Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : UPTIME (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Heriot-Watt University — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1918331.29 €

The perception of the world surrounding us depends on how we illuminate and capture it. For example, our direct observation of high-speed phenomena is limited by the speed of the human visual system. A well known method to visualize fast events is to capture them at very high frame rates with high-speed cameras, and then play the movie in slow-motion, enabling us to understand what happens at short timescales. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop the fastest camera on earth, able not only to visualize the changing morphology and position of an object under investigation, but also to simultaneously capture in depth spectroscopic information in both temporal and spectral domains – all of these at unprecedented speeds, several orders of magnitude faster than the current state of the art. For the first time, this will enable the simultaneous high-speed visualization and the spatio-spectro-temporal investigation of dynamic phenomena, at timescales never before accessible. This will enable us to gain unique insights into very fast transformations such as chemical reactions, phase transitions, laser ablation and other irreversible phenomena in physics, biology and engineering. This project will achieve its ambitious objectives through the creative exploitation of novel semiconductor ultrafast lasers and photonic sampling systems, enabling the high-speed illumination and capture of events in the spatial, temporal and spectral domains. This project will pave the way for completely new insights into high-speed dynamic events, allowing us to open up entirely new perspectives into the behaviour of the world at such timescales.

Mots-clés : ultrafast photonics,high speed imaging
Projet ERC : SENCES (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Philipps University of Marburg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1996738.0 €

The perceptual experience of humans is seamless, although there are major spatial gaps in the available sensory information due to internal (e.g. absence of photoreceptors in the blind-spot) or external reasons (e.g. occlusion by other objects). While the contents of these sensory gaps seem to be completed by inferences, it is unknown how those inferences are dealt with in further processing compared to veridical sensory information. Recently, we and others showed that inferred information is preferred over sensory information in metacognition. This contradicts one of the axioms of current thinking about human information processing, according to which information is weighted by its reliability. SENCES aims to investigate the processing and usage of inferred information in comparison to veridical sensory information. First, we will use psychophysical and behavioral experiments to understand the role of inferences in perception, metacognition and action. Second, we will use EEG to distinguish between different models concerning the neural processing of inferences. Third, we will assess the role of inferences in pathological retinal scotomata and their plasticity along three time scales: across the lifespan by comparing healthy observers and patients experienced with missing sensory information due to long-term visual disorders; in the mid-term by studying the progression of pathological retinal scotomata in patients; in the short-term by training healthy observers with artificially missing sensory information. SENCES will provide crucial insights into how a seamless perceptual experience is constructed and how it is shielded from gaps in sensory information. Studying different phenomena of perceptual completion will allow for the discovery of general principles. Finally, it will uncover positive and negative consequences of perceptual completion in pathological scotomata and might point towards new approaches for early diagnosis and behavioral treatment.

Mots-clés : perception,metacognition,action control,perceptual inferences,scotomata,clinical ophthalmology
Projet ERC : PolyHelix (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Hebrew University of Jerusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1460375.0 €

The performance of organic electronic materials is strongly dependent on their conformation. Twisting these materials out of planarity induces chirality and thus results in new electronic, magnetic, and optical properties with increasing numbers of applications as non-liner optical devices, spin filters, and magneto-optical devices. However, the effect of twisting is poorly understood, as it is difficult to isolate from other factors. Moreover, twisting often comes at the expense of π-conjugation, resulting in inferior device performance. Using a novel approach, I propose to address this challenge by introducing a new family of helically-locked organic electronic materials, oligomers and polymers, in which the twist of the π-conjugated backbone can be finely tuned. This will allow us to monitor and understand the effects of twisting on the electronic, optical, and magnetic properties of organic electronic materials. Unlike most chiral conjugated materials, the proposed approach allows the formation of polymers with a tunable twist, helical backbone chirality and strong π-conjugation, a combination often difficult to obtain. Following our preliminary findings, which successfully demonstrated the helical locking of small acene units to a specific twist angle, my team will focus on five ambitious projects: 1) Synthesis of extendable twistacene units. 2) Synthesis of helically-chiral oligomers polymers with tuneable twist. 3) Study of the effect of twisting on the charge and energy transfer processes. 4) Synthesis of open shell twisted acenes. 5) Understanding the effect of twisting on the magneto-optical properties and chiral-induced spin selectivity. The successful introduction of the abovementioned twisted backbones will allow us to understand the influence of molecular structure on fundamental properties of organic electronic materials, and the acquired knowledge will lead to design new materials for efficient optoelectronic, magneto-optic and spintronic devices.

Mots-clés : organic electronic materials,chiral organic semiconductors,acenes,polyaromatic hydrocarbons,conjugated polymers,materials chemistry,cyclophanes,twistacenes,curved aromatic molecules
Projet ERC : PhageResist (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative Biology: from Genes and Genomes to Systems
Entité participante : Weizmann Institute of Science — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

The perpetual arms race between bacteria and phage has resulted in the evolution of efficient resistance systems that protect bacteria from phage infection. Such systems, which include restriction enzymes and CRISPR-Cas, have major influence on the evolution of both bacteria and phage, and have also proven to be invaluable for molecular and biotechnological applications. Although much have been learned on the biology of bacterial defense against phage, more than half of all sequenced bacteria do not contain CRISPR-Cas, and it is estimated that many additional, yet-uncharacterized anti-phage defense systems are encoded in bacterial genomes. The goal of this project is to systematically understand the arsenal of defense mechanisms that are at the disposal of microbes in their struggle against phages. The project combines computational genomics, synthetic biology, high-throughput robotic assays, and deep genetic and biochemical experiments to discover, verify, and study the properties of anti-phage defense systems.

Mots-clés : crispr,phage,phage resistance,phage defense
Projet ERC : TheONE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of Zagreb — Pays : Croatie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 399575.0 €

The phenomenon of high-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity (SC) is one of the most exciting, thoroughly investigated yet still unresolved problems in physics. A major difficulty in understanding high-Tc systems lies in the complexity of the materials and phase diagram. The delicate balance between material specific properties, disorder and the number of electronic phases superimpose makes it hard to identify the leading interactions. Consequently, theoretical models attempting to describe the high-Tc SC are significantly disparate and identifying the mechanism of SC at elevated temperatures is full of hardship. Due to the proximity of the antiferromagnetic phase, the strong electronic interactions, the appearance of a pseudogap etc., the electronic phase is considered to be exotic, a non-Fermi Liquid and the coupling mechanism for Cooper pairs strange. Based on my recent experiments, here I propose a change of paradigm: •that the charge carriers which couple to give high temperature superconductivity follow the well-known Fermi-liquid behavior •that the pseudogap phenomenon corresponds to a gradual (Mott-like) localization of exactly ONE charge carrier per unit cell •the “Glue” for pairing stems from a bosonic excitation of ONE localized carrier leading to a novel excitonic mechanism for SC. These hypotheses will be tested primarily on the model compound Hg1201, which features a simple tetragonal structure, minimal disorder effects, and the highest Tc in its class of single-layer compounds. Fermi-liquid aspects will be probed by novel approaches to (magneto)transport, optical conductivity. The relation between SC and The ONE will be explored by unique experimental setups that combine uniaxial-pressure with local/structural probes. If the above conjectures are indeed confirmed it would give an enormous boost to this field. Beyond finding the solution of a 30-year-old enigma, it would enable an educated search for new materials with potentially even higher Tc's.

Mots-clés : high tc cuprates,pseudogap,mott  localization,fermi liquid,excitonic superconductivity,uniaxial pressure,local probes,optical conductivity,transport,quantum oscillations
Projet ERC : NEIMO (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Technion – Israel Institute of Technology — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

The philosophical ‘mind-body problem’ examines the relationship between the mind, a mental process, and its impact on the body, a physical entity. It has multiple manifestations in modern medicine, for example, the emergence of disease following stress, or recovery in response to placebo treatment. Nevertheless, this fundamental aspect of physiology remains largely unexplored. Here we propose to approach this question by focusing on a specific aspect of brain-body interactions. Namely, to study how the brain's interoceptive site, the insular cortex, affects the immune system, the body’s main protective mechanism. We will explore the interactions between the insula and the immune system on two levels. First, we will focus on the insula and its projections within the brain; secondly, we will study the role of projections from the brain, specifically, the peripheral nervous system (PNS), which innervates all the immunological organs. We will use chemogenetics to activate/inhibit the activity of neurons in the insula, and optogenetics to locally control, using light, the activity of sympathetic and parasympathetic neurons innervating immunological sites. We will then characterize the effects of these neuronal manipulations on the immune system to decipher fundamental principles of the dialog between nerve and immune cells with the long term goal of harnessing the brain’s therapeutic potential. My multidisciplinary background places me in a unique position to investigate brain regulation of immunity, and our preliminary data support our central hypothesis that the brain and, specifically, the insula, regulate immune responses. Taken together, this study promises to alter our understanding of brain-body interactions, and to set the stage for novel approaches to analyze how the state of the mind impacts physiology.

Mots-clés : psychoneuroimmunology,neuroimmunology
Projet ERC : MIREDI (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : UK Research and Innovation — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UKRI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 882899.0 €

The plant immune system is innate – it is encoded in the germline. In natural pathosystems, plants efficiently deploy hundreds of immune receptors to detect and disarm rapidly evolving pathogens including viruses, bacteria, nematodes, insects, fungi and oomycetes. Exactly how such receptor diversity can evolve is an elusive question with important practical ramifications. A central class of plant immune receptors, called Nucleotide Binding Leucine Rich Repeats proteins (NLR), has been implicated in recognition of vastly diverse pathogen-derived effector molecules. An emerging paradigm of receptor diversification in plant genomes involves new gene fusions of receptors with host proteins that are normally targeted by pathogen effectors. Such fusion receptors ‘bait’ pathogens and their integrated domains are thought to function as ‘decoys’ or ‘sensors’ that mediate pathogen recognition. I have recently demonstrated that the mechanism of generating new receptors through gene fusions originated at least 500 million years ago in mosses and is common to all flowering plants. Here, I propose to decode the mechanisms of plant immune receptor diversification by gene fusions by studying diversity and functions of immune receptors in grasses, a young highly diversified plant family that includes the three most important crops: maize, rice and wheat. My specific aims are to: 1) Determine rates of receptor diversification within and across genomes 2) Dissect the mechanisms of receptor regulation and receptor activation 3) Generate novel plant immune receptors based on the NLR platform prone to fusions. In this MIREDI research programme, I will combine state of the art sequencing techniques and bioinformatics, molecular biology and novel reverse genetics techniques to study how plant immune system co-evolves with pathogens and what limits diversification of immunity in domesticated crops.

Mots-clés : plant disease resistance,immune receptors,pathogens,pathogen effectors
Projet ERC : DENOVO-P (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GMI
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1980378.74 €

The polarity of the single cell from which many organisms develop determines the polarity of the body axis. However, the polarity of these single cells is often inherited. For example, zygote polarity is inherited from the polarized egg cell of Arabidopsis thaliana. By contrast, polarity is not pre-set in the spore cell that forms the Marchantia polymorpha (Marchantia) plant. An environmental cue – directional light – polarises the spore cell which, in turn, directs the formation of the first (apical-basal) axis and the fates of the two daughter cells formed when the spore cell divides. Using Marchantia, we will discover how cell polarity is established de novo in the developing spore cell and how this, in turn, directs the specification of the first major axis in the plant. The proposed research is feasible because of the unique characteristics of the Marchantia system: 1. Isolated single apolar cells become polarized allowing us to exploit the real-time imaging with experimental manipulation of polarising cues at each stage of development. 2. Haploid genetics can be exploited to carry out genetic screens of unprecedented depth and we can identify mutant genes using a fully annotated genome sequence. 3. Gene expression can be measured with high temporal resolution during polarization. We propose to: 1. Describe the cellular and morphogenetic events that occur as the spore cell polarizes, divides asymmetrically to form cells at either end of the apical-basal axis. 2. Define the mechanism underpinning the de novo establishment of polarity using a combination of forward and reverse genetics and determine if this mechanism is conserved among land plants. 3. Determine the role of auxin in transmitting spore cell polarity to the cells at both ends of the apical-basal axis. This will describe, for the first time, the molecular mechanism controlling the de novo polarization of a single cell that develops into a plant.

Mots-clés : polarity,marchantia,evolution
Projet ERC : DENOVOSTEM (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : University of Padua — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNIPD
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2239422.75 €

The possibility to artificially induce and expand in vitro tissue-specific stem cells (SCs) is an important goal for regenerative medicine, to understand organ physiology, for in vitro modeling of human diseases and many other applications. Here we found that this goal can be achieved in the culture dish by transiently inducing expression of YAP or TAZ - nuclear effectors of the Hippo and biomechanical pathways - into primary/terminally differentiated cells of distinct tissue origins. Moreover, YAP/TAZ are essential endogenous factors that preserve ex-vivo naturally arising SCs of distinct tissues. In this grant, we aim to gain insights into YAP/TAZ molecular networks (upstream regulators and downstream targets) involved in somatic SC reprogramming and SC identity. Our studies will entail the identification of the genetic networks and epigenetic changes controlled by YAP/TAZ during cell de-differentiation and the re-acquisition of SC-traits in distinct cell types. We will also investigate upstream inputs establishing YAP/TAZ activity, with particular emphasis on biomechanical and cytoskeletal cues that represent overarching regulators of YAP/TAZ in tissues. For many tumors, it appears that acquisition of an immature, stem-like state is a prerequisite for tumor progression and an early step in oncogene-mediated transformation. YAP/TAZ activation is widespread in human tumors. However, a connection between YAP/TAZ and oncogene-induced cell plasticity has never been investigated. We will also pursue some intriguing preliminary results and investigate how oncogenes and chromatin remodelers may link to cell mechanics, and the plasticity of the differentiated and SC states by controlling YAP/TAZ. In sum, this research should advance our understanding of the cellular and molecular basis underpinning organ growth, tissue regeneration and tumor initiation.

Mots-clés : mechanobiology,hippo signaling
Projet ERC : DENOVOSTEM (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : University of Modena and Reggio Emilia — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 259511.25 €

The possibility to artificially induce and expand in vitro tissue-specific stem cells (SCs) is an important goal for regenerative medicine, to understand organ physiology, for in vitro modeling of human diseases and many other applications. Here we found that this goal can be achieved in the culture dish by transiently inducing expression of YAP or TAZ - nuclear effectors of the Hippo and biomechanical pathways - into primary/terminally differentiated cells of distinct tissue origins. Moreover, YAP/TAZ are essential endogenous factors that preserve ex-vivo naturally arising SCs of distinct tissues. In this grant, we aim to gain insights into YAP/TAZ molecular networks (upstream regulators and downstream targets) involved in somatic SC reprogramming and SC identity. Our studies will entail the identification of the genetic networks and epigenetic changes controlled by YAP/TAZ during cell de-differentiation and the re-acquisition of SC-traits in distinct cell types. We will also investigate upstream inputs establishing YAP/TAZ activity, with particular emphasis on biomechanical and cytoskeletal cues that represent overarching regulators of YAP/TAZ in tissues. For many tumors, it appears that acquisition of an immature, stem-like state is a prerequisite for tumor progression and an early step in oncogene-mediated transformation. YAP/TAZ activation is widespread in human tumors. However, a connection between YAP/TAZ and oncogene-induced cell plasticity has never been investigated. We will also pursue some intriguing preliminary results and investigate how oncogenes and chromatin remodelers may link to cell mechanics, and the plasticity of the differentiated and SC states by controlling YAP/TAZ. In sum, this research should advance our understanding of the cellular and molecular basis underpinning organ growth, tissue regeneration and tumor initiation.

Mots-clés : mechanobiology,hippo signaling