Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : SYGMA (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : National Research Council — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNR
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 668750.0 €

From a Physics and Engineering standpoint, swimming bacteria are a formidable example of self-propelled micro-machines. Together with their synthetic counterpart, self-propelled colloids, they represent the “living” atoms of active matter, an exciting branch of contemporary soft matter and statistical mechanics. Differently from synthetic colloids, however, each bacterial cell contains all the molecular machinery that is required to self-replicate, sense the environment, process information and compute responses. Breaking down these biological functions into basic genetic parts has been one of the greatest triumphs of molecular biology. Today, synthetic biologists are assembling these parts into new genetic programs and exploiting bacteria as computing micro-machines. Project SYGMA will employ the synthetic biology toolkit to provide the building blocks for a light controllable active matter having reliable, reconfigurable and interactively tunable dynamical properties. We will first engineer transmembrane photoreceptors to wire RGB external light signals to cellular physical responses like speed, tumbling, growth and death rates. These genetic parts will allow the modular design of customized active particles to build active materials with unprecedented optical control capabilities. Using these new tools we will address, with experiments and theory, fundamental questions like: how fast can we drive particle density using spatio-temporal motility modulations? what is the force on a body suspended in a bath of bacteria with non uniform motility? how do physical forces contribute to morphogenesis in bacterial colonies? Finding quantitative and experimentally validated answers will eventually allow us to engineer structured illumination protocols to mold living microstructures, transport colloidal cargos by shaping active pressure, control swarms of biohybrid microcars and shape bacterial microcolonies.

Mots-clés : active matter
Projet ERC : eMicrobevol (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HHU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2393447.5 €

From the primordial emergence of the earliest cells to the ongoing diversification of modern microbiota, the mechanisms that underlie the origin of major prokaryotic groups are still poorly understood. In principle, the origin of both species and higher taxa among prokaryotes should entail similar mechanisms — ecological interactions with the environment paired with natural genetic variation involving lineage-specific gene innovations and lineage-specific gene acquisitions. Because eukaryotes started out as a prokaryote lineage, the same holds true at the prokaryote-eukaryote transition. Prokaryotic higher taxa are currently circumscribed by phylogenomic studies encompassing 30-40 proteins for information processing that are universal to all genomes, or nearly so. The core is useful in taxonomy but comprises only about 1% of an average genome. It does not predict gene content in the remaining 99% of the genome, because of the role of lateral gene transfer (LGT) in generating diversity within and between prokaryotic groups. Especially in groups with large pangenomes or broad ecological diversity, the core itself does not reveal which gene innovations underlie the origin of major groups, but gene distributions might. This proposal aims to harness all the evolutionary data that genomes have to offer — gene trees, gene distributions, and split distributions across sets of trees — to chart the history of the 99% component of microbial genome evolution and the role of LGT in the origin of higher microbial taxa. The focus is on three important questions: i) What are the quantitative and lineage specific relative contributions of gene transfer from endosymbionts vs. gene transfers from other prokaryotes during eukaryotic genome evolution, ii) Are there significant differences in verticality in comparisons of genome evolution in prokaryotes vs. eukaryotes and how can we statistically better quantify them, and iii) What was the biological nature of the earliest prokaryotes.

Mots-clés : endosymbiosis,gene transfer in evolution,lateral gene transfer,eukaryote origins,early evolution,anaerobes,acetogens,methanogens,major transitions in microbial evolution
Projet ERC : NOSCEMUS (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : LBG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 420681.25 €

Fundamental changes occurred in the study of nature between the late 15th and 18th centuries, leading to the emergence of modern science as we know it. This process would have been impossible without Latin as the scientific lingua franca of the era, just as today's science is hard to imagine without English. At present, this crucial role of Latin is insufficiently acknowledged, and the hundreds of thousands of scientific texts written in Latin have largely remained neglected. This severely limits the scope of research into the history of early modern science, an otherwise thriving field. The proposed project intends to decisively advance our understanding of the interrelation of Latin and science in early modern times. By applying the methods of Latin philology, yet at the same time reaching out to historians of science, it will establish early modern scientific literature in Latin as an interdisciplinary research field. This will be accomplished (a) by examining and classifying the formal variety and range of content of this literature to create an overall picture (b) by analysing its function as a medium of communication within and beyond the scientific community. To realise the first of these objectives, a tripartite database for authors, early modern texts, and secondary literature will be compiled and a sourcebook with a selection of digitally searchable texts put together, both of which will be made available online. A monograph will provide an overview structured according to the literary genres of early modern scientific literature in Latin. The second objective will be achieved through a series of interlinked monographs, whose analyses will build on the system of ancient rhetoric, the most important communicative paradigm of the early modern age. On this basis, four key functions of Latin scientific texts will be assessed: naming new phenomena; describing and explaining them; convincing others of the views expressed; and promoting science.

Mots-clés : neo latin literature,early modern science,rhetoric
Projet ERC : ISSP (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : OCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2692447.0 €

Fundamental stellar parameters are the primary data required for an in-depth understanding of stars, their interiors, and their environments. With the progress of stellar physics and the prospects of ground facilities or space missions, it is critical to improve the accuracy, and quantity of such data. The development of exoplanet and asteroseismology domains is demanding direct data to eliminate any bias in the parameters. And finally, the differences between methods for determining the Hubble constant is motivating new and precise direct determination of distances on the primary candles of the cosmic scales. Many methods like asteroseismology, photometric transits of exoplanets, radial velocities, or Surface Brightness Colour (SBC) relations are linked to the stellar radius. Usually estimated through models, its determination by coupling an optical interferometric measurement of the angular diameter and, for example, a Gaia parallax, is the best way to avoid any model dependence. Furthermore, characterizing any activity (limb darkening, convection, rotation, spots, or binarity) is also mandatory, both for bias removal and for the required progress on stellar physics. Through an ambitious and homogenous survey of the angular diameters of a thousand stars as faint as magnitude 8 in the visible and as small as 0.2 milliseconds of arc, my project is built to address key questions about the relation between planets and stars and to offer to the broader community a unique and primary source of direct information on a representative and large sample of stars all over the HR diagram. A few hundred of direct measurements of limb darkening will be accessible, and, for about 100 stars, activity characterization with a more detailed surface imaging will be possible. These data will also permit the development of new unbiased SBC relations to serve the faint targets of space missions like PLATO or ARIEL in the future and the distance scale within the Araucaria project.

Mots-clés : fundamental parameters of stars,optical interferometry
Projet ERC : EXTREME (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : VU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1493875.0 €

Fundamentalism harms our societies. It consists of a complex set of actions, sentiments, and attitudes that have all sorts of detrimental effects regarding, for example, the education of fundamentalist minorities, the perception of public safety, and the general image of religions. Scholars in fundamentalism studies have developed various models to better understand fundamentalism, such as the Radicalization Model. Increasingly, though, they are dissatisfied with these models, since they are often unable to explain why some individuals turn to fundamentalism while others do not. This project will provide a new normative-theoretical framework that is needed to better understand and assess one of the main reasons for fundamentalist behaviour: fundamentalist beliefs. In order to do this, I combine influential methods in analytic philosophy, like conceptual analysis and reflective equilibrium, with literature reviews of empirical and historical research and normative-theoretical analysis of case studies. The epistemology and ethics of fundamentalism that I develop addresses five questions. First, what makes extreme beliefs fundamentalist beliefs, and how do they relate to other cognitively detrimental phenomena? Second, how does the social environment affect the rationality of fundamentalist beliefs? Third, what obligations regarding their beliefs do fundamentalists violate? Fourth, which circumstances, like indoctrination, excuse people for violating such obligations? Fifth, how does this epistemology and ethics of fundamentalist belief help to better understand and assess fundamentalism? This project breaks new ground in epistemology and ethics by exploring responsibility for extreme beliefs and fundamentalist beliefs in particular. It is also beneficial to the academics fields involved in fundamentalism studies, because those fields are largely based on historical and empirical work rather than conceptual and ethical analysis.

Mots-clés : analytic philosophy,beliefs,conceptual analysis,epistemology,ethics,fundamentalism,meta ethics,social epistemology
Projet ERC : GANGS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IHEID
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2307409.0 €

Gangs occupy a key position in the global imaginary of violence, widely perceived and represented as primary sources of brutality and insecurity. This can be related to the fact that they are one of a small number of truly global phenomena, found in almost every society across both time and space. At the same time, however, as almost 100 years of gang research have highlighted, the phenomenon can vary significantly in form, dynamics, and consequences. While there have been many insightful studies of gangs, the overwhelming majority have focused on a single group or location, and we still lack a proper sense of what kinds of gang dynamics might be general, and which ones are specific to particular times and places. The GANGS project will develop a systematic comparative investigation of global gang dynamics, to better understand why they emerge, how they evolve over time, whether they are associated with particular urban configurations, how and why individuals join gangs, and what impact this has on their potential futures. It will draw on original ethnographic research carried out in multiple locations, adopting an explicitly tripartite focus on “Gangs”, “Gangsters”, and “Ganglands” in order to better explore the interplay between group, individual, and contextual factors. The first will consider the organisational dynamics of gangs, the second will focus on individual gang members and their trajectories before, during, and after their involvement in a gang, while the third will reflect on the contexts within which gangs emerge and evolve. Research will combine innovative collaborative ethnography in Nicaragua, South Africa, and France, a ground-breaking comparison of 35 individual gang member life histories from across Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and unique joint ethnographic investigations into the political economy of three gang-affected cities in Nicaragua, France, and South Africa.

Mots-clés : gangs,life histories,ethnography,comparison
Projet ERC : GANGS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Aalborg University — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : AAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 190670.0 €

Gangs occupy a key position in the global imaginary of violence, widely perceived and represented as primary sources of brutality and insecurity. This can be related to the fact that they are one of a small number of truly global phenomena, found in almost every society across both time and space. At the same time, however, as almost 100 years of gang research have highlighted, the phenomenon can vary significantly in form, dynamics, and consequences. While there have been many insightful studies of gangs, the overwhelming majority have focused on a single group or location, and we still lack a proper sense of what kinds of gang dynamics might be general, and which ones are specific to particular times and places. The GANGS project will develop a systematic comparative investigation of global gang dynamics, to better understand why they emerge, how they evolve over time, whether they are associated with particular urban configurations, how and why individuals join gangs, and what impact this has on their potential futures. It will draw on original ethnographic research carried out in multiple locations, adopting an explicitly tripartite focus on “Gangs”, “Gangsters”, and “Ganglands” in order to better explore the interplay between group, individual, and contextual factors. The first will consider the organisational dynamics of gangs, the second will focus on individual gang members and their trajectories before, during, and after their involvement in a gang, while the third will reflect on the contexts within which gangs emerge and evolve. Research will combine innovative collaborative ethnography in Nicaragua, South Africa, and France, a ground-breaking comparison of 35 individual gang member life histories from across Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and unique joint ethnographic investigations into the political economy of three gang-affected cities in Nicaragua, France, and South Africa.

Mots-clés : gangs,life histories,ethnography,comparison
Projet ERC : MICHELANGELO (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Cardiff University — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1309330.91 €

Gas-liquid-solid (G/L/S) multiphasic reactors are extensively used in the chemical industry for catalytic processes. However, conventional reactors, such as packed beds and slurry reactors, typically suffer from resilient mass/heat transfer limitations due to their low specific interface areas, long mixing times, and a reduced accessibility of the gas reactants to the catalyst surface. To overcome these limitations, continuous flow microreactors and catalytic membrane reactors have been considered for increasing the G/L interface area, but these systems require complex equipment and still do not guarantee an efficient L/S contact at the catalyst surface. For a major improvement on current systems in terms of cost efficiency and energy savings, G/L/S reactors operating at the nanoscale are required. The aim of this ERC project is to design robust particle-stabilized G/L dispersions (i.e. micro/nano-bubbles and liquid marbles) as highly efficient G/L/S nanoreactors for conducting catalytic reactions at mild conditions. We will (i) prepare NPs with defined sizes, shapes, hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB), including catalytic functions; (ii) generate particle-stabilized bubbles and liquid marbles affording highly active and selective reactions at the G/L/S interface with NP recycling after each catalytic cycle using external stimuli; examine the interplay between the NP assembly at the G/L interface and the catalytic properties along the reaction by combining well-designed experiments with simulations; and (iv) reengineer G/L/S multiphasic reactors using our particle-stabilized nanoreactors to achieve a high catalytic performance at milder operation conditions compared to conventional reactors while keeping a high degree of stability and flexibility at reduced layouts. Through innovation on both amphiphilic catalysts and process intensification, MICHELANGELO will deliver a radical step change towards a higher efficiency and competitiveness in the process industry.

Mots-clés : multiphasic reactor,gas liquid interface,interfacial catalysis,gas bubble,liquid marble
Projet ERC : BYPASSWITHOUTSURGERY (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Capital Region of Denmark — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : RH
Type d'entité : Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 588927.64 €

Gastric bypass surgery results in massive weight loss and diabetes remission. The effect is superior to intensive medical treatment, showing that there are mechanisms within the body that can cure diabetes and obesity. Revealing the nature of these mechanisms could lead to new, cost-efficient, similarly effective, non-invasive treatments of these conditions. The hypothesis is that hyper-secretion of a number of gut hormones mediates the effect of surgery, as indicated by a series of our recent studies, demonstrating that hypersecretion of GLP-1, a hormone discovered in my laboratory and basis for the antidiabetic medication of millions of patients, is essential for the improved insulin secretion and glucose tolerance. But what are the mechanisms behind the up to 30-fold elevations in secretion of these hormones following surgery? Constantly with a translational scope, all elements involved in these responses will be addressed in this project, from detailed analysis of food items responsible for hormone secretion, to identification of the responsible regions of the gut, and to the molecular mechanisms leading to hypersecretion. Novel approaches for studies of human gut hormone secreting cells, including specific expression analysis, are combined with our advanced and unique isolated perfused gut preparations, the only tool that can provide physiologically relevant results with a translational potential regarding regulation of hormone secretion in the gut. This will lead to further groundbreaking experimental attempts to mimic and engage the identified mechanisms, creating similar hypersecretion and obtaining similar improvements as the operations in patients with obesity and diabetes. Based on our profound knowledge of gut hormone biology accumulated through decades of intensive and successful research and our successful elucidation of the antidiabetic actions of gastric bypass surgery, we are in a unique position to reach this ambitious goal.

Mots-clés : gut hormones,incretin hormones,glp 1,gastric bypass,diabetes,obesity,enteroendocrine cells
Projet ERC : CTC4BMP (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Amsterdam University Medical Centers — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Gastro-intestinal (GI) cancers, including gastro-esophageal junctional (GEJC), gastric (GC), colorectal (CRC) and pancreatic cancer (PC) are devastating malignancies that annually affect over 2 million persons worldwide and lead to more than 600,000 deaths (Globocan 2012). Given the current trends, the incidence of GI cancer is expected to increase further. Conventional therapies include chemo- and radiation therapy combined with surgery. However, amongst cancer patients, GI cancer patients have one of the poorest outcomes with a 5-year survival ranging from only 60% for CRC to a mere 5% for PC At the moment, important steps are being taken to implement the highly specific anti-BMP4 low molecular weight antibodies (Dwarfbodies ®; DB, recently developed by us) in the clinic as a novel treatment strategy for gastro-intestinal (GI) cancers. To enable optimal treatment a diagnostic compendium is required. The CTC4BMP project aims to deliver a blood based method for patient stratification to identify patients that will benefit from the BMP4 inhibiting Dwarfbody therapy.

Mots-clés : gastro intestinal cancers,compendium diagnostic,antibody therapeutic