Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : VARIAMOLS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of Trento — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1339351.0 €

Within the broad spectrum of biological soft matter systems, large proteins and protein assemblies occupy a central role. These molecules are extremely versatile: they can catalyze chemical reactions, transport atoms and molecules across the cellular membrane, bind to foreign bodies to be destroyed, or combine into large molecular machines that perform a variety of different tasks. One of the most prominent problems in the computational study of these macromolecules is that the cost of using accurate atomistic models dramatically increases with system size. Simplified, coarse-grained representations offer an elegant and effective alternative to high-resolution models, and enable the simulation of large systems over extended time scales; the other side of the coin, however, is that the missing chemical detail often represents an insurmountable limitation to the realistic reproduction of the properties of interest. The main goal of the VARIAMOLS project is to develop and apply novel computer-aided methods for the study of large molecular assemblies and their dynamics, thus bridging the existing gap between computational cost and chemical accuracy. Specifically, the research will unfold along two intertwined lines: 1) the development of non-uniform resolution models of the system, which optimize the balance between detail and efficiency; and 2) the study of dynamics-mediated properties of protein assemblies. The working philosophy of VARIAMOLS has two complementary and strictly interconnected aspects: on the one hand, the theoretical and algorithmic advancement of the methods currently employed to represent and simulate biomolecules; on the other hand, the systematic application of the developed methods to real-life case studies of great relevance for medical science and technology, with a particular focus on viruses and antibodies.

Mots-clés : multiscale modelling,coarse graining,soft matter
Projet ERC : EPOCHS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : University of Nottingham — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

Within the first few hundred million years after the Big-Bang the first galaxies and stars were born. Sometime soon after, these first objects produced enough energetic photons to reionization the neutral gas in the universe. This frontier of early galaxy assembly has not yet been observed, but will be uncovered by deep imaging and spectroscopy taken with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Key problems include: how the very first galaxies were assembled, and evolved, in their first few Gyr, and the history of reionization. With this ERC funded EPOCHS project I will lead a major effort to investigate these questions using JWST GTO time discovering galaxies before, during, and after the epoch of reionization. This proposal has three interconnected and complementary themes: (i) Identifying the first galaxies and characterizing their UV luminosities, stellar masses, and star formation rates at 7<z<12. JWST imaging and spectroscopy will allow us to make significant progress beyond the current state of the art, and to use these measures to test models of the earliest galaxy assembly. (ii) Using these galaxies we will map the process of reionization: the sources of it, and the time-scale of its onset and duration. Using new diagnostics we will address uncertainties that currently plague this calculation, including escape fractions and the number of ionizing photons, using UV emission lines, spectral shapes, and measuring hardness ratios with radiative transfer models. (iii) We will measure the rest-frame optical structures of galaxies at 3<z<7 to reveal the formation modes of galaxies when they assembled their first masses and structures. We will determine how and when compact galaxies, mergers, dissipative formation in star forming disks, and the formation of bulges and disks are occurring. This includes measuring the formation history of internal components in 3<z<7 galaxies, allowing us to examine how quenching is occurring ‘inside-out’ or ‘outside-in’.
Projet ERC : STARCHIP (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1950000.0 €

Without doubt, one of the most intriguing questions in modern astronomy is whether habitable planets, potentially supporting life, exist outside our solar system. In the upcoming era of large aperture astronomical telescopes and highly stable spectrometers, answering these questions is for the first time a tangible possibility. Successfully finding answers to these questions will, however, critically rely on non-incremental advances in astronomical instrumentation. The objective of the proposed research is, developing and demonstrating novel photonic-chip laser frequency combs to support the revolutionary advances in astronomical precision spectroscopy required to enable detection and characterization of habitable Earth-like planets. Habitable exo-planets can be discovered by observing minute wavelength-shifts in the optical spectra of their host stars. These wavelength-shifts are so small that exquisitely accurate and precise wavelength-calibration of astronomical spectrometers is required. It has been recognized that laser frequency combs (LFCs), broadband spectra of laser-lines with absolutely-known optical frequencies, can provide the required level of precision, provided the LFCâ€™s lines can be resolved by the spectrometer. Generating such frequency comb spectra (â€œastrocombsâ€?) with resolvable lines remains, however, exceedingly challenging. Here, we will develop and demonstrate a novel class of photonic-chip microresonator-based astrocombs that can naturally provide broadband spectra of resolvable lines, potentially from visible to mid-infrared wavelengths, thereby overcoming key challenges in astrocomb generation. In order to achieve this goal we will pursue radically different microresonator designs and new nonlinear optical regimes in order to overcome long-standing limitation in microresonator physics. The developed astrocombs will not only be pivotal to astronomy but indeed can directly and profoundly impact the way we transfer data, monitor our environm

Mots-clés : microresonator frequency combs,microphotonics,nonlinear optics,frequency combs,astronomical spectrograph calibration
Projet ERC : GENEQUALITY (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1800510.0 €

Women continue to face large and persistent drops in terms of all labor market outcomes at the arrival of children. Researchers now understand that these “child penalties” on women may account for a substantial fraction of the large level of gender inequality that persists in the labor market in all developed nations. But the mapping that goes from children to gender inequality and welfare still remains mostly unchartered. First, research has only been able to identify the effect of children once they arrive, missing all the potentially large anticipatory effects of children, in terms of education, marriage choices, etc. that significantly impact the lifetime trajectories of men and women. Second the mechanisms underlying the persistence of “child penalties” and of such strict gender specialization at the arrival of children are not well understood. Comparative advantages have a hard time accounting for the stickiness of large “child penalties” despite the massive changes in relative education and in the relative cost of child care. Is it about preferences then, or cultural norms? If so, how are these formed? Finally, we still do not understand how these “child penalties” actually translate into welfare. Building on unique administrative data pooled across countries, on new measures from the field of natural language processing, on compelling quasi-experimental designs and on established techniques in public finance that parsimoniously map empirical moments into welfare evaluation, GENEQUALITY will i) shed new light on the impact of children on gender inequality, ii) provide new evidence on the mechanisms underlying strong gender specialization in parenthood, iii) map the welfare consequences of “child penalties”, and iv) characterize the optimal policies aimed at addressing them.
Projet ERC : SEXimmune (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Uppsala University — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1497438.0 €

Women face a four-fold higher risk of developing an autoimmune disease compared to men. Sex differences in immune-mediated disorders are well-documented, but have remained poorly understood and are not taken into account in current therapies. To improve treatment of sex-biased autoimmune disorders I believe it will be essential to gain a much deeper understanding of fundamental factors controlling sex differences in the human immune system. The present proposal applies two uniquely informative human model systems to determine the separate roles of sex hormones and sex chromosomes in immune regulation. First we will investigate how the immune system is transformed during female-to-male and male-to-female sex change, utilizing samples collected in a multicenter study that I am coordinating. A combination of broad-scale technologies will be applied to follow dynamics provoked by sex hormone transition in peripheral blood immune cells, autoimmune reactivity, plasma proteins, and gut microbiota. As a complementary model to capture effects mediated by sex chromosomes, we will study mosaic individuals harboring immune cells with both female and male karyotypes in peripheral blood. Single cell transcriptomic analysis will be used to compare these cell populations, thereby revealing the influence of chromosomal sex in an otherwise fixed genetic and hormonal background. These model systems will be combined with population-based studies - taking advantage of new data on sex hormone levels and sex chromosome karyotypes in 500,000 women and men (UK Biobank), which will allow us to determine how these factors ultimately influence the risk of autoimmune disease. I believe this novel approach will offer groundbreaking insights into the biology of sex differences of human immune systems, thus providing a foundation for development of new treatment strategies for sex-biased autoimmune disorders.

Mots-clés : autoimmunity,sex differences,immune system,sex hormones,sex chromosomes,systems immunology,molecular epidemiology
Projet ERC : iLABOUR (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499911.0 €

World Bank, EC Joint Research Centre, and other bodies have recently highlighted the potential of online labour markets to boost employment and economic growth. While national job markets have stagnated, online labour markets that connect firms with knowledge and service workers around the world have grown up to 60% a year. An overlooked aspect of these markets is that they extricate workers and employers from national institutional frameworks, such as employment law and collective bargaining, and instead impose their own, technologically enforced institutions. For example, a leading marketplace recently instated a global minimum wage of 4.00 USD/h. With over 540,000 employers and 4,000,000 registered workers in 180 countries, this Californian company is making critical labour policy decisions that influence businesses and individuals from Berlin to Manila. The objective of this project is to lay bare the politics and institutions of these next-generation labour markets promoted with discourses of technological progress. Whose interests find expression in their institutions? Some online workers have begun to organize transnationally with the help of digital media. How do online labour movements emerge and assert power on these markets? And finally, to what extent are these relations still reducible to struggles between capital and labour, rather than more ambiguous networked models of production? We will tackle these questions through a combination of conventional social research methods and innovative Internet research methods, on both virtual research sites (online labour markets and workers' online communities) and physical research sites (market operators' premises and worker gatherings). We survey, interview, and observe designers and workers to reconstruct processes through which online markets, institutions, and movements are shaped, and "scrape" online data to quantify their influence. The results will open up important new vistas in labour policy debate.

Mots-clés : virtual work,telework,labour unions,internet studies,economic sociology,crowdsourcing
Projet ERC : PEROVSCI (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
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 : 150000.0 €

X-ray imaging is a widely employed tool both for basic research and real-world applications such as security, food screening and medical imaging. However, X-rays are considered ionising radiation and can pose significant risks to humans if not carefully employed. Moreover, resolution is closely linked to radiation dose, which means that a limit is placed on the resolution achievable by an X-ray detector based on how well the detector’s active layer can respond to incident radiation. Currently, commercial materials are operating at their maximum performance potential. Thus, to increase the resolution and lower the radiation dose, which would subsequently expand the applications and improve the efficacy of X-ray imaging, we must fabricate better active layer materials. Recently, Metal Halide Perovskite (MHP)s have generated significant interest for next generation X-ray detectors due to their exceptional X-ray sensitivity, radiation hardness, easy fabrication, fast scintillation response and high photon-yield. State-of-the-art MHP based devices are already outperforming commercial materials in key performance metrics. However, an enormous barrier stands in the way of their future commercialisation for X-ray detectors; they are unstable in atmosphere. As part of the ERC HYPERION project, in which we were pursuing the fabrication of highly emissive materials, we identified a route to synthesise novel MHPs based materials that show excellent radioluminescence (X-Ray to Photon emission) properties. Most critically, our fabrication method ensures that the material exhibits exceptional stability in ambient conditions, making it a very attractive material for the next generation of X-ray detectors. In this project, we will move this material to commercialisation by developing critical commercial and market analyses while facilitating the scaled fabrication of a working proof of concept X-ray detector.

Mots-clés : halide perovskites,optoelectronics,radioluminescence,x ray detectors,light emission,solution processing
Projet ERC : transtryp (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: Biological Mechanisms, Structures and Functions
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 : 1787400.0 €

mRNA translation consists on translating the genetic code to proteins by the ribosome that is universally conserved in all cells. However, its structure presents significant differences between bacteria and eukaryotes. Partly because of these differences, the bacterial ribosome can be targeted specifically by a number of antibiotics without affecting the eukaryotic host cells. However, the conservation of the ribosome among eukaryotes complicates the search for specific drugs against eukaryotic pathogens such as certain protozoa like plasmodium and kinetoplastids. Our work along with other studies demonstrates the existence of significant structural differences between ribosomes of protozoa and mammals. Using Cryogenic electron microscopy, we endeavor to investigate such structural differences that are anticipated to affect some of the vital steps of mRNA translation, especially the initiation process, because of their position on the ribosome. 1. Thus we will focus on the structural differences in translation initiation between kinetoplastids and their mammalian hosts (i) by characterizing initiation complexes from several plasmodium and kinetoplastids species and compare them to their mammalian counterparts. (ii) We will also follow up on our previous works in solving the structures of various conventional, but also unconventional mammalian initiation complexes, in interaction with special mRNAs. 2. We will focus on the structure of protozoa-specific features characterized from elongating ribosomal complexes and (i) attempt to fish for regulators that they interact with from cell extracts. In addition, (ii) we will investigate the ribosomal structures from plasmodium at different stages of the parasite life cycle, as they vary according to the latter. Our results will significantly advance our understanding of protein synthesis regulation in protozoa and will represent a promising step in the search for more efficient treatments against these eukaryotic pathogens

Mots-clés : ribosome,mrna translation initiation,trypanosomes,plasmodium,kinetoplastids,protozoa
Projet ERC : p38_InTh (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institute for Research in Biomedicine — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IRB;IRB-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149937.0 €

p38_InTh aims at improving the potency of a new class of highly specific p38 pathway inhibitors and validate their potential therapeutic use to ameliorate chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity without affecting the cancer cell toxicity of the chemotherapeutic. Chemotherapeutics used for cancer treatments have serious side effects, both the most broad-spectrum ones (such as anthracyclines) and the directed ones (such as trastuzumab). In particular, the cardiotoxicity is a major issue associated to chemotherapy. Cardiooncology research has recently emerged to tackle this serious unmet medical need. The cardiotoxicity induced by chemotherapeutics includes from arrhythmia to heart failure. To mitigate it, cardiooncologists usually adjust the treatment with reduced doses for a longer period, but this makes the anticancer treatments less efficient and consequently reduces the quality of life of the patients. There is evidence that cardiomyocyte death induced by anthracyclines involves activation of a specific p38 pathway, suggesting that inhibition of this pathway may reduce the cardiotoxicity associated with chemotherapeutics. Over the last two decades, many p38 pathway inhibitors have been developed by industry. However, these are mostly ATP competitors and have shown disappointing results in clinical trials. In contrast, we have recently identified novel compounds that inhibit only one of the target isoforms and through a novel MoA, selectively antagonizing the activation of this isoform by one of its protein partners. We propose to improve the potency of these hits and validate their potential therapeutic use to ameliorate chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity without affecting the cancer cell toxicity. Importantly, our new drug would inhibit only a subset of the p38 pathway regulated functions, which is expected to result in increased specificity, thereby overcoming the undesired side-effects found in clinical trials for the classical ATP competitive p38 pathway inhibitors.

Mots-clés : chemotherapy,cardiotoxicity,anthracycline,cardiomyocyte,cell death
Projet ERC : ASYFAIR (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Exeter — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1252067.0 €

‘Consistency’ is regularly cited as a desirable attribute of border control, but it has received little critical social scientific attention. This inter-disciplinary project, at the inter-face between critical human geography, border studies and law, will scrutinise the consistency of European asylum adjudication in order to develop richer theoretical understanding of this lynchpin concept. It will move beyond the administrative legal concepts of substantive and procedural consistency by advancing a three-fold conceptualisation of consistency – as everyday practice, discursive deployment of facts and disciplinary technique. In order to generate productive intellectual tension it will also employ an explicitly antagonistic conceptualisation of the relationship between geography and law that views law as seeking to constrain and systematise lived space. The project will employ an innovative combination of methodologies that will produce unique and rich data sets including quantitative analysis, multi-sited legal ethnography, discourse analysis and interviews, and the findings are likely to be of interest both to academic communities like geographers, legal and border scholars and to policy makers and activists working in border control settings. In 2013 the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) was launched to standardise the procedures of asylum determination. But as yet no sustained multi-methodological assessment of the claims of consistency inherent to the CEAS has been carried out. This project offers not only the opportunity to assess progress towards harmonisation of asylum determination processes in Europe, but will also provide a new conceptual framework with which to approach the dilemmas and risks of inconsistency in an area of law fraught with political controversy and uncertainty around the world. Most fundamentally, the project promises to debunk the myths surrounding the possibility of fair and consistent border controls in Europe and elsewhere.

Mots-clés : asylum,migration,procedural consistency