Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : Neobetacell (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Vrije Universiteit Brussel — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : VUB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499875.0 €

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by elevated blood sugar levels with increased risk of cardiovascular complications. The currently available therapy for type 1 diabetes (TIDM) consists of daily injections of exogenous insulin in order to delay disease progression. However, these treatments do not provide a real cure since long-term secondary complications cannot be avoided. As TIDM is characterized by the highly specific immune-mediated destruction of one cell type, this disease represents a particularly ideal candidate for cell replacement therapy. Transplantation of human islets, isolated from cadaveric donor pancreas, potentially represents a genuine cure for TIDM but is limited by a shortage of transplantable islets. In the current application I will create an unprecedented humanized mouse model to test pharmacological therapies for diabetes. In a first step I will study the actions of Geminin on the regulation of the pro-endocrine transcription factor Neurogenin3 during mouse and human development and postnatal beta cell regeneration from the exocrine cells of the pancreas. These experiments will provide tools to control Neurogenin3 expression and thus endocrine cell differentiation in the human pancreas. Using the knowledge gained from in vivo mouse studies, I will create a novel clinically relevant humanized mouse model. I will use this model to develop a cytokine-based treatment to convert human acinar cells to functional beta-like cells in a Neurogenin3 dependent way. Finally, I will design a strategy to deliver the pro-endocrine treatment in a cell-specific manner. The humanized model will serve as a unique platform to test treatment for human diabetes in the pre-clinical phase. This project utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to develop a strategy based on pharmacological treatment rather than cell therapy, paving the way for clinical application.
Projet ERC : DREAM-ON (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ENS Paris-Saclay
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1811500.0 €

Diagnosing structural damage and predicting its evolution has been a perpetual engineering issue. It is nowadays the topic of intensive research works addressing online damage detection and control, and benefiting from experimental and numerical advances made during the last decad. On the one hand, embedded sensor technologies nowadays provide high-resolution in situ information on the internal damage state of materials. On the other hand, the booming development of virtual twins and artificial intelligence leads to envision connected engineering structures with computer-based monitoring. Nevertheless, using large noisy data sets and high-fidelity damage models is hardly compatible with the real-time, robustness, and portability constraints of such a revolution. This is today a major limitation for its application to real systems. The objective of the project is thus to address key numerical challenges in order to truly permit a manageable and seamless dialog between damage data and simulations for large scale structures. The idea is to create a real-time feedback loop including the physical system in service and an adaptive numerical model of this system, such that: (i) the model is dynamically updated and enriched from observations (hybrid twin); (ii) damage diagnosis is continuously made from this model in order to drive the physical system appropriately. The project, focusing on composite structures, will consist in the design of innovative and effective numerical approaches for real-time data assimilation, predictive damage computation, and command law synthesis on evolutive systems, all supported by reduced order modeling. The advanced numerical tools will be implemented into a dedicated computing infrastucture, and practically assessed through a proof-of-concept using specific experimental facilities. Outcomes are expected to represent a major scientific and technological breakthrough for damage tolerance on real-life engineering structures.

Mots-clés : data assimilation,model adaptivity,damage,real time simulations,structural health monitoring,reduced order modeling,system control,data driven techniques
Projet ERC : RESCUE (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Politecnico di Milano — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : POLIMI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1998113.12 €

Digital computers rely today on CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) technology, which improves its performance every generation thanks to the Moore’s law of downscaling. As CMOS transistor size approaches few nm, alternative logic switches with better scaling capability must be identified to prolong Moore’s law beyond CMOS. Among the emerging switching concepts, resistive switching (RS) devices can change their resistance by electrically-induced redox reactions. RS provides the basis for the resistive memory (ReRAM) technology which is currently investigated as future computer memory and storage technology. The objective of this project is to design, develop and demonstrate a novel computing paradigm based on RS devices. The project will pursue this objective at 3 levels of increasing complexity, namely the device fabrication, the design of new logic gates and the demonstration of computing circuits. RS logic will be finally compared to CMOS and other approaches to identify the strength and the potential applications of RS logic in the computing scenario.

Mots-clés : resistive switching,memristive switching,beyond cmos
Projet ERC : DigiScore (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : University of California System — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 118798.75 €

Digital scores utilising computational technology and digital media are emerging worldwide as the next evolutionary stage in the concept of the music score (Vear 2019). Yet there has been no scientific study of digital scores; nor their effect upon creativity and musicianship. This is remarkable for two reasons: First, because digital scores are generating new music experiences, innovative compositional approaches, novel performance opportunities, and broader accessibility for a vast number of musicians and music cultures around the world. Second, because many topics immediately adjacent or informing digital scores have been theorised thereby liberating these subjects and innovating creative practices, e.g. digital media art, digital performance, electro-acoustic music. This project will launch the first scientific investigation into the transformation of the music score through computational technologies. The core aims of the project are to: (1) determine scientific knowledge of how digital scores stimulate new creative opportunities and experiences within a range of music practices, (2) develop a theoretical framework for digital scores as an important transdisciplinary area of research, (3) build a scientific study of inclusive digital musicianship through the transformative potential of the digital score. This project will investigate these questions through an innovative combination of artistic and scientific research methods, undertaken by a transdisciplinary and international team of scientists and artists, led by a world expert of digital scores: Prof. Dr. Craig Vear. This is real “frontier research”, the benefits of which extend beyond music studies into computer science, new media research, digital humanities, performance studies and creative practice.

Mots-clés : music scores,performance practice,computational technology
Projet ERC : BNYQ (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Technion – Israel Institute of Technology — Pays : Israël — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1304362.86 €

Digital signal processing (DSP) is a revolutionary paradigm shift enabling processing of physical data in the digital domain where design and implementation are considerably simplified. However, state-of-the-art analog-to-digital convertors (ADCs) preclude high-rate wideband sampling and processing with low cost and energy consumption, presenting a major bottleneck. This is mostly due to a traditional assumption that sampling must be performed at the Nyquist rate, that is, twice the signal bandwidth. Modern applications including communications, medical imaging, radar and more use signals with high bandwidth, resulting in prohibitively large Nyquist rates. Our ambitious goal is to introduce a paradigm shift in ADC design that will enable systems capable of low-rate, wideband sensing and low-rate DSP. While DSP has a rich history in exploiting structure to reduce dimensionality and perform efficient parameter extraction, current ADCs do not exploit such knowledge. We challenge current practice that separates the sampling stage from the processing stage and exploit structure in analog signals already in the ADC, to drastically reduce the sampling and processing rates. Our preliminary data shows that this allows substantial savings in sampling and processing rates --- we show rate reduction of 1/28 in ultrasound imaging, and 1/30 in radar detection. To achieve our overreaching goal we focus on three interconnected objectives -- developing the 1) theory 2) hardware and 3) applications of sub-Nyquist sampling. Our methodology ties together two areas on the frontier of signal processing: compressed sensing (CS), focused on finite length vectors, and analog sampling. Our research plan also inherently relies on advances in several other important areas within signal processing and combines multi-disciplinary research at the intersection of signal processing, information theory, optimization, estimation theory and hardware design.

Mots-clés : sub nyquist sampling,analog to digital converters,low rate processing,wideband sensing
Projet ERC : ADVODID (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Copenhagen — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UCPH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

Digital technology has fundamentally changed the action repertoire of political campaigning and advocacy in the last decade. Despite its fundamental role in contemporary political strategy and potential to affect the quality of democracy, there is still little systematic evidence to assess and compare the real effects of online and offline advocacy tools. ADVODID will implement the first large-scale quantitative project designed to provide rich correlational and causal evidence on the effects of advocacy on citizens and policymakers, in both online and offline settings. It sets out to address - theoretically and empirically - the potentials and challenges for modern democracies that arise from digital advocacy tools. Its novelty lies in analyzing the use, impact and democratic consequences of digital advocacy strategies by assessing interactions of advocacy groups with both citizens and political representatives in a diverse set of eight countries (Australia, Chile, Denmark, India, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, and the US). ADVODID will collect data on the advocacy agenda and strategy use of at least 400 carefully sampled advocates in these countries, and will assess agenda congruence with political and public agendas, and their dynamic development over time. Correlational analyses of different measures of advocacy success will be complemented by field experiments in cooperation with advocates in two countries, to supply causal evidence on how advocacy affects the positions and actions of policymakers and citizens. The project’s rich datasets will be used to assess and refine theories of democratic representation and the role of digital advocacy across different types of policy issues. ADVODID will greatly advance understanding of how modern advocacy impacts its target audiences and potentially changes participatory democracy. Its findings will have interdisciplinary and social relevance and inform ways to strengthen representative democracy in an online age.

Mots-clés : digital advocacy,political participation,representation,lobbying influence,democracy
Projet ERC : NANOPORE (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Leiden University — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) are devices expected to power future micro and portable electronic devices as well as vehicles. The lack of efficient proton exchange membranes, however, still prevents the development and application of DMFCs. Of paramount importance is ion selectivity and fast transmembrane transport, for which nanoporous two-dimensional membranes offer the prospect of enhanced fuel cell performance. Several chemical and physical limitations have so far prohibited the wide usage of atomically thin nanopores membranes, most particularly because the process of nanopore formation still lacks a reproducible, scalable and industrially viable fabrication approach. The main goal of this proposal is to develop and finally commercialize such a membrane with precise array of functional nanopores. In this proposal, based on the knowledge and experience resulting from our ERC project [project no. 335879], we will employ a novel two steps approach based on organic and supramolecular chemistry to synthesize atomically thin proton exchange membrane bearing a chemically well-defined array of nanopores and we will control the functionality of the nanopore rim by using specific chemical modifications on the backbones of monomers used to form the high selectivity proton exchange membrane (PEM). If the testing and technical reports are successful, the resulting PEM will be used in DMFC field and other related area, such as desalination and osmosis electricity generation. We strongly believe that this proposal will open a new direction for breaking through the dilemma of the nanopore formation, developing new generation proton selective membranes, as well as promoting the research and applications of DMFC. The proposed work is not only bound to generate great interest from specialists in the field, but also to capture the imagination of the wider public.

Mots-clés : nanopores,graphene,two dimensional,membrane,fuel cell,proton exchange membrane,dmfc,methanol
Projet ERC : SCCMMI (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499055.0 €

Directed behavior emerges from neural integration of sensory stimuli, memory of prior experience and internal states. We seek an understanding of these conserved neural mechanisms using genetically-encoded tools and the relatively small brain of the fruit fly Drosophila. By temporally controlling neural function memories can be implanted and internal states altered so that most flies behave according to our direction. Our recent studies have revealed a role for distinct subsets of dopaminergic neurons that innervate a brain region called the mushroom bodies in reward learning, memory re-evaluation and the control of motivated behavior. Although it is recognised that new gene expression is required to form persistent memories, and molecules are the targets of all therapeutic drugs in medicine, the relevant cellular sites of action often remain obscure. Knowing where memories are located in the fly brain therefore makes it possible to gain molecular level insight, with a unique perspective of being embedded within a relevant cell-specific context, of how a brain operates to alter behavior in response to rewards and internal state. Until recently, most studies of gene expression in the brain have pooled messenger RNAs purified from the entire brain, dissected regions, or small populations of fluorescently labeled material. Cell-specific expression and responses are therefore obscured by averaging signals from, often heterogeneous, collections of cells and cell-types. We will use cutting-edge Drop-seq, which permits simultaneous collection of transcriptomes from thousands of individually identified cells by first capturing each cell with a unique oligonucleotide-coated bead in a nanolitre volume reaction droplet. Our experiments will therefore provide an unprecedented individual celllevel view of transcriptional responses to memory formation and maintenance and are likely to be of broad importance and interest, given the evident conservation of gene function.
Projet ERC : PicoCB (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : University of Cambridge — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. Cambridge
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2308221.0 €

Directed evolution of functional proteins has arguably emerged as an approach to protein engineering that can complement or better design-led approaches to protein function. However, as a random process, enormous numbers of variants have to be screened and selected to have a chance to identify successful catalysts. This process is costly and cumbersome: Industrial screening facilities require investment of tens to hundred millions of dollars. My group has implemented key steps towards conducting quantitative biological experiments in a much cheaper format. Screening of individual library members in monodisperse oil-in-water compartments ('microdroplets’) that are generated at kHz frequencies in microfluidic devices has been shown to be possible. The droplet compartment constitutes a link between a given phenotype and its encoding genotype, by capturing reaction product, and thus providing a unique system to screen for catalysis.In this way quantitative fitness landscapes for interconversion of members of enzyme superfamilies along the lines of catalytic promiscuity, understanding the factors governing specificity and the mechanistic interpretation of the observed evolutionary pathways can be made. We now apply this screening system of unprecedented capacity for directed evolution and metagenomic screening of enzymes in in vivo and in vitro formats. We plan to apply this system to do experiments that would not be possible with conventional, lower throughput approaches: (i) screening of metagenomic libraries for rare and promiscuous activities that characterise environmental gene collections for their reactivity and potential for applied biocatalysis; (ii) developing a fundamental understanding of and strategic guidelines for enzyme evolution based on fitness landscapes that record data on multiple, promiscuous activities in response to Indel mutations; and (iii) evolution of gene networks to build up signalling networks in vitro.

Mots-clés : directed evolution,protein engineering,enzyme mechanism,chemical biology,sequence space,fitness pandscape,ultrahigh throughput screening,theory of evolution
Projet ERC : EXPRESS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UvA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499750.0 €

Disagreement is a pervasive feature of human life, which finds linguistic expression in the speech-act of rejection. If you assert that Amsterdam is in Belgium, I can express my dissent by responding 'No', thereby rejecting your assertion. In the study of human language, assertion has taken centre stage and the investigation of rejection traditionally regarded as a chapter in the study of assertion. Thus, the orthodox treatment of rejection equates it with negative assertion, so that rejecting that Amsterdam is in Belgium is tantamount to asserting that Amsterdam is not in Belgium. However, recent theories of truth have employed a notion of rejection not reducible to negative assertion. Moreover, linguistic evidence shows that rejections and negative assertions have different functions in discourse. So what is rejection? And how does it behave? The EXPRESS project will articulate a full-fledged theory of rejection as a speech-act not reducible to negative assertion. This theory will be incorporated into extant models of conversation and used to develop a novel logic of rejection faithful to the linguistic phenomena. The basic logical framework is that of a calculus containing formulae accompanied by signs for assertion and rejection. This bilateral framework will be modified to accommodate both weak and strong forms of rejection and extended into a unified multilateral framework capable of also handling weak forms of assertion. The theory and logical framework developed will be used to establish a novel approach to expressivist semantics which will be applied to the case of negation and epistemic modals. This approach will lead to distinctive hypotheses about language evolution which will be tested using computational methods. Based at the ILLC and advised by a board of researchers from Europe and the US, EXPRESS will deliver momentous advances in speech-act theory, its logic and semantics.

Mots-clés : rejection,disagreement,multilateral logic,weak assertion,epistemic modality