Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : DNAsensPROT (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Imperial College London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149956.0 €

The life expectancy in both EU and US fell in 2015. A third of premature deaths could be preventable and large part is due to obesity – a major risk factor for many chronic diseases including diabetes. Worldwide about 40% of adults are overweight and 13% obese. Regulation of food metabolism is becoming one of the main issues relevant to human health today. Obesity is preventable, however there are no currently available non-invasive and cost-effective obesity treatments, pointing to the need of novel diagnostic and prognostic tests. Leptin, a gut-hormone protein, has been shown to be crucial in regulating appetite and weight. Its concentration is proportional to the body fat mass, and changes at a greater rate compared to weight loss, therefore it can be used as a key measure of diet efficiency. Strong correlation between plasma and salivary leptin levels allows monitoring leptin in saliva, and provides point-of-care (PoC) personalised insight into the success of individual weight loss programs. During our ERC Synergy Grant we have developed an aptamer based approach to perform quantitative detection of protein molecules using nucleic acid amplification to overcome the complexities of current methods to enable PoC detection. The key idea (patent pending) is to amplify and quantify DNA displaced from DNA-aptamer complexes by Leptin molecules with real-time Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification. We will use an Ion Sensitive Field Effect Transistor lab-on chip arrays. Now we need funds to further develop this technology and create a PoC platform to provide linear label-free ultrasensitive protein detection, reducing complexity, time-to-result and cost of the assay. Furthermore, the development of this novel molecular method will enable quantification of a broader number of protein targets and create one of the most sensitive PoC techniques for protein quantification, with applications far beyond appetite control (obesity, anorexia etc) management.

Mots-clés : dna amplification,aptamer,semiconductor technology,point of care,leptin,obesity,proteomics
Projet ERC : KILONOVA (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GSI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

The lightest chemical elements –Hydrogen and Helium– were created about a minute after the Big Bang. Elements up to Iron are forged by fusion reactions in stars. Heavy elements between Iron and Uranium are produced by a sequence of neutron captures and beta-decays known as rapid neutron capture or r process. The freshly synthesized r-process elements undergo radioactive decay through various channels depositing energy in the ejecta that powers an optical/infrared transient called “kilonova” whose basic properties like luminosity and its dependence on ejecta mass, velocity, radioactive energy input, and atomic opacities I contributed to determine for the first time. Our predictions have been dramatically confirmed by the observation of a kilonova electromagnetic transient associated with the gravitational wave signal GW170817 providing the first direct indication that r-process elements are produced in neutron-star mergers. Additional events are expected to be detected in the following years, representing a complete change of paradigm in r-process research as for the first time we will be confronted with direct observational data. To fully exploit such opportunity it is fundamental to combine an improved description of exotic neutron-rich nuclei involved in the r-process with sophisticated astrophysical simulations to provide accurate prediction of r-process nucleosynthesis yields and their electromagnetic signals to be confronted with observational data. Based on my broad knowledge and expertise in all the relevant areas, and the unique experimental capabilities of the GSI/FAIR facility, I am in prime position to advance our understanding of r-process nucleosynthesis and determine the contribution of mergers to the chemical enrichment of the galaxy in heavy elements.

Mots-clés : r process nucleosynthesis,physics of exotic neutron rich nuclei,neutrino matter and,nucleus reactions,electromagnetic transients,neutron star mergers,accretion disks,magnetohydrodynamic
Projet ERC : HEPASPHER (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Karolinska Institutet — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2413449.0 €

The liver is a vital organ for synthesis and detoxification. The most significant liver diseases are hepatitis, non alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), non-alcoholic fatty liver steatohepatitis (NASH), carcinoma and cirrhosis. An additional and important cause of liver injury is adverse drug reactions (ADRs). In particular NAFLD is the most common liver disease affecting between 20% and 44% of European adults and 43-70% of patients with type 2 diabetes, and is one prime cause for chronic and end-stage liver disease, such as cirrhosis and primary hepatocellular carcinoma. This proposal is based on recent findings in the laboratory: The development of novel 3D spheroid system with chemically defined media allowing studies of chronic drug toxicity, relevant liver disease and liver function for 5 weeks in vitro, the finding of the role of miRNA in hepatocyte dedifferentiation and that hepatocytes during spheroid formation first de-differentiate but later in spheroids re-differentiate to an in vivo relevant phenotype. This forms the basis for the main objectives: i) to study diseased liver in vitro with identification of mechanisms, biomarkers and novel drug candidates for treatment of NAFLD and fibrosis, ii) evaluate drug toxicity sensitivity and mechanisms in diseased liver systems and iii) further develop methods for hepatocyte proliferation and regeneration in vitro for transplantation purposes, including genetic editing in cases of hepatocytes obtained from patients with genetically inherited liver diseases. This work is carried out in close contact with the Hepatology unit at the Karolinska Hospital partly using resources at the Science for Life Laboratory at Karolinska. It is anticipated that the project can provide with novel mechanisms, biomarkers and new targets for treatment of liver disease as well as novel methods for clinically applicable liver regeneration without the use of stem cells or transformed cells.

Mots-clés : liver regeneration,drug toxicity,in vitro models,drug development,nafld,liver disease
Projet ERC : PrenatStressAging (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1483720.0 €

The long-term consequences of exposure to excess stress on the initiation and progression of many age-related diseases are well established. The period of intrauterine life represents among the most sensitive developmental windows, at which time the effects of stress may be transmitted inter-generationally from a mother to her as-yet-unborn child. The elucidation of mechanisms underlying such effects is an area of intense interest and investigation. Aging, by definition, occurs with advancing age, and age-related disorders result from exposures over the life span of factors that produce and accumulate damage. The novel concept advanced in this proposal is that the establishment of the integrity of key cellular aging-related processes that determine variation across individuals in the onset and progression of age-related disorders may originate very early in life (in utero) and may be plastic and influenced by developmental conditions. We propose that telomere biology and the epigenetic DNA methylation-based aging profile (DNAmAGE) represent candidate outcomes of particular interest in this context. A prospective, longitudinal cohort study of 350 mother-child dyads will be conducted from early pregnancy through birth till one year of age. Specific hypotheses about the effects of maternal stress and maternal-placental-fetal stress biology on newborn and infant telomere length, telomerase expression capacity, and DNAmAGE will be addressed. Serial measures of maternal psychological, behavioral and physiological characteristics will be collected across gestation using an innovative ecological momentary assessment (EMA) based real-time, ambulatory sampling protocol. The proposed study will help identify new strategies for risk identification and primary and secondary interventions to augment current efforts to prevent, delay and ameliorate age-related disorders.

Mots-clés : fetal programming,stress,pregnancy,infant telomere biology,ecological momentary assessments  ema
Projet ERC : FluFloRan (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Bielefeld University — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

The main goal of the present project is to make substantial contributions to the understanding of fundamental problems in the mathematical theory of fluid flows. This theory is formulated in terms of systems of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs). Major attention has been paid to the iconic example, the Navier-Stokes system for incompressible fluids, and the corresponding Millennium Problem. Despite joint efforts and a substantial progress for various models in fluid dynamics, fundamental questions concerning existence and uniqueness of solutions as well as long time behavior remain unsolved. This project is based on the conviction that a probabilistic description is indispensable in modeling of fluid flows to capture the chaotic behavior of deterministic systems after blow-up, and to describe model uncertainties due to high sensitivity to input data or parameter reduction. For a set of selected models, we investigate different aspects of the underlying deterministic and stochastic PDE dynamics. In particular, we are concerned with the question of solvability and well-posedness or alternatively ill-posedness. For some models including the incompressible stochastic Navier-Stokes system we investigate non-uniqueness in law. For the compressible counterpart we aim to prove existence of a unique ergodic invariant measure. The guiding theme of this research program is a core question in the field, namely, how to select physically relevant solutions to PDEs in fluid dynamics. The project lies at the challenging frontiers of PDE theory and probability theory and it will tackle several long standing open problems. The results will have an impact in the deterministic PDE theory, stochastic partial differential equations and from a wider perspective also in mathematical physics.

Mots-clés : fluid dynamics,stochastic partial differential equations,navier stokes system,solvability,non uniqueness in law,ergodicity
Projet ERC : BOBR (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : University of Warsaw — Pays : Pologne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UW
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1355688.0 €

The main goal of the project is to radically expand our understanding of decomposition methods for discrete problems, with a particular focus on the design of parameterized and approximation algorithms on graphs. We will concentrate on four topics where we see a potential for either establishing new directions, or reaching far beyond the current state of the art. (Beyond) Sparsity: The field of Sparsity is a rapidly developing area of graph theory that studies abstract notions of uniform sparseness in graphs and provides a wealth of tools for algorithm design. While there are still many unknowns within this field, we would like to reach beyond sparse graphs by developing a theory of well-structured dense graphs, inspired by the advances in Sparsity. Parameterized dynamic algorithms: The idea of parameterization has so far received little attention in the field of dynamic algorithms. Our goal is to establish solid foundations for the direction of parameterized dynamic algorithms by providing dynamic variants of basic decomposition tools used in parameterized complexity. Parameterization and approximation on planar graphs: The areas of parameterized algorithms and of approximation schemes on planar graphs share a core set of decomposition techniques and benefit from extensive cross-inspiration. We will approach several intriguing questions in this area while focusing on the idea of parameterized approximation schemes, where parameterization and approximation is explicitly combined. Forbidding induced subgraphs: Structural graph theory offers a wealth of tools for understanding structure in graph classes characterized by forbidding induced subgraphs. This structure, while elusive and difficult to exploit, often leads to surprising tractability results. Motivated by recent advances, we propose to focus on finding general-use techniques for designing subexponential-time, approximation, and parameterized algorithms in this setting.

Mots-clés : parameterized complexity,approximation algorithms,approximation schemes,dynamic algorithms,planar graphs,sparse graphs,model checking,hereditary graph classes
Projet ERC : ModGravTrial (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Heidelberg University — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1268075.76 €

The main goal of this project is to study the fundamental properties of field theories of space-time, their cosmological consequences and observational signatures. My approach aims to use the next generation of cosmological and astrophysical observations to test the validity of General Relativity on scales where it has not been fully tested yet and its resilience against alternative theories with modifications on cosmological scales. I will first study the implications of the quantum aspects of modified gravity theories beyond the tree level analyses for their viability, consistency and predictability. This will reduce the allowed alternative theories significantly. I will then investigate the physical consequences of these theoretically promising theories for cosmological and astrophysical scenarios. As part of my approach, I will use large galaxy surveys to constrain effects on the dynamics of cosmic structure formation from these modifications of gravity. In addition, I will confront modified theoretical predictions with Planck measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background, type-Ia supernova data, measurements of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and gravitational lensing. Along the way, my group and I will crucially contribute to the development of the necessary analytical and numerical tools to exhaustively analyse such data in the search for modifications of gravity. In addition, the recent detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO team has paved an exciting new avenue for testing gravitational theories. These new observations will put even more stringent constraints on alternative theories. As part of the proposed research, I will also extensively exploit this new observational channel to test the validity of General Relativity and put new effects of modified gravity on trial. In particular, the propagation speed of tensor perturbations in modified gravity theories will be severely restricted by observations of gravitational waves.

Mots-clés : modified gravity
Projet ERC : ETOPEX (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of Basel — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1158403.0 €

The main goal of this theory project is to propose engineered topological phases emerging only in strongly interacting systems and to identify the most feasible systems for experimental implementation. First, we will focus on setups hosting topological states localized at domain walls in one-dimensional channels such as parafermions, which are a new class of non-Abelian anyons and most promising candidates for topological quantum computing schemes. Second, in the framework of weakly coupled wires and planes, we will develop schemes for novel fractional topological phases in two- and three-dimensional interacting systems. To achieve these two goals, my team will identify necessary ingredients such as strong electron-electron interactions, helical magnetic order, or crossed Andreev proximity-induced superconductivity and address each of them separately. Later, we combine them to lead us to the desired topological phases and states. On our way to the main goal, as test cases, we will also study non-interacting analogies of the proposed effects such as Majorana fermions and integer topological insulators and pay close attention to the rapid experimental progress to come up with the most feasible proposals. We will study transport properties, scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy. Especially for systems driven out of equilibrium, we will develop a Floquet-Luttinger liquid technique. We will explore the stability of engineered topological phases, error rates of topological qubits based on them, and computation schemes allowing for a set of universal qubit gates. We will strive to find a reasonable balance between topological stability and experimental feasibility of setups. Our main theoretical tools are Luttinger liquid techniques (bosonization and renormalization group), Green functions, Floquet formalism, and numerical simulations in non-interacting test models.

Mots-clés : majorana fermions,parafermions,and other topological phases  topological qubits  nanowires  spin obit interaction  fractional topological phases  superconductivity  crossed andreev processes
Projet ERC : 4D-PET (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Spanish National Research Council — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1923386.0 €

The main objective of 4D-PET is to develop an innovative whole-body PET scanner based in a new detector concept that stores 3D position and time of every single gamma interaction with unprecedented resolution. The combination of scanner geometrical design and high timing resolution will enable developing a full sequence of all gamma-ray interactions inside the scanner, including Compton interactions, like in a 3D movie. 4D-PET fully exploits Time Of Flight (TOF) information to obtain a better image quality and to increase scanner sensitivity, through the inclusion in the image formation of all Compton events occurring inside the detector, which are always rejected in state-of-the-art PET scanners. The new PET design will radically improve state-of-the-art PET performance features, overcoming limitations of current PET technology and opening up new diagnostic venues and very valuable physiological information

Mots-clés : compton
Projet ERC : 4D-PET (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : University Hospital of Lausanne — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CHUV
Type d'entité : Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 125000.0 €

The main objective of 4D-PET is to develop an innovative whole-body PET scanner based in a new detector concept that stores 3D position and time of every single gamma interaction with unprecedented resolution. The combination of scanner geometrical design and high timing resolution will enable developing a full sequence of all gamma-ray interactions inside the scanner, including Compton interactions, like in a 3D movie. 4D-PET fully exploits Time Of Flight (TOF) information to obtain a better image quality and to increase scanner sensitivity, through the inclusion in the image formation of all Compton events occurring inside the detector, which are always rejected in state-of-the-art PET scanners. The new PET design will radically improve state-of-the-art PET performance features, overcoming limitations of current PET technology and opening up new diagnostic venues and very valuable physiological information

Mots-clés : compton
Projet ERC : POLITICS (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Coimbra — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1915381.0 €

The main objective of POLITICS is to innovate knowledge on anti-racism that brings about a greater understanding of how historically rooted injustices are being challenged by institutions and grassroots movements. Considering the centrality and mutual influence of Europe and Latin America in the global processes of racial formation, POLITICS will develop an inter-disciplinary and comprehensive approach towards two core goals: (a) the analysis of processes of knowledge production about ‘race’ and (anti-)racism in the spheres of (inter)national governmental politics, State universities and grassroots movements; (b) the examination of diverse paths of denunciation and collective mobilisation against everyday racism concerning police practice and representations in the mass media. POLITICS embraces a multilevel analysis and information-oriented selection of case-studies in three interrelated research streams: (i) Global, regional and state-sponsored political frameworks and public policies; (ii) Cultures of scholarship and the study of racism and (post)colonialism at State universities; (iii) Tackling everyday racism: processes of denunciation, political mobilisation and case-law concerning police practice, and racist representations in the media and mass media. The research challenges the shortcomings of evaluative comparisons and the selection of research contexts enables interrogating the relations between the global, national and local levels. They include the Organisation of American States, the European Union and national and local politics in Brazil, Peru, Portugal and Spain. Qualitative research and data collection engage with race critical theories, critical discourse analysis and participatory methods that consider power/knowledge at their core. POLITICS will unravel the configuration of different notions of dignity, justice and equality resulting from anti-racist struggles and policy interventions and their significance for envisaging decolonial horizons.

Mots-clés : politics of anti racism,power,knowledge,multilevel research,grassroots movements,inter national political frameworks,cultures of scholarship,everyday racism,case studies,police,mass media