Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : Synergy-Plague (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Nottingham — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 437292.0 €

Synergy-Plague is a multi-disciplinary project to bring our knowledge and understanding of plague, past and present, to new heights. Focussing on the environmental, biological, and societal aspects of plague outbreaks in Eurasia between circa 1300 and 1900 CE, it will address four main questions: (1) Why/how did plague re-emerge in 14th century Central Asia? (2) Why/how did plague re-occur and spread in Eurasia after the Black Death? (3) Why/how did clinical and demographic patterns of plague infection differ across space and time? (4) Why/how did plague disappear from Europe and the Middle East in the 18th and 19th centuries? Our project is based on the hypothesis that plague waves and clinical differences resulted from unique alignments of multiple events: environmental (climatic and soil-chemical), biological (from individual to ecosystem) and societal (demographic, socio-economic and political). Four PIs from the natural sciences and humanities, together with their team members, will jointly study how plague re-emerged in 14th century Central Asia and radiated repeatedly from Eurasian wildlife reservoirs in the following centuries, only to disappear in the 18th-19th centuries. We will develop and analyse new dendrochronological and (paleo-)soil data, textual documentary evidence, and epidemiological models. To understand how plague reached and spread in human populations, paleo-environmental and historical data together with relevant experimental work will be combined with statistical and mathematical modelling. To appreciate why clinical signs and mortality rates varied in space and time, historical evidence will be examined together with new entomological data and ancient DNA (aDNA) of historical plague strains (from humans and anthropophilic rodents). Synergy-Plague will revolutionise our understanding of plague and contribute to our ongoing struggle with epidemic diseases, present and future.

Mots-clés : black death,plague pandemics,rodent burrow systems,human and rodent ectoparasites,plague reservoirs,soil properties,past cimate,epidemiology,statistical and mathematical modeling,experimental work
Projet ERC : BlackHolistic (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2528264.0 €

Black holes (BHs) are icons of the fundamental nature of gravity, the mysterious force shaping the Universe. They are also the Universe’s most efficient power houses, turning infalling gas into energy and outflows that, together with gravity, mould galaxies and thus ultimately stars and planets. The first image of a black hole by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), wherein we played a leading role, captured the imagination of scientists and the public alike. This picture of the immutable black hole is however blurred by the dynamic, still mysterious behaviour of the surrounding gas. Our limited understanding of these turbulent, magnetised plasma in/outflows, producing the radiation and high-energy particles we observe, obstructs a straightforward interpretation of the black hole image for testing theories of gravity. The challenge in understanding the astrophysics of black holes and their impact on the cosmos is that they span >8 orders of magnitude in mass, size and timescales, and emit light over 15 orders of magnitude in frequency. Our new approach overcomes this scale separation, by simultaneously addressing the dynamics of large and small black holes, in colour. We produce for the first time high-resolution multi-colour movies with the EHT combined with new telescopes probing the variable extremes of the electromagnetic spectrum (e.g., CTA, MeerKAT/SKA1). The data are analysed and interpreted with innovative models finally combining micro- and macrophysics. The PIs bring together complementary expertise over the entire black hole mass scale in radio imaging and multi-wavelength monitoring, astroparticle physics, and theoretical modelling to bear on the problem. This is accompanied by four major investments: construction of a new mm-wave telescope in Africa enabling full dynamical imaging of black holes with the EHT, new model development, supercomputing hardware, and a vibrant team of young scientists to help develop a new, truly universal black hole paradigm.

Mots-clés : black holes,event horizon telescope,radio astronomy,vlbi,grmhd simulations
Projet ERC : SHAPINCELLFATE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Inserm
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2062637.5 €

Cells are often depicted as irregular spherical objects - the shape they adopt in suspension. However, the packed environment of tissues alters this simple shape, causing large cell deformations. This occurs during normal tissue growth and is even more pronounced upon tissue overgrowth, as in the case of solid tumors. Cell shape changes frequently occur in migratory cells, such as immune cells that patrol the organism within interstitial tissues, and cancer metastases that escape from the primary tumor to invade healthy tissues. In all cases, cells adapt and survive even to very large deformations. The mechanisms underlying such response and the long-term consequences that repeated cell shape changes have on physiology and pathology remain largely unknown. We have observed that changes in the shape of cells and organelle(s) induce reversible and irreversible modifications in their behaviour and function(s). We hypothesize that cells use such mechanisms to integrate the successive deformations of distinct amplitudes and durations that they experience during their lifetime. This implies the existence of “shape-induced memory effects” that not only encode the geometrical and mechanical history of the cell but also dictate its fate. Here, we propose to tackle the molecular mechanisms and physical principles accounting for shape-induced memory effects and to evaluate their impact on immunity and cancer. We will focus on two cell types that undergo large shape changes in vivo, and communicate to establish cancer immunity: (1) dendritic cells, which initiate adaptive immune responses, and (2) cancer cells derived from mammary epithelia. Our project will reveal whether boundary conditions imposed by physical confinement are overarching determinants of cellular behaviours at different spatial and temporal scales, and may further establish novel clinical paths for a holistic understanding of early malignancies and their recognition by the immune system.

Mots-clés : cell shape,cell deformation,organelle deformation,signaling pathways,dendritic cells,cancer cells,physical modeling
Projet ERC : PAAL (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2979766.5 €

PAAL's objective is to investigate the interaction of phonological representations with cognisance, and their relationship to script. We view cognisance as part of the native speaker's core knowledge of their language.This includes generalisations about constraints on phonological representations in terms of features, size and shapes of morphemes, tone and metrical structures. Cognisance is not identical to the phonological representation of particular lexical items; rather, cognisance is the knowledge about what might be a conceivable word in a given language. We argue that cognisance is involved in all levels of language processing and change, in both spoken and written modalities. Speakers may have different vocabularies, but the phonological cognisance of individuals within a speech community should converge. It has been widely claimed that the notion of "phonological awareness" supports script acquisition. We propose that "phonological awareness" has to make sense in terms of cognisance, which is fundamental to all native speakers, regardless of their level of literacy. Novel to our approach is that it makes explicit predictions about the relationship between cognisance and representation and their relationship to script. Most scripts encode aspects of phonological structure but vary across languages and change over time. Even the closely related Germanic languages we primarily investigate, all using Latinate script, differ in their relationship between phonology and script. We compare the Latinate script to Bengali (also an Indo-European language) whose writing system is very different. Our working hypothesis is that phonological cognisance and representation govern spoken and written language processing, language acquisition, and change of all languages. In this interdisciplinary project, we combine expertise and methodologies across the fields of theoretical phonology, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistics, language acquisition, and language change.

Mots-clés : phonology,first language acquisition,language change,bilingualism,script,morphology,bengali,germanic
Projet ERC : POCOCOP (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université Charles de Prague — Pays : Rép. Tchèque — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1648625.0 €

The class P of polynomial-time computable computational problems is the most important and robust complexity class for the study of efficient computation. Answering what problems belong to P will lead to groundbreaking applications in science and society. Moreover, P is a relatively recent mathematical object and radically different from classical notions studied for centuries; thus, capturing it promises the discovery of new fundamental theorems in mathematics.  Our current understanding of P is limited; for instance, the P=NP millenium problem is wide open. There neither exists a uniform reduction technique, nor a single algorithmic scheme capturing the power of P, nor a description of P in purely logical terms. We intend to provide these in a context which is so rich and vast that it requires the unification of some of the most important techniques, and will enhance our general understanding of P.  Within the microcosm of finite-domain constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs), the recent resolution of the Feder-Vardi conjecture by Bulatov and by Zhuk provides a satisfactory picture of P. Our goal is a vast and uniform generalisation of this result in three directions: towards approximation via Promise CSPs, towards optimisation via Valued CSPs, and towards infinite domains via countably categorical CSPs and CSPs over numeric domains. In particular, our setting includes the linear programming problem as a numeric Valued CSP, the approximate graph coloring problem as a Promise CSP, and many problems from qualitative reasoning as infinite-domain CSPs. Our methods range from universal algebra, model theory, Ramsey theory, to complexity theory. Building on cross-connections between these extensions, we will provide a uniform description of P within this diverse and applicable universe, thus making a revolutionary leap in the resolution of the general problem.

Mots-clés : algorithms,computational complexity,finite model theory,universal algebra,model theory,ramsey theory,approximation,optimisation,constraint satisfaction problem
Projet ERC : mw-atlas (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas — Pays : Grèce — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FORTH
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3251685.0 €

The Milky Way is the cosmic environment in which the solar system, the Earth, and life as we know it came into being. It is also the veil through which we peer into the extra-galactic universe. Its dust obscures our view of the formation of the cosmos. Its magnetic fields distort the observations of nature's most powerful particle accelerators. Its structure and metabolism determine the great diversity of observed star and planetary systems, including our own. Due to a lack of distance information, currently most information about the structure of the Milky Way is two-dimensional, while three-dimensional information is needed. For a breakthrough in Galactic cartography and the science it enables, we will create the first comprehensive three-dimensional atlas of all the physical components of the Milky Way. Our atlas will be self-consistent between component maps, quantify their remaining uncertainties, and be the most detailed to date. Thanks to the dramatic progress in observations at all wavelengths and in algorithmic methods based on information field theory in recent years, now is the right time to do this. Our team's combined expertise in galactic astrophysics, algorithms, observations, Milky Way surveys, and information field theory with its application to galactic tomography puts us in a unique position to generate the first comprehensive Milky Way Atlas. We will apply this atlas to a number of pressing questions in cosmology, cosmic ray, and interstellar medium research and transfer the used tomography technologies into other areas, like medical imaging, Earth monitoring, and industrial data analysis.

Mots-clés : cosmic cartography,tomography,inter disciplinary science,medical imaging,earth monitoring,information theory,information field theory,machine learning
Projet ERC : EUROpest (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université Justus-Liebig de Gießen — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2176250.0 €

Born from years of interdisciplinary collaboration, EUROpest aims to articulate the complex ways in which social-ecological systems shape epidemics. It builds on resilience and actor-network theories to advance its own eco-bio-social paradigm that embraces a multi-causal understanding of disease transmission and disease impacts on human societies and ecosystems. While striving to develop and validate a general theoretical model, it takes the well-documented and highly diverse world of late medieval and early modern Europe as its laboratory – investigating its interconnected climatic, cultural, demographic, economic, ecological, and pathogenic history. With regard to the latter, EUROpest assumes malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis and enteric diseases were major components of a disease baseline over which the most devastating disease, plague (Y. pestis), occurred. EUROpest will carry out regional case studies – from Spain to Lithuania, Greece to England – selected on the basis of available and procurable written, scientific and archaeological data. It will holistically consider the contexts of plague outbreaks identified in those regions, to understand how context both facilitated outbreaks and also shaped them, and their short- and medium-term impacts. EUROpest combines archival source analysis with archaeology, archaeogenetics, paleoecology and paleoclimatology, and subjects case studies to novel human-supervised machine-learning to identify the causal role of factors influencing regional outbreaks. As the contemporary imagination is guided in its understanding of epidemic disease by the outbreaks of the past, EUROpest’s contribution will be critical to developing more nuanced and realistic scenarios of future pandemics, academic as well as popular. With EUROpest PIs already engaging policy makers, the mathematical precision of the eco-bio-social analysis EUROpest proposes will help design more successful and targeted interventions for future pandemic response.

Mots-clés : adna studies,palaeogenomics,environmental history,interdisciplinary history,disease history,climate history,plague,smallpox,machine learning in historical applications
Projet ERC : EUROpest (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université Nicolas-Copernic — Pays : Pologne — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UMK
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2404125.0 €

Born from years of interdisciplinary collaboration, EUROpest aims to articulate the complex ways in which social-ecological systems shape epidemics. It builds on resilience and actor-network theories to advance its own eco-bio-social paradigm that embraces a multi-causal understanding of disease transmission and disease impacts on human societies and ecosystems. While striving to develop and validate a general theoretical model, it takes the well-documented and highly diverse world of late medieval and early modern Europe as its laboratory – investigating its interconnected climatic, cultural, demographic, economic, ecological, and pathogenic history. With regard to the latter, EUROpest assumes malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis and enteric diseases were major components of a disease baseline over which the most devastating disease, plague (Y. pestis), occurred. EUROpest will carry out regional case studies – from Spain to Lithuania, Greece to England – selected on the basis of available and procurable written, scientific and archaeological data. It will holistically consider the contexts of plague outbreaks identified in those regions, to understand how context both facilitated outbreaks and also shaped them, and their short- and medium-term impacts. EUROpest combines archival source analysis with archaeology, archaeogenetics, paleoecology and paleoclimatology, and subjects case studies to novel human-supervised machine-learning to identify the causal role of factors influencing regional outbreaks. As the contemporary imagination is guided in its understanding of epidemic disease by the outbreaks of the past, EUROpest’s contribution will be critical to developing more nuanced and realistic scenarios of future pandemics, academic as well as popular. With EUROpest PIs already engaging policy makers, the mathematical precision of the eco-bio-social analysis EUROpest proposes will help design more successful and targeted interventions for future pandemic response.

Mots-clés : adna studies,palaeogenomics,environmental history,interdisciplinary history,disease history,climate history,plague,smallpox,machine learning in historical applications
Projet ERC : NeuroSonoGene (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Sorbonne Université — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Sorbonne U
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 810594.0 €

Brain-machine interfaces are classically based on multi-electrode arrays. Optogenetics has revolutionized this ability to control neuronal activity through ectopic opsin expression but its application to large brains remains limited because of tissue light absorption and scattering. Ultrasound waves have been proposed for remote neuromodulation, but this approach has remained restricted to low-frequency excitation, to prevent brain tissue overheating, at the expense of spatial resolution. The expression of mechanosensitive proteins in neurons has recently made it possible to achieve the ultrasound (US) activation of neurons at high US frequencies, an approach named “sonogenetic”. Using the MscL mechanosensitive ionic channel, we recently provided a first proof of concept in rodents that cortical neurons can be activated in vivo by ultrasounds at a high spatiotemporal resolution and low intensity. Here, we propose to develop an integrated sonogenetic strategy for distant activation/inhibition of neuronal networks by ultrasound waves in large primate brains. The project includes: 1) optimizing and diversifying the sonogenetics actuators for safe neuronal control 2) designing technologies for patterned ultrasound stimulations, 3) demonstrating efficacy and high spatiotemporal resolution of the sonogenetic approach in controlling the primate visual cortex. This project is based on a unique synergistic combination of expertise, with a synthetic biologist in ion channel engineering, a neurobiologist with expertise in vision, and a physicist with expertise in ultrasound technologies. These 3 PIs will be supported by an expert in AAV vector mediated delivery. The project outcomes will be a novel brain-machine interface for investigating neural circuit function even deep within large brains through contactless sonogenetics. This sonogenetic technology will open new avenues for treating neurological dysfunction such as restoring vision in blind patients.

Mots-clés : neuroscience,neuromodulation,sonogenetics,ultrasound,brain machine interface,functional ultrasound imaging,vision,visual restoration,visual cortex
Projet ERC : GRAVITES (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Center for Theoretical Physics — Pays : Pologne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CFT PAN;CTP PAS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 765513.5 €

The four known interactions that occur in nature can be described either by Einstein's general relativity or by quantum field theory. Over the last decades physicists have tried to put these two pillars of modern physics on a common foundation. In doing so, they have been limited by a lack of experiments at the interface of these two frameworks. Both theories have been independently verified with astonishing precision, but all verifications to date have come without drawing on concepts from the other theory. The goal of GRAVITES is to perform experiments at the interface of quantum physics and general relativity. For the first time, we will measure gravitational properties of single and entangled photons in the background of Einstein’s gravity. To this end, GRAVITES aims to combine four complementary disciplines: quantum photonics and precision interferometry guided by expertise in general relativity and quantum field theory. The synergy among the research groups will realize a large-scale fiber interferometer with unprecedented precision. Since the sensitivity of GRAVITES’s apparatus must exceed present large-scale fiber-based quantum interferometers by orders of magnitude, the two experimental teams must combine cutting-edge technologies in their respective fields for advancing single-photon interferometry. These developments are also of direct relevance for many other applications such as quantum metrology and quantum sensing. In parallel, the theory teams will investigate the combined effects of gravitation and field quantization in dielectric waveguides. With this united effort GRAVITES is in the position to explore new physics that determines the gravitational properties of quantum superposition and quantum entanglement. This will allow us to create a unique experimental platform for probing how gravity interacts with the quantum world.

Mots-clés : quantum photonics,quantum gravity interface