Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : COREX (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3305636.0 €

The study of the past is undergoing a dramatic transformation: researchers in the fields of archaeology, genetics, linguistics, history and archaeometry are blurring the lines delimiting their respective fields, and working in increasingly collaborative efforts to understand how history and prehistory unfolded. Recent debates stress the need for new explanatory models which integrate both micro- and macro-level historical processes, and diverse types of datasets. We approach this challenge by applying novel modelling approaches allowing us to move from correlations to explanations of how changes have been shaped by the dynamic interaction of cultural innovation, migration, admixture, population growth and collapse, landscape transformation, dietary change, biological adaptation, social structure, and the emergence of new diseases. To achieve this overall goal the project is built upon four specific aims, which translates into four work packages: WP1: Database for C14, cultural and subsistence (including isotope) data, ancient genomes, eDNA sites, fossil pollen datasets and strontium samples WP2: Environmental DNA and high- resolution local environments,WP3 Exploratory analyses and discriminative models, WP4 Generative models and explanations. Our findings will serve to determine what the impact of the movement of people was on the European landscape, simultaneously on multiple scales: continental, regional and local, providing a research program defying the boundaries of archaeology, genetics and mathematical modelling.Thus, by identifying prehistoric regularities in the interactions of human biology, social and economic organisation, and demography we will be able to compare them to anthropological and historical models of such processes in recent times, to form a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of migration, integration and cultural change, then and now.

Mots-clés : environmental dna,generative models,discriminative models,archeological databases
Projet ERC : Diversity6continents (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : Czech Academy of Sciences — Pays : Rép. Tchèque — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : AVČR;CAS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3349618.0 €

The study will examine one of the most fundamental, yet poorly understood patterns of global biodiversity distribution: How can so many species coexist in a tropical forest? This key question of current ecology will be studied using quantitative surveys of plant-herbivore-parasitoid food webs within paired sets of tropical and temperate forests from six continents, in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Gabon, Panama, the Czech Republic, Japan, and USA, sampled using canopy cranes, truck-mounted elevated platforms and forest felling. This novel type of data will be analysed using a new rarefaction method, developed to test mechanistic explanations for biodiversity patterns along ecological gradients. It will evaluate competing hypotheses explaining latitudinal trends in insect herbivore diversity by the variation in either phylogenetic or functional diversity of plants, the host specificity of herbivores, or the diversity and specificity of their parasitoids and predators. The study will thus examine the importance of bottom-up (plants) and top-down (enemies) drivers of latitudinal trends in herbivore food webs, central to ecological theory that postulates the role of specialized herbivores as density-dependent agents of mortality involved in maintaining high tropical plant diversity. The project builds upon prior research that produced one of the largest tropical food web data sets to expand it conceptually, methodologically and geographically. It will build a globally important research facility (a canopy crane in PNG) and link researchers and infrastructure from several countries in a major effort to draw together separate lines of tropical and temperate research. Study sites in the ILTER, NEON, CTFS/SIGEO, and Canopy Crane Network will participate. The internationally recognized paraecologist program will be expanded, PhD students from both European and developing countries will be trained, and conservation of rainforests by indigenous rainforest dwellers will be leveraged.

Mots-clés : tropical ecology,latitudinal diversity gradients,rainforest,herbivory,plant insect interaction webs
Projet ERC : ReviveSTEM (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IRCCS
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

The success of Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cell (HSPC) gene therapies critically depends on the capacity to genetically engineer HSPCs without compromising their functional properties. Emerging evidence, including our own, indicates that HSPC exposure to currently available gene transfer and gene editing technologies –which require prolonged ex-vivo culture, high viral vector doses and nuclease-induced DNA double strand breaks– unexpectedly converge on the DNA damage response (DDR), a signaling cascade leading to cell cycle arrest. Protracted DDR impairs the hematopoietic reconstitution of gene-modified cells upon transplantation; instead, its transient inhibition significantly improves their functionality. This experimental evidence uncovers a previously unappreciated interplay between viral vector sensing and the host cell DDR machinery in human HSPCs. Yet, we have just scratched the surface of a plethora of still unexplored cellular programs potentially hampering the clonal composition and the dynamics of reconstitution upon transplantation of this primitive cell compartment. This proposal builds on the innovative concept that current gene engineering protocols may inadvertently trigger the activation of a cellular senescence program in HSPCs with both cell-autonomous and paracrine short- and long-term consequences on engineered human hematopoiesis. By employing quantitative imaging and cutting-edge genomic technologies and taking advantage of uniquely available gene therapy platforms and primary patient samples, we will identify the molecular determinants that promote senescence in HSPCs and design innovative hypothesis-driven strategies to mitigate senescence barriers for more effective, safer and clinically broader gene therapy applications. Successful completion of the project will unveil a new set of mechanisms controlling the biology of gene-engineered HSPCs and open novel scientific horizons for the development of innovative gene and cell therapies.

Mots-clés : senescence,dna damage response,hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells,gene editing,sasp,inflammation,gene transfer
Projet ERC : WATCH (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of Lübeck — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2875000.0 €

The survival of an organism depends on energy homeostasis, involving the control of neuroendocrine functions that integrate metabolic feedback and adapt the response of the organism to physiological demands. Tanycytes, specialized glial cells lining the floor of the third ventricle in the median eminence of the hypothalamus, act as linchpins of these processes, dynamically controlling the secretion of neuropeptides by hypothalamic neurons into the pituitary portal circulation and regulating blood-brain and blood-cerebrospinal fluid exchanges, both processes that depend on their morphological plasticity in response to the physiological state. In addition to their barrier properties, they actively shuttle circulating metabolic signals to hypothalamic neurons that control food intake. The overarching goal of WATCH is to synergistically employ state-of-the-art technologies in systems neuroscience, mouse genetics and bench-to-bedside research, to explore the role of these unique and versatile cells, providing new directions in biomarker research and new therapeutic approaches for a variety of disorders that impair well-aging. Our specific aims are: 1. Genetic dissection of the in vivo regulation, pathophysiological function and molecular markers of tanycytes classified according to their anatomical location. 2. Identification of novel heterogeneous, molecularly distinct tanycytes and associated endothelial cells and determining how these characteristics evolve under distinct physiological and pathological conditions. 3. Functional validation of newly classified subgroups of tanycytes and the specific modulation of the activity of these subgroups at the experimental level. 4. Exploration of the functional consequences of pharmacologically activating pathways required for the tanycytic shuttling of metabolic signals on their CSF levels of these factors, hypothalamic activity and cognition in animal models and patients with morbid obesity or age-related cognitive deficits.

Mots-clés : tanycytes,energy homeostasis,hypothalamo pituitary neuroedocrine axis,aging,neurodegenerative disorders,hypothalamus
Projet ERC : PERIF (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Institut Pasteur — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1976100.0 €

The survival of organisms requires the ability to repair tissues upon injury, as well as, after birth, to fight foreign invaders that may have contaminated the wound. This last function is mediated by a complex host response involving immune cells, blood vessels and inflammatory mediators that collectively intend to neutralize the harmful agent and eliminate damaged/necrotic tissue. Initially beneficial, this massive inflammatory response comes with a cost, and adult injured tissues usually heal with a scar, which is an area of fibrous tissue that transiently replaces normal tissue. In chronic settings, scarring can become excessive in a process called fibrosis, to the point of preventing functional recovery of the injured organ and be life threatening. Nearly half of all deaths in industrialized world are due to diseases involving inappropriate, often chronic, inflammatory and fibrotic responses, including lung, kidney and liver diseases, scleroderma, inflammatory bowel diseases, muscular dystrophies, cardiovascular diseases, and tumors. However our current knowledge of the biological processes regulating fibrosis is partial, which has hindered therapeutic advances in the field. Recent data from our team and others drew new attention on a discrete population of mesenchymal cells that wraps around vessels, variously called mural cells, perivascular cells or pericytes, as a major source for profibrotic stromal cells generating scar tissue. Previously known for their vascular protective functions, increasing evidence suggests new and unexpected roles for these cells also in inflammation, repair/regeneration, and cancer. These new findings raise a number of challenging questions relative to their functional diversity, as well as mechanisms of activation/ regulation in disease. The identification and specific targeting of functional subsets of mesenchymal perivascular cells may have notable impact in research and medicine, paving the way for new therapeutic avenues in inflammatory/fibrotic diseases and cancer.

Mots-clés : biological process of fibrosis,inducible lineage tracing and genetic ablation of perivascular progenitors,targeting cancer stroma
Projet ERC : MANIFEST (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Bergen — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 75000.0 €

The technologies needed to decarbonize the electricity system are already commercially available. There are mathematical models of how these technologies can be deployed sufficiently fast and at a large enough scale to displace fossil fuels to meet climate targets. Yet there is no scientific method to evaluate whether these scenarios are feasible given the real world’s socio-political constraints. MANIFEST develops a new scientific understanding of socio-political feasibility of climate change mitigation that takes into account the context, actors and change over time. Theoretically, MANIFEST combines a definition of socio-political feasibility from political philosophy with the concept of causal mechanisms of energy transitions. Thus, I shift the thinking about the feasibility of climate change mitigation from its current focus on barriers and enablers to a dynamic and context sensitive view with space for actors and agency. Empirically, I focus on transitions in electricity supply including the expansion of low-carbon electricity and coal phase-out. I explore three areas which are critical for the feasibility of decarbonisation of electricity: (i) the role and capacities of international suppliers of electricity technologies, (ii) the competition between electricity technologies at the early stages of their introduction in emerging economies, and (iii) factors shaping the growth of low-carbon technologies and under what conditions they substitute carbon-intensive ones. Methodologically, I develop a new approach to assess the feasibility of climate solutions by constructing dynamic feasibility spaces which are a function of paths, contexts and actors. I test this approach by analysing national low-carbon electricity targets to determine whether states plan to accelerate decarbonisation beyond the current feasibility frontier. This dynamic feasibility space is a breakthrough in assessing the feasibility of national and global climate change mitigation solutions.

Mots-clés : energy transitions,climate change mitigation,low carbon scenarios,renewables
Projet ERC : DIRECTS (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : University of Wuppertal — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : BUW
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2477947.0 €

The terahertz (THz) frequency range is widely considered as the most challenging and under-developed frequency range due to the lack of technologies to effectively bridge the transition region between microwaves (below 100 GHz) and optics (above 10,000 GHz). Although THz radiation would be perfect for material identification and as a safe alternative to X-rays for producing high resolution images of the interior of opaque objects, first a fundamentally new approach is needed to establish novel devices and techniques. Rarely considered for its complexity, the so-called “light field” consists of all light rays in 3-D space, flowing through every point and in every direction. Thus a light field camera not only records color and brightness like a 2-D imaging sensor does, but also the direction/angle of all the light rays arriving at the sensor. The beauty of this spatio-directional information is that one can localize hidden objects and calculate their covered three-dimensional shape. So what’s the catch? For any practical means, the natural ambient THz radiation is by far too weak, and THz light-fields need to be created artificially. Here I propose an innovative pathway empowered by massively scaled THz source and detector arrays, which will bring forth the science of computational light-fields to THz 3-D see-through imaging. Starting with newfangled THz source-arrays, I create the missing temporal modulated light-fields directly at the source and investigate a diffraction inclusive THz light-field system theory, architecture and algorithms. This is combined with innovative THz integrated circuits to research real-time THz light-field components. Although the far-reaching objectives incorporate a high risk due to the complexity of the approach connecting physical, computational, and optical sciences with engineering approaches, this is offset by the promise of major breakthroughs to create substantial value for both science and the global economy.

Mots-clés : terahertz  thz  technology,electronics,integrated circuits,silicon process,technology,thz camera,thz transmitter,receiver arrays,see through imaging,light field,plenoptics,computational imaging,3 d imaging,mimo
Projet ERC : CHIC (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999055.0 €

The terahertz (THz) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is the junction between optics and electronics. THz is a gate to sensing applications and spectroscopy as well as appealing for material inspection, non-invasive imaging for safety and medical applications and short-range high data rate wireless communication which are being extended to higher frequencies entering the THz range. Optical frequency combs have dominated the scene of laser physics in the last 10 years revolutionizing many fields of optics from metrology to high precision spectroscopy. Optical frequency combs act as rulers in the frequency domain and are characterized by their perfectly equally spaced and coherent modes. An extremely appealing application of optical frequency combs is the so-called dual-comb spectroscopy where multi-heterodyne detection is performed allowing Fourier transform spectroscopy with high resolution, high sensitivity and no moving parts. The objective of this proposal is to create on-chip, self-referenced frequency combs operating in the spectral region from 1.5-5-5 THz. Two main approaches will be followed: direct generation with THz QC lasers (cryogenically cooled) and room temperature non-linear generation by means of Mid-IR QCL combs. Such devices will be groundbreaking since they will allow high resolution THz spectroscopy and they will pave the way to high-rate local data transmission and coherent communication. We recently demonstrated octave spanning lasing from a THz QCL: this will constitute the foundation of our efforts. The developed combs will be implemented in the extremely powerful dual-comb scheme with innovative on-chip self-stabilization and detection of the multi-heterodyne signals. The self-referencing and the independence from an external detector makes the proposed devices disruptive due to their extreme compactness, intrinsic stability and large bandwidth.

Mots-clés : frequency combs,spectroscopy,telecommunications
Projet ERC : RETVOLUTION (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : Centre for Genomic Regulation — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CRG;CRG-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 261534.13 €

The traditional view is that species and their genomes evolve only by vertical descent, leading to evolutionary histories that can be represented by bifurcating lineages. However, modern evolutionary thinking recognizes processes of reticulate evolution, such as horizontal gene transfer or hybridization, which involve total or partial merging of genetic material from two diverged species. Today it is widely recognized that such events are rampant in prokaryotes, but a relevant role in eukaryotes has only recently been acknowledged. Unprecedented genomic and phylogenetic information, and recent work from others and us have shown that reticulate evolution in eukaryotes is more common and have more complex outcomes than previously thought. However, we still have a very limited understanding of what are the impacts at the genomic and evolutionary levels. To address this, I propose to combine innovative computational and experimental approaches. The first goal is to infer patterns of reticulate evolution across the eukaryotic tree, and relate this to current biological knowledge. The second goal is to trace the genomic aftermath of inter-species hybridization at the i) long-term, by analysing available genomes in selected eukaryotic taxa, ii) mid-term, by sequencing lineages of natural fungal hybrids, and iii) short-term, by using re-sequencing and experimental evolution in yeast. A particular focus is placed on elucidating the role of hybridization in the origin of whole genome duplications, and in facilitating the spread of horizontally transferred genes. Finally results from this and other projects will be integrated into emerging theoretical frameworks. Outcomes of this project will profoundly improve our understanding of reticular processes as drivers of eukaryotic genome evolution, and will impact other key aspects of evolutionary theory, ranging from the concept of orthology to the eukaryotic tree of life.

Mots-clés : hybridization,horizontal gene transfer,genome evolution,eukaryotes,fungi
Projet ERC : DULICAT (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Kiel University — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1660657.5 €

The transition metal catalyzed activation of aromatic carbon-hydrogen (C–H) bonds has enabled a variety of novel transformations that complement traditional approaches towards complex aromatic compounds. The vast majority of methods developed in this field relies on the use of directing groups, which coordinate the catalyst prior to the C–H activation step to induce activity and selectivity. In contrast, nondirected methods have remained underdeveloped, since it has remained highly challenging to achieve reactivity and induce good selectivities in such processes. My research group has recently discovered a new design paradigm for palladium catalysts, which exhibit extraordinary activities and selectivities. Through the combined action of two complementary ligands these catalysts enable the activation of arenes without requiring a directing group or the use of an excess of the substrate. Here, I propose to initiate a broadly conceived research project aiming at three major goals: 1) The development of highly active palladium catalysts that can activate even the most challenging arene substrates. This goal will be pursued by building a broad ligand library and conducting systematic structure activity studies that are designed to deliver an in-depth mechanistic understanding. 2) The development of catalysts that enable high sterically controlled regioselectivities. This goal will be tackled using a mechanism-based design approach, aiming to minimize the influence of electronic effects and to suppress unintended directing effects. 3) The development of novel synthetic methods for late-stage functionalization. A particular focus will be on transformations that exhibit otherwise challenging regioselectivities and deliver attractive motifs for medicinal chemistry. Overall this project is expected to establish dual ligand-enabled palladium catalysis as a novel tool in synthetic organic chemistry that will prove highly useful in both academic and industrial laboratories.

Mots-clés : palladium catalysis,c h activation,late stage modification