Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : CLIPOFF-CHEM (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ICN2;ICN2-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2505645.0 €

Historically, innovations in synthetic methods and reactions have changed the way scientists think about designing and synthesizing materials and molecules. Indeed, novel synthetic methods not only unlock access to previously unattainable structures, but also inspire new concepts as to how we design and build materials to address global social, economic and industrial needs. The project that I propose here, CLIPOFF-CHEM, centers on the demonstration of a novel synthetic methodology that I have named Clip-off Chemistry. Unlike most state-of-the-art synthetic approaches, which use bottom-up strategies to link atoms and molecules through the formation of new bonds, Clip-off Chemistry is based instead on the selective cleavage of existing bonds in reticular materials, providing precise spatial control over bond cleavage. In reticular materials, this cleavage can be programmed to enable the synthesis of limitless materials varying by composition (from organic to metal-organic), dimensionality (from 3-D to 0-D) and size-scale (from macro- to nanoscale). Accordingly, in CLIPOFF-CHEM, I will employ clip-off synthesis to prepare a diverse collection of new materials and molecules, including new 3-D metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), low-dimensional (2-D and 1-D) materials, organic polymers, metal-organic polyhedra (MOPs), complexes and macrocycles. Our work will encompass 1) synthesis of the reticular material precursors (MOFs, COFs and MOPs) that incorporate non-cleavable and cleavable (alkene/alkyne) groups in precise positions of their structures; and 2) cleavage of alkene/alkyne groups through ozonolysis to produce the targeted materials. As the resultant products will be novel, we will also endeavor to identify and characterize any unprecedented structural or functional properties of them. I believe that CLIPOFF-CHEM will provide the global scientific community with an innovative methodology for the design and synthesis of new functional molecules and materials.

Mots-clés : metal organic frameworks  mofs,covalent organic framework  cofs,metal organic polyhedra  mops,reticular chemistry,ozonolysis,porosity
Projet ERC : DemandDemoc (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 939647.0 €

Historically, people around the world have demanded democratic institutions. Such democratic movements propel political change and also determine economic outcomes. In this project, we ask, how do political preferences, beliefs, and second-order beliefs shape the strategic decision to participate in a movement demanding democracy? Existing scholarship is unsatisfactory because it is conducted ex post: preferences, beliefs, and behavior have converged to a new equilibrium. In contrast, we examine a democratic movement in real time, studying the ongoing democracy movement in Hong Kong. Our study is composed of four parts. In Part 1, we collect panel survey data from Hong Kong university students, a particularly politically active subpopulation. We collect data on preferences, behavior, beliefs, and second-order beliefs using incentivized and indirect elicitation to encourage truthful reporting. We analyze the associations among these variables to shed light on the drivers of participation in the democracy movement. In Part 2, we exploit experimental variation in the provision of information to study political coordination. Among participants in the panel survey, we provide information regarding the preferences and beliefs of other students. We examine whether exposure to information regarding peers causes students to update their beliefs and change their behavior. In Part 3, we extend the analysis in Part 1 to a nationally representative sample of Hong Kong citizens. To do so, we have added a module regarding political preferences, beliefs, and behavior (including incentivized questions and questions providing cover for responses to politically sensitive topics) to the HKPSSD panel survey. In Part 4, we study preferences for redistribution – plausibly a central driver for demands for political rights – among Hong Kong citizens and mainland Chinese. We examine how these preferences differ across populations, as well as their link to support for democracy.

Mots-clés : economic models of democratization,preferences for redistribution,political participation
Projet ERC : Holo-GT (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : University of Modena and Reggio Emilia — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2118125.0 €

Holo-GT will define innovative ex vivo gene therapy of dominant genetic skin disease, by using Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) as a model system. EB is a group of dominantly or recessively inherited, devastating, incurable diseases marked by structural fragility of the integuments. The applicant has shown that combined ex vivo cell and gene therapy can cure the skin of recessive LAMB3-Junctional EB. This lifesaving procedure unveiled that the human epidermis is sustained solely by long-lived stem cells, detected as holoclone-forming cells, which generate transient progenitors referred to as meroclones and paraclones. However, over 50% of EB are dominantly inherited, making gene addition unsuitable. Gene editing does not efficiently correct epidermal stem cells, which define a small proportion of clonogenic keratinocytes and cannot be prospectively isolated. Holo-GT aims at designing a safe and efficacious protocol for dominant forms of EB through: • Molecular characterization of the keratinocyte clonal types and pathways sustaining holoclone-forming cells by single-cell RNA profiling. • Generation of induced holoclone-forming cells (iHolo) by transient expression of specific sets of transcription factors (identified in aim 1) able to reprogram progenitors into holoclone-forming cells. • Development of custom-engineered CRISPR/Cas nucleases, based on selection-based directed evolution or structure-guided mutagenesis, able to fully distinguish wild type and mutant alleles. • Using this newly developed CRISPR/Cas system, gene editing of iHolo prepared from keratinocyte cultures initiated from patients with dominant forms of EB. Holo-GT could tackle not only dominant EBs but also other dominant genetic diseases of the epidermis and other squamous epithelia, as well as recessive forms of EB, particularly those characterized by the well-known depletion of stem cells, which could be rescued by the reprogramming of transient progenitors into holoclone-forming cells (iHolo).

Mots-clés : epidermal stem cells,regenerative medicine,cell therapy,gene therapy,gene editing,genetic skin diseases,epidermolysis bullosa
Projet ERC : EVOLHGT (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : University of Liverpool — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1515740.95 €

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a form of genic inheritance that occurs between individuals in a population or between species rather than from parent to offspring. HGT is most prevalent in bacteria, where it is an important source of novel metabolic pathways, pathogenicity factors, and antibiotic resistance. In spite of the importance of HGT, we understand little about the evolutionary barriers to HGT. This proposal will outline a systematic experimental approach to elucidate factors that select for or against horizontally transferred genes, by pursuing three objectives. The first is to quantify intrinsic selection acting on newly transferred genes, by experimentally transferring and expressing several hundred genes across species boundaries. We will be able to systematically classify genes as resistant or permissive to transfer, examine the effect of the function and position in metabolic and regulatory networks on resistance to transfer, as well as identify any genes with substantial intrinsic benefits. The second objective is to examine the effect of evolutionary divergence on HGT, by determining whether genes from closely related species are more permissive to transfer than those from more divergent species. The final objective is to determine the role of the environment in shaping these selective effects. Understanding how robust the selective effects are to different environmental conditions will aid in evaluating the relative roles of genetics and the environment as factors in the evolutionary outcomes of HGT . Overall, this work will provide a systematic analysis of the roles of different factors in affecting the outcomes of horizontal gene transfer. Understanding this process in a quantitative fashion is critical to understanding bacterial adaptation and diversity.

Mots-clés : horizontal gene transfer,distribution of mutational effects
Projet ERC : OncoSeq (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : ESPCI PARIS-PSL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 108750.0 €

Host immunity plays a central and complex role in tumour progression, and the quality and quantity of immune infiltrate at the tumour site is used as a prognostic marker of cancer progression. Therefore, detailed single-cell analysis of tumor infiltrating immune cells, and ultimately liquid biopsy of circulating immune cells, is of vital importance for the development of new and improved immunotherapy strategies, and for diagnosis, prognosis, patient stratification and follow-up. We propose in OncoSeq to adapt the droplet barcoding microfluidics system, an output from the ERC EVOEVO project, to develop a novel “molecular cytometer” for high-throughput transcriptomic and phenotypic analysis, at the single-cell level, of tumor infiltrating or circulating immune cells. Readout of genotype and phenotype will be entirely based on next generation sequencing (NGS) allowing higher phenotypic multiplexing capacity (100s of phenotypic markers) than fluorescence (Flow cytometry) or mass spectrometry (CyTOF) based approaches (≤40 markers) and simultaneous RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), allowing the creation of high-resolution phenotype-transcriptome maps for tens of thousands of single cells. This will be a powerful tool for cancer prognosis, clinical decision making and monitoring of disease progression, especially in the context of immunotherapy. So far, no such diagnostic instruments, enabling high-throughput single-cell phenotypic and transcriptomic analysis, exist. The technology developed will be transferred to our industrial partner through licensing for internal development of novel immunotherapies. In addition, once the prototype system is fully validated, we plan, with our industrial partners, to create a new company specialising in the sale of instruments and associated consumables for clinical single-cell immuno-monitoring for the research and clinical oncology markets.

Mots-clés : single cell,phenotyping,transcriptomic,next generation sequencing,droplet based microfluidics,immunomonitoring,immunooncology
Projet ERC : OTTOCONFESSION (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Central European University — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CEU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 141294.29 €

How and why did the Ottoman Empire evolve from a fourteenth-century polity where "confessional ambiguity" between Sunnism and Shiism prevailed into an Islamic state concerned with defining and enforcing a "Sunni orthodoxy" by the early sixteenth century? Recent historiography attributes this new concern with "orthodoxy" in the Ottoman Empire to the rise of the rival Shii Safavid Empire at the turn of the sixteenth century. However, the OTTOCONFESSION project is based on the premise that the evolution of Ottoman discourse on Sunni orthodoxy can be understood only in a longer perspective that spans the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that it was shaped by religio-political dynamics not only in the Safavid Empire but also within the Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire and in Europe as well. The project sets out to demonstrate that although the polarization between Sunni and Shii Islam on the one hand, and Catholic and Protestant Christianity on the other, resulted from the dynamics specific to the Turco-Iranian world and Europe, respectively, the subsequent processes of confession- (and in come cases state-) building were related and constitute an entangled history of confessionalization that spanned Europe and the Middle East. This entanglement resulted in particular from: the Ottomans' concomitant competition with the Safavids, Habsburgs, and Venetians, and the shared political theologies this entailed; the spread of various Muslim and Christian communities across imperial borders; and the Ottomans' permissiveness towards Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist missionary activities among the Empire's (mostly Orthodox) Christians. The project will investigate the evolution of the confessional discourses in the Ottoman Empire in both community-specific and entangled, cross-communal perspectives between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries by focusing on a) agents and strategies; b) textual genres; and c) sites of confessionalization.

Mots-clés : ottoman empire,confessionalization,social disciplining,sunnism,orthodoxy
Projet ERC : SELFOR (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Lund University — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

How can our immune system efficiently fight foreign pathogens at the same time as it is selective enough to leave our own cells alone? This, so called antigen discrimination, is still not understood on a molecular level. I will here illuminate this question by developing a physicochemical understanding of how T-cell receptors (TCRs) bind peptide-loaded major histocompatibility complexes (pMHCs), and importantly, how this differs for pMHC displaying self and foreign peptides. The interaction between TCRs and pMHCs on contacting immune cells is the first step in initiating an adaptive immune response. However, binding between membrane-anchored TCR and pMHC is a challenging physicochemical problem that has not been solved, and the binding kinetics is strongly affected by the membrane. Well-controlled measurements between TCR and pMHC under relevant conditions are needed to better understand the TCR/pMHC kinetics. A key discovery to achieve this is a method recently developed by me, which allows for extremely weak protein-protein interactions in contacting cells to be measured. I will in this project, backed up by immunologist in Oxford and theoretical chemists in Lund, build on this breakthrough and for the first time measure the binding kinetics between TCR in model cell membranes and pMHC on single cells, and how binding varies between self and foreign pMHC. Parameters such as adhesion molecules, applied force on the bond, the co-receptor CD4 and TCR clustering are all crucial for proper T-cell signalling, but their influence on the TCR/pMHC binding kinetics is unknown, and will here be studied. The obtained data will finally be used to evaluate, and improve on, kinetic models of antigen discrimination. Complemented with molecular dynamics simulations this altogether opens up for a fundamental understanding of binding between membrane-anchored molecules in general, and how this affects the TCR/pMHC interaction and antigen discrimination in particular.

Mots-clés : intermolecular interactions,binding kinetics,adhesion,supported lipid bilayers,theoretical models
Projet ERC : CLASS (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Hebrew University of Jerusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 125062.5 €

How children acquire their native language remains one of the key unsolved problems in Cognitive Science. This project will answer a question that lies at the heart of this problem: How do children acquire the abstract generalizations that allow them to produce novel sentences, while avoiding the ungrammatical utterances that result from across-the-board application of these generalizations (e.g., *The clown laughed the man)? Previous single-process theories (the entrenchment, preemption and verb semantics hypotheses) fail to explain all of the current English data, and do not begin to address the issue of how learners of other languages solve this learnability problem. The aim of the present project is to solve this problem by developing and testing a new unified cross-linguistic account of the development of sentence structure. In addition to the overarching theoretical question set out above, the research will address four key questions: (1) What do learners bring to the task in terms of cognitive-semantic universals?; (2) How do children form linguistic generalizations in the first place?; (3) Why are languages the way they are; would other types of systems be difficult or impossible to learn?; (4) What is the nature of development?. These questions will be addressed by means of four Work Packages (WPs). WP1 uses grammaticality judgment and elicited production paradigms developed by the PI to investigate the acquisition of basic transitive and intransitive sentence structure (e.g., The man broke the window/The window broke) across six typologically different languages: English, K’iche’ Mayan, Japanese, Hindi, Hebrew and Turkish (at ages 3-4, 5-6, 9-10 and 18+ years). WP2 uses the same paradigms to investigate idiosyncratic language-specific generalizations within three of these languages. WP3 uses Artificial Grammar Learning to focus on the issue of language evolution. WP4 uses computational modeling to investigate and simulate development.

Mots-clés : child language acquisition,language development
Projet ERC : CLASS (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Universidad del Valle de Guatemala — Pays : Guatemala — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UVG
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 111713.33 €

How children acquire their native language remains one of the key unsolved problems in Cognitive Science. This project will answer a question that lies at the heart of this problem: How do children acquire the abstract generalizations that allow them to produce novel sentences, while avoiding the ungrammatical utterances that result from across-the-board application of these generalizations (e.g., *The clown laughed the man)? Previous single-process theories (the entrenchment, preemption and verb semantics hypotheses) fail to explain all of the current English data, and do not begin to address the issue of how learners of other languages solve this learnability problem. The aim of the present project is to solve this problem by developing and testing a new unified cross-linguistic account of the development of sentence structure. In addition to the overarching theoretical question set out above, the research will address four key questions: (1) What do learners bring to the task in terms of cognitive-semantic universals?; (2) How do children form linguistic generalizations in the first place?; (3) Why are languages the way they are; would other types of systems be difficult or impossible to learn?; (4) What is the nature of development?. These questions will be addressed by means of four Work Packages (WPs). WP1 uses grammaticality judgment and elicited production paradigms developed by the PI to investigate the acquisition of basic transitive and intransitive sentence structure (e.g., The man broke the window/The window broke) across six typologically different languages: English, K’iche’ Mayan, Japanese, Hindi, Hebrew and Turkish (at ages 3-4, 5-6, 9-10 and 18+ years). WP2 uses the same paradigms to investigate idiosyncratic language-specific generalizations within three of these languages. WP3 uses Artificial Grammar Learning to focus on the issue of language evolution. WP4 uses computational modeling to investigate and simulate development.

Mots-clés : child language acquisition,language development
Projet ERC : HolyEarth (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1854875.0 €

How did Earth form with the properties that made it the only inhabited planet of the Solar System? Answering this question is the Holy Grail of planetary science and is key for (i) placing the formation of Earth into the context of general planet formation (ii) unveiling the fundamental processes that led to the formation of a planet able to sustain life and (iii) assessing the likelihood that similar processes occurred in other, extrasolar systems. However, despite decades of research, it is still unknown how Earth formed. Although several competing models exist, the reason we do not yet have a consensus on how Earth formed is that all proposed models have only been tested against a limited number of constraints (and sometimes different constraints for different models) with no common intersection. HolyEarth will overcome these limitations by developing a holistic approach to understand Earth’s formation that is based on the largest set of observational constraints: orbits, masses, formation timescales, chemical and isotopic properties of terrestrial planets and meteorites, and the structure of the asteroid belt (the relict of planet formation). The overarching goal of this project is to identify a unique scenario which, for the first time, simultaneously satisfies all these constraints in a self-consistent way. This project will break the boundaries between Earth science and astronomy by placing the formation of Earth in the context of a cosmic evolution towards stars and planets. Its impact will reach other scientific domains, such as biology and exobiology, and resonate with the public’s keen interest in the question of our origins.

Mots-clés : earth formation,meteorites,asteroids and planetesimals,protoplanetary disk