a species-independent manner? To overcome previous limitations, we will establish a comprehensive methodological toolbox of synthetic bottom-up approaches and functional ex-vivo assays. We use as model systems mouse, zebrafish, and later also human embryonic stem cells. This will be combined with advanced biophysical techniques and theoretical modeling in order to systematically dissect the mutual couplings between genetic patterning mechanisms and morphogenetic processes, thereby revealing the multicellular dance underlying tissue symmetry breaking. Our results will shed new light on the long-standing question of how complex biological forms are robustly built from a single fertilized egg, impacting on our understanding of organism development and maintenance, and opening new directions for the controlled design of artificial tissues and organs.

Mots-clés : biological self organization,tissue patterning,quantitative approaches to mechano chemical signalling,cell and tissue mechanics,size and shape in biology