Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : OPIOIDREWARD (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Oslo University Hospital — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 63986.0 €

As the opioid epidemic escalates, we must ask: why are opioids so addictive? Non-human animal research links addiction with the powerful relief opioids can offer to animals in distress. In humans, epidemiological and clinical studies converge upon social stressors and a poor social support network as key risk factors for addiction. Despite this, it is currently unknown how pre-drug distress might alter opioid drug effects. Tremendous resources are dedicated to charting how people feel after taking a drug, sidestepping the potentially profound influence of how people feel before they take the drug. Here, I will turn the current approach on its head. Using acute social distress induction before morphine administration in healthy humans, I will create a human model to determine the psychological, physiological and brain underpinnings of how social stressors increase opioids’ abuse liability. First, I will test the hypothesis that pre-drug distress enhances drug wanting (self-administration) but not drug liking (self-report) compared to drug effects in a control condition. Second, I will use opioid blockade to confirm or falsify the hypothesis that opioid drugs ‘hijack’ brain mechanisms underpinning social support. Third, I will determine to what extent opioid drug effects are dopamine-dependent by blocking dopamine before morphine administration. I will also apply computational modelling and functional imaging to elucidate the underlying brain mechanisms. Thus, the proposal offers a powerful new methodology for resolving hotly debated questions on the independent contributions of opioids and dopamine for reward and abuse liability. In sum, the project aims to achieve a breakthrough in our understanding of how a pre-drug social distress state can alter opioid drug mechanisms. The mechanistic understanding arising from this project could have profound implications for science, as well as for clinical care and new policies designed to contain the opioid epidemic.

Mots-clés : reward,social,addiction,opioid,distress,pain,psychopharmacology,neuroimaging,human
Projet ERC : SCARE (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Tampere University — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499950.0 €

As the recent "HeartBleed" bug in OpenSSL demonstrates, the security of cryptographic software and devices cannot be understated. They build the foundation for basic security guarantees such as confidentiality and authentication, enabling technologies such as secure communication. For example, Transport Layer Security enables e-commerce, a 1.9 trillion USD global industry in 2016. The more modern trend, especially in the embedded space, is towards hardware-assisted security. Here the aim is to leverage hardware to accomplish security goals that are simply unrealistic in software-only solutions. One example is Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) that provide a secure sandbox to execute security-critical software. TEEs, often driven by ARM TrustZone Technology, are present in the majority of smartphones on the market today. Side-channel analysis (SCA) is a cryptanalytic technique that targets not the formal description of a cryptographic primitive but the implementation of it. Examples of side-channels include power consumption, electro-magnetic radiation, acoustic emanations, and various timings. Attackers then use this auxiliary signal to recover critical algorithm state and, in combination with cryptanalytic techniques, secret key material. This is a young but very active field within security and cryptography stemming from covert channels. SCA is the focus of SCARE. Objectives include the discovery of next generation covert channels, paving the way for novel SCA classes, and extending these to full-fledged end-to-end SCA attacks by identifying specific vulnerabilities in widely-deployed cryptography software libraries such as OpenSSL and hardware-assisted security technologies such as TEEs. In turn, SCARE will deliver a methodology for SCA security assurance: not just development, evaluation, and deployment of acute countermeasures, but bringing SCA into the product life cycle as part of continuous integration.

Mots-clés : side channel analysis,covert channels,power analysis,timing attacks,cache timing attacks,bug attacks,trusted execution environment,system security,architecture security,software security
Projet ERC : ENUF (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : IBM Research - Zurich — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 75000.0 €

As the worldwide photonics market is increasing and optical and electronic devices based on III-V semiconductors are gaining market segment, the production of III-V semiconductor wafers including GaN has increased in volume and sizes have increased from 2” to 6”. However, this is still short of the 8”-12” common in Silicon CMOS technology. Furthermore, the integration of III-Vs on silicon or on-insulator, has been a long-standing goal for the past 50 years, in order to combine electronic and photonic applications, and to allow photonic technologies to take advantage of the highly developed silicon CMOS technology, thereby opening up for vast new application opportunities. The aim of ENUF is for the first time to attempt to combine two different growth methods to achieve a low-cost integration of large-area III-V on insulator on a silicon platform, and to establish this as a replacement technology for existing III-V wafer production or to enable low-cost integration of optically active material as enabling technology for silicon photonic applications. The method can also be adapted to GaN on Si or on insulator for low-cost high-volume production of high power electronics and light emitting devices.

Mots-clés : compound semiconductors,epitaxy,semiconductor wafer technology
Projet ERC : OR-HMC (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Tel Aviv University — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Assay for cancer diagnostics by quantification of 5hmC 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) is a modified form of the DNA base cytosine and is an important epigenetic marker linked to regulation of gene expression in development and tumorigenesis. The loss of 5hmC is observed across a wide spectrum of malignant tumours. The goal of the proposed project is to utilize a novel chemo-enzymatic labelling scheme developed within the framework of my ERC project in order to develop a high-throughput assay capable of quantifying 5hmC levels for cancer diagnostics. We have developed a spectroscopic method for global quantification of 5hmC in genomic DNA, which can be performed in multi-well plates for high throughput analysis, or on individual DNA molecules for ultimate sensitivity. We aim to combine these two approaches and further develop a simple and rapid multi-well slide assay which measures 5hmC levels in DNA, and combines both high throughput and high sensitivity. This slide will be compatible with a standard microarray scanner, lowering the development barriers for commercialisation of specific diagnostic applications. In parallel, we aim to establish the relationship between 5hmC levels in colorectal cancer and the state of disease. Preliminary results show significant decrease of 5hmC in colorectal cancer samples relative to that of healthy colon. This assay will potentially offer earlier diagnosis of cancer as well as means for easy monitoring of disease and response to treatment. The project aims to establish preliminary analysis of colorectal cancer samples but the general approach may be directly extended to other types of malignancies.

Mots-clés : 5 hydroxymethylcytosine,colorectal cancer,diagnostics,epigenetics
Projet ERC : COQCOoN (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 22312.5 €

At different scales, from molecular systems to technological infrastructures, physical systems group in structures which are neither simply regular or random, but can be represented by networks with complex shape. Proteins in metabolic structures and the World Wide Web, for example, share the same kind of statistical distribution of connections of their constituents. In addition, the individual elements of natural samples, like atoms or electrons, are quantum objects. Hence replicating complex networks in a scalable quantum platform is a formidable opportunity to learn more about the intrinsic quantumness of real world and for the efficient exploitation of quantum-complex structures in future technologies. Future trusted large-scale communications and efficient big data handling, in fact, will depend on at least one of the two aspects -quantum or complex- of scalable systems, or on an appropriate combination of the two. In COQCOoN I will tackle both the quantum and the complex structure of physical systems. I will implement large quantum complex networks via multimode quantum systems based on both temporal and frequency modes of parametric processes pumped by pulsed lasers. Quantum correlations between amplitude and phase continuous variables will be arranged in complex topologies and delocalized single and multiple photon excitations will be distributed in the network. I aim at: -Learn from nature: I will reproduce complex topologies in the quantum network to query the quantum properties of natural processes, like energy transport and synchronization, and investigate how nature-inspired efficient strategies can be transferred in quantum technologies. -Control large quantum architectures: I will experiment network topologies that make quantum communication and information protocols resilient against internal failures and environmental changes. I will setup distant multi-party quantum communications and quantum simulation in complex networks.

Mots-clés : complex networks,quantum simulation,quantum communication,continuous variables
Projet ERC : QUREP (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

At the heart of all anticipated network-based quantum applications lies the requirement to establish quantum communication between individual network nodes over long distances. Quantum communication exceeding 100 km requires so-called quantum repeaters to extend communication beyond this limit. Mainly two types of quantum repeater schemes are being investigated: Quantum-memory-based schemes for long-distant entanglement generation and photonic encoding-based schemes for fast secure quantum communication. To date, both schemes have only been considered individually, however, a hybrid approach could overcome their distinct limitations and benefit from individual advantages. How such a system could be realized remains an open question. This project addresses the challenges, benefits, and resource requirements for a hybrid architecture of interconnected photonic-cluster-state-based and quantum-memory-based quantum repeaters. In a theoretical study, cost parameters of such a hybrid quantum repeater for realistic system properties will be determined for the first time. Experimentally, electron spin coupled quantum dot single photon sources will be employed as resource for multi-photon cluster state generation. In parallel, a new type of quantum memory—the SnV defect in diamond, will serve to demonstrate remote entanglement. Finally, these two disparate systems will be interconnected via frequency conversion and Bell-measurements—to demonstrate cross-platform entanglement. Investigating for the first time an interconnected system of two disparate solid-state resources for quantum communication will stimulate ground-breaking research towards hybrid quantum repeater architectures. All three objectives will benefit from the PI’s recent expertise in spectroscopy, spin control, and nanofabrication of gallium arsenide quantum dots and diamond defect centres in integrated photonic structures.

Mots-clés : quantum repeater,remote entanglement,quantum dot,ingaas quantum dot,cluster state,quantum memory,tin vacancy defect centre,snv defect,nanofabrication,nanophotonics
Projet ERC : INCLUDE (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Bergen — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

At the heart of contemporary politics in the old democracies in Europe and North America is a significant puzzle. How come the far right, advocating a nativist agenda particularly opposed to Muslims and Islam, is advancing at a time when public opinion research documents stability or decline in illiberal values in these populations at large? Current studies understandably focus on accounting for exclusion – opposition to Muslims, prejudice, islamophobia, and nativism. In the INCLUDE project, I propose to expand the scope of inquiry beyond drivers of exclusion to investigate the openness of non-Muslim majorities to the inclusion of Muslim minorities. I ask, under what conditions—on what terms—are they open to inclusion? This research question brings conceptual and empirical attention to different aspects of public opinion and different segments within the public than are currently at the center of attention in research on intergroup attitudes and support for the far right. A major program of new data collection is needed to test the new hypotheses and implications raised. To manage the risks involved in taking research in a new direction, I propose to collect data in sequences of survey experiments in a few countries where we already have a solid base of knowledge to build upon—Norway, Germany, France, the UK, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The potential gains are considerable: The proposed new framework narrows down the conditions under which exclusionary actors, such as the far right, are likely to gain political influence. It highlights different aspects of the strategies and policies adopted by inclusive actors than are currently in focus. It identifies polarization traps that can fuel mistrust between “people” and “elites.” All in all, the project can bring forth vital new knowledge needed by those who seek to address one of the most significant societal challenges of our time—how to live peacefully together as diverse societies.

Mots-clés : political science,citizens,public opinion,inclusive attitudes,islamophobia,the far right,survey experiments
Projet ERC : STRATO (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : German Heart Centre — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : DHM
Type d'entité : Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1477680.0 €

Atherosclerosis and its complications such as acute coronary syndromes (myocardial infarction and unstable angina) are leading causes of death in the EU and worldwide. Mental stress is known to be a major trigger for the onset of acute coronary syndromes, even in patients with state-of-the-art medical treatment. How acute mental stress rapidly drives plaque destabilization causing acute coronary syndromes is poorly understood and consequently specific treatment, although urgently needed, is lacking. Mental stress is known to affect the immune system. Leukocytes, the effector cells of the immune system, are main instigators not only of plaque progression, but also of plaque destabilization. We hypothesize that acute mental stress rapidly aggravates plaque inflammation, which renders plaques more vulnerable and prone to rupture. We aim to characterize the impact of stress on plaque inflammation in a mouse model of acute mental stress. We will explore the mechanisms by which acute mental stress drives plaque inflammation. Based on these findings, we aim to provide a novel treatment approach to mitigate stress exacerbated plaque inflammation. Further, we aim to translate our findings to stressed humans. The STRATO study will be carried out in a multidisciplinary approach including basic and clinician scientists, immunologists, and psychosomatic specialists and will provide us with an unprecedented, comprehensive picture of how acute mental stress aggravates atherosclerosis. Our study will fill a gap in mechanistic knowledge and based on this will identify novel therapeutic measures with the aim to reduce acute mental stress related cardiovascular complications.

Mots-clés : atherosclerosis,mental stress,inflammation,innate immunity,macrophages,monocytes
Projet ERC : CD40-INN (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 399883.75 €

Atherosclerosis, the underlying cause of the majority of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), is a lipid driven, inflammatory disease of the large arteries. Despite a 25% relative risk reduction achieved by lipid-lowering treatment, the vast majority of atherosclerosis-induced CVD risk remains unaddressed. Therefore, characterizing mediators of the inflammatory aspect of atherosclerosis is a widely recognized scientific goal with great therapeutic implications. Co-stimulatory molecules are key players in modulating immune interactions. My laboratory has defined the co-stimulatory CD40-CD40L dyad as a major driver of atherosclerosis. Inhibition of CD40, and of its interaction with the adaptor molecule TRAF6 by genetic deficiency, antibody treatment or (nanoparticle based) small molecule inhibitor (SMI) treatment, is one of the most powerful therapies to reduce atherosclerosis in a laboratory setting. Although CD40-CD40L interactions are associated with adaptive immunity, I recently identified the macrophage as a driver of CD40-induced inflammation in atherosclerosis. We will use state-of-the-art in vitro experiments, live cell-, super resolution imaging, proteomics approaches and mutant mouse models to unravel the role of macrophage CD40 in atherosclerosis. Moreover, using structure based virtual ligand screening, I will develop lead SMIs targeting macrophage CD40-signaling, which I will deliver using macrophage-targeting nanoparticles. My goal is to define the role of macrophage CD40 in inflammation and immunity and disentangle how its activation affects atherosclerosis. I will finally test the feasibility of targeting macrophage CD40-signaling as a treatment for CVD. These studies will define the role of CD40-signaling in the innate immune system in health and (cardiovascular) disease. As components of macrophage CD40-signaling have the potential to be amenable to pharmacological manipulation, we will establish their feasibility as novel targets for (CVD) treatment.

Mots-clés : atherosclerosis,inflammation,immunology
Projet ERC : DAMOCLES (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : University of Helsinki — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2390450.0 €

Atmospheric aerosol particles play a key role in regulating the climate, and particulate matter is responsible for most of the 7 million deaths per year attributed to air pollution. Lack of understanding of aerosol processes, especially the formation of ice crystals and secondary particles from condensable trace gases, hampers the development of air quality modelling, and remains one of the major uncertainties in predicting climate. The purpose of this project is to achieve a comprehensive understanding of atmospheric nanocluster and ice crystal formation based on fundamental physico-chemical principles. We will use a wide palette of theoretical methods including quantum chemistry, reaction kinetics, continuum solvent models, molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo simulations, Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, computational fluid dynamics, cluster kinetic and thermodynamic models. We will study non-equilibrium effects and kinetic barriers in atmospheric clustering, and use these to build cluster distribution models with genuine predictive capacity. Chemical ionization mass spectrometers can, unlike any other instruments, detect the elemental composition of many of the smallest clusters at ambient low concentrations. However, the charging process and the environment inside the instrument change the composition of the clusters in hitherto unquantifiable ways. We will solve this problem by building an accurate model for the fate of clusters inside mass spectrometers, which will vastly improve the amount and quality of information that can be extracted from mass spectrometric measurements in atmospheric science and elsewhere. DAMOCLES will produce reliable and consistent models for secondary aerosol and ice particle formation and growth. This will lead to improved predictions of aerosol concentrations and size distributions, leading to improved air quality forecasting, more accurate estimates of aerosol indirect climate forcing and other aerosol-cloud-climate interactions.

Mots-clés : atmospheric aerosols,molecular clusters