Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : TOMAC (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de technologie d'Eindhoven — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Currently, 90% of the drugs fail to pass clinical trials1. One of the key reasons is that the animal models used in the preclinical phase poorly predict the human response to the drugs. Organ-on-a-Chip (OoC) is a game changing technology as one of the alternative methodolgies to animal models. The heart of an OoC system is an ‘Organ-chip’: cm-sized devices with micro-channels and -chambers in which human cells can be grown to closely mimic human tissues. More and more evidence shows that OoCs are more representative models than animals. However, the industry adoption of OoCs is still very limited. OoC users and developers simply have to choose between either OoCs with physiologically relevant flow but not fit for standard operating procedures in the pharmaceutical industry, or OoCs that are compatible but less physiological because of the absence or inadequacy of the flow.  The TOMAC project offer s novel a solution called “Magnetic Artificial Cilia (MAC) pump”: a chip-sized modular and tubeless flow system that on one hand, eliminates manual handling and enables automation, and on the other hand provides physiological flow for a range of organ models. The technology behind MAC is based on micrometer-sized magnetic hair-like structures called Magnetic Artificial Cilia (MAC), which are inspired by cilia occurring in nature. The MAC are flexible micro-actuators that respond to a varying magnetic field (created by the actuation system) by rotating or oscillating, and thus create a controlled fluid flow.
Projet ERC : CloudSound (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de technologie d'Eindhoven — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Ultrasound (US) can revolutionize and democratize medical imaging if it offers: (1) access for everyone, and (2) excellent image quality, always. MRI offers (2) but is expensive and will thus not likely be able to provide (1). Low-cost US hardware will enable (1) in the future but is not expected to yield the needed breakthrough for (2). Any solution that addresses both will have a huge impact.  The biggest adversaries for US image quality stem from patient- and user-specific factors. I therefore strongly believe that achieving (2) requires closed-loop, goal-directed imaging through systems that actively pursue information gain, in-situ. My ERC stg project “US-ACT” develops this new closed-loop US paradigm, with deep generative models governing beliefs about anatomy and function. This, however, gives rise to a new dilemma: How to embrace high-performant, but complex, algorithms to achieve (2), while at the same time lowering cost to achieve (1)? Our recent result shows that US-ACT enables breaking the cost-complexity trade-off, through a new approach that is rooted in the closed-loop proposition itself.  I propose CloudSound, a fully cloud-native US imaging paradigm, unlocking access to virtually unlimited computational power, memory, and storage for raw US sensor data. We will move all the computational complexity away from the local device to a remote server. To achieve this with minimal latency and high frame rates, CloudSound introduces a new holistic rate control strategy for the entire transmit-receive scheme, based on algorithms developed in US-ACT. This will drive rate control of the full solution under a time-varying information bottleneck: the network channel.  Ultimately, CloudSound will disrupt ultrasound business models and unlock unprecedented image quality and ease of use, making advanced medical imaging affordable and globally accessible.

Mots-clés : ultrasound,cloud,closed loop,perception action,data compression,real time
Projet ERC : BiParatopic (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Center for Cooperative Research in Biosciences — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized cancer therapy, yet the majority of patients do not respond to current treatments, such as PD-1/PD-L1blockade. In non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), over 70% of patients experience immune evasion mechanisms that prevent effective immune activation. One such mechanism involves the overexpression of glycans on tumor cells, which can modulate immune responses. In this project, we propose to develop novel bispecific bi-paratopic antibodies that simultaneously target two distinct epitopes of the target. This innovative approach is designed to provide a more comprehensive blockade of immune-suppressive functions by dual engagement of the receptor. Our bispecific antibodies will be engineered and optimized to target different epitopes, enhancing their ability to restore immune function. The project will involve the engineering, structural characterization, and functional validation of the bispecific antibodies, followed by preclinical efficacy studies in NSCLC models. By this approach, these antibodies have the potential to overcome the limitations of existing immunotherapies, offering a new therapeutic option for cancer patients who are resistant to current treatments. In addition to the scientific development, this ERC PoC project is designed to develop a robust commercialization strategy, with the potential for patent filings and engagement with pharmaceutical partners. Our vision is to bring these bispecific antibodies to the clinic, ultimately aiming to improve outcomes for patients with NSCLC and other cancers.
Projet ERC : CAVIPHY (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Ljubljana — Pays : Slovénie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

One of the most pressing global problems is the increasing pollution of surface and groundwater, which threatens the world's clean water supply and public health. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), the last barrier between ever-increasing human activities and the environment, produce huge amounts, up to 13 million tonnes per year in the EU alone1, of unwanted semi-solid by-product - waste activated sludge (WAS). Therefore, upgrading wastewater (WW) processes with new circular economy approaches is crucial to achieve the goals of the EU Green Deal. Considering WAS as a resource rather than an unwanted end-product is the first step towards sustainable WW treatment. CAVIPHY will address this need directly by developing a unique device that exploits cavitation to pre-treat industrial or domestic WAS prior to anaerobic digestion (AD). However, this process, simple in its fundamentals, will never be sufficient to make a substantial contribution to current and future energy needs unless it is extensively modernized and refined to reach its full potential. Based on the knowledge gained within the ERC-CoG CABUM, we have developed a rotating generator for hydrodynamic cavitation (RGHC) - a scalable and cost-effective device that works simultaneously as a cavitation generator and a pump. With CAVIPHY, we will improve the disintegration, settleability and dewatering of WAS, resulting in synergistic effects in terms of lower costs associated with reduced volumes of WAS and environmental burden from its disposal, while producing methane – a renewable bioenergy source. This will have a direct impact on the economics of WWTPs, as the WAS associated costs already account for nearly half of the total WWTP operation expenses and will continue to increase.
Projet ERC : HyperSKIN (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : École polytechnique de Milan — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : PoliMi
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 120000.0 €

The increasing incidence of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC, 330,000 new cases in Europe, 2022), due to the increase of elderly population, unprotected sun exposure and still poor prevention, is a huge public health concern worldwide. Recurrences and consequent need for repeated surgery are mainly associated with incomplete excision and positive tumor margins. Also, typical surgical risks of poor scarring, infection, pain, and time-consuming histopathological analysis demand innovative approaches, like light-based therapies, considered safe and effective options for many NMSC cases. However, none of traditional and new approaches perform intraoperative control, thus leading to cancer progression and recurrence. To overcome the lack of intraoperative monitored NMSC treatments, I benefit from a spectral imaging system I pioneered in my previous ERC project, for intraoperative monitoring of light-based treatment of tumors. HyperSKIN leverages the current NMSC management needs, and the ERC-proved technology to develop a contactless device that revolutionizes the decision-making regarding excisional margins before and during the procedure, with instantaneous feedback on the skin regions to be preserved and the tumoral parts to be removed. In this PoC, I will perform the technical-commercial feasibility study to move the HyperSKIN system to the market. I will prototype the HyperSKIN system and establish contacts with stakeholders for HyperSKIN validation and integration in clinical practice. The PoC will set a market and health technology assessment, the IP protection strategy, and identify the best business model and exploitation strategy for valorising the know-how.
Projet ERC : PhosPepPres (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Groningue — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : RUG
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Peptides have great potential for vaccines. Peptide-based vaccines aim to increase the population and activity of pathogen/cancer-recognizing T cells by administering antigenic peptides carrying epitopes for major histocompatibility (MHC) class I and II. These peptides are endocytosed by dendritic cells (DCs), followed by intracellular proteolytic processing to release the epitopes, the loading of the epitopes on MHC, and finally the presentation to antigen-specific T cells. Despite numerous studies showing immunogenicity in preclinical settings, peptide-based vaccines have failed to show efficacy in clinical trials. One reason for this limited efficacy is that too low amounts of epitopes are presented on MHC. Thus, one way to improve peptide-based vaccines is to improve their intracellular processing for MHC presentation by DCs. In this project, we will explore a novel approach for increasing the cross-presentation efficiency. Moreover, we will perform pre-commercialization studies aimed at protecting the intellectual property, defining the commercialization strategy, and enhancing our industrial network. We expect that our strategy will raise interest, as many pharmaceutical companies are developing peptide-based vaccines.
Projet ERC : CATALYSE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : École polytechnique de Milan — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : PoliMi
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The reduction of the environmental footprint of the chemical and related industries is nowadays of utmost importance. The transition towards more sustainable processes that combine efficient use of raw material and energy with higher transformation rates, better selectivity and higher mass and energy efficiency will contribute to meet the objectives of the green deal. In this respect, catalysis engineering is pivotal to developing technologies able to meet these goals and to shape the sustainable economy of the future. The accurate description of this multiscale process has a substantial impact on the performances of the entire chemical process and, consequently, on many manufacturing sectors. The description of the catalytic process requires a detailed and accurate definition of the intrinsic reactivity, by means of first-principles kinetic schemes, coupled with rigorous models at the reactor scale. Currently, this approach is hindered by the limited available computational resources which prevent the adoption of detailed and atom-resolved kinetic models into reactor simulations with a reasonable computational burden. To overcome the limitations identified above, starting from the results obtained during the ERC Stg “SHAPE” (n. 677423), we propose MultiCAT, a highly accurate yet computationally lean multi-scale physics-guided machine learning-based surrogate modelling framework of the entire reactor from the atomistic to the process scales. This represents a leapfrog improvement in the detailed numerical modeling of catalytic processes, by achieving a drastic reduction in the computational cost with a concomitant boost in the prediction reliability, and paving the way for a new generation of catalytic process models, an evolution of hybrid digital twins, for online process design, optimization and control.
Projet ERC : LEILA (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : École polytechnique de Milan — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : PoliMi
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 120000.0 €

The need of a minimally invasive alternative to traditional cancer surgery is pushing the global market of thermal ablation devices, mainly for treating delicate organs (brain, prostate, breast, pancreas, lung) in inoperable patients. With its fine and flexible applicator, laser ablation (LA) was successfully used in lesions difficult to access with conventional surgery, and its market is expected to show the highest growth rates in the next 5 years. However, crucial aspects and clinical needs are still unsolved for LA: the poor reproducibility of the procedure outcome and the lack of mini-invasive and accurate intraprocedural control make LA strongly relying on the doctor experience. The lack of control causes subtotal tumor coverage, thus bringing cancer progression and recurrence. To solve this issue, in the ERC LASER OPTIMAL project that I lead, it was developed the first platform which integrates a closed-loop control strategy of LA with multiplexed fiber optic sensors (FOSs) at the millimetric-scale, and modulates the laser power based on the measured tissue temperature. LEILA is the integration of this control platform with a novel smart applicator embedding the laser delivery and the temperature monitoring with FOSs. In this PoC proposal, the technical-commercial feasibility study will be performed to move the LEILA system to the market. The PoC will allow prototyping the system, establishing contact with stakeholders for testing and integration of LEILA in existing medical systems, and preparing a ready-to-use tool. The PoC will also set the market and health technology assessment, the business model, and the IP protection strategy with identification of the best exploitation strategy for valorising the know-how.
Projet ERC : Saor Track (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University College Cork — Pays : Irlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Magnetic tracking technology is the gold-standard for in vivo navigation where line-of-sight is not available. Magnetic tracking reduces dependence on radiation imaging and provides highly accurate tracking of instruments, tools and cameras inside the patient. However, existing commercial and research solutions are wired. High-accuracy wireless tracking can transform existing clinical applications of magnetic tracking such as electrophysiology (EP) mapping of the beating heart by dramatically reducing wire clutter in the OR, and simplifying the clinical workflow. More importantly, wireless tracking can open up new clinical applications where high-accuracy position navigation are not feasible to date, such as in capsule endoscopy. Existing capsules provide video feed to the clinical team without localisation to the patient’s anatomy. Our wireless position navigation design can seamlessly integrate with existing technology solutions to provide highly accurate localisation of abnormalities within the colon, resulting in more precise and faster diagnosis.  This project builds on ground-breaking innovations from the ERC Deep Field project to demonstrate proof-of-concept pre-clinical validation for our wireless magnetic navigation design in high-value existing applications in cardiology such as EP mapping, as well as demonstrating feasibility of high-accuracy position navigation in capsule endoscopy for the first time.
Projet ERC : COOLGRAELE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ICN2
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Devices such as mobile phones, computers, and batteries have become an integrated part of our society. An important challenge in such devices and device components is to avoid overheating by using suitable thermal management. Currently, this typically relies on heat dissipation by electrons in metals such as copper. More recent approaches have explored heat dissipation by phonons in graphene and related materials, which can have a thermal conductivity that is an order of magnitude higher than that of typical metals. In this project, we aim to demonstrate thermal management technology, where heat dissipation takes place by graphene electrons, rather than phonons. This is a promising approach, as the thermal conductivity of graphene electrons can be another order of magnitude larger than that of graphene phonons, as we recently demonstrated in our ERC-funded research. Furthermore, it allows for direct electronic heat dissipation without the intermediate step via phonons. The two main objectives of this project are i) to demonstrate graphene-electron-based heat dissipation in relevant electronic devices; and ii) to develop a business creation plan related to this technology. These objectives will be addressed by an experienced and multidisciplinary team consisting of scientists, technologists and business developers. On the technical level, we will fabricate and characterize three specific proof-of-concept demonstrator devices. On the commercial level, we will work on intellectual property protection, leverage our network of partners from relevant industries, and design a business creation strategy. There will be constant feedback between the technical level and the commercial level of the project, in order to establish how the technology will create the most added value adapted to the market needs, and thereby create most value for society.
Projet ERC : TERACOMM (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institute of Photonic Sciences — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ICFO
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

6th generation (6G) mobile broadband communications will transform the communications industry, leading to high speed networks capable of linking integrated communication, sensing, and computing capabilities to fuse the physical, biological, and cyber worlds. However, 6G infrastructure will require a significant increase in data transfer rate (>10 times larger than current standards), ultra-low power consumption (<1pj/bit), and high reliability. 5G technology, originally designed for data rates up to 20 Gbps, cannot fulfill these requirements. The sub-THz spectrum (~100GHz-300GHz) could provide the required capacity for 6G short-range wireless links. On the other hand, Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems, consisting of multiple transmitting/receiving antennas, are a key element of 5G tech, dramatically increasing the spectral efficiency of the wireless link, multiplying the data transfer rate of the single TX/RX antenna system by the number of implemented channels. Developing a technology that can combine the advantages of the sub-THz spectrum and MIMO systems could yield short-range 6G wireless connectivity, significantly enhancing data rates, power consumption, and reliability. ICFO’s patented Antenna-integrated-Graphene-THz-Detector (AGTD) technology, providing ultrabroadband frequency operation, high speed (potentially >100GHz), high sensitivity, small footprint and low power consumption, represents an ideal solution able to meet all the requirements for the realization of a MIMO system operating at unprecedented frequencies. TERACOMM envisions the realization and the demonstration of the receiver module of a graphene-based wireless MIMO system able to reach data rates >100Gbps for short range applications. Industrial links, protection of intellectual property, and commercial exploitation will lie at the heart of the project from the outset, in order to maximize the potential for this technology to realize a significant social and economic impact.
Projet ERC : POLARSENSE (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institute of Photonic Sciences — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ICFO
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Monitoring gases and particles through the use of smart sensors has a crucial role in a wide range of applications, from environmental control to breath analysis for diagnostics. With the information provided by these sensors, we are able to predict, prevent and act in potentially dangerous situations. In order for the data to be effectively transferred, the gas sensors must be integrated into portable devices with wireless connectivity, and must be miniaturized concurrently. To meet this requirement, the sensors must possess high sensitivity, selectivity, speed, ultra-low power consumption, and compatibility with silicon technology. However, currently no existing technology on the market fulfils all of these criteria. POLARSENSE aims out to develop an optical (infrared) gas sensor demonstrator chip based on a novel graphene electro-polaritonic platform that is designed to address all of the aforementioned technical and commercial requirements. This will be demonstrated through its functionality and performance, with the capability of detecting multiple gases in a scalable, CMOS compatible system with a sensitivity of 0.1 ppm, alongside specific optically active elements and an electrical detector all integrated within one single device. The result is a highly compact and efficient sensing platform that does not require an external photodetector. To achieve this, POLARSENSE will simulate, design, and fabricate a demonstrator chip in accordance with the specifications of our industrial partners, and test with a compact interferometer with a broadband infrared source to evaluate the performance. We will then validate the sensing performance of the demonstrator system with acetone gas in a matrix containing different concentrations of ethanol and/or water vapor that are typically present in breath analyzer and environmental monitoring applications.