Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : Living Bionics (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Imperial College London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1996745.0 €

When bionic devices such as cochlear implants, bionic eyes and brain-machine interfaces are implanted into the body they induce an inflammatory response that is difficult to control. Metals used historically for these types of devices are both stiff and inorganic, which makes them recognisable as foreign to the soft and organic human nervous system. Consequently, these implants are tolerated by the body rather than integrated and the device is walled off in a scar tissue capsule. As a result high powered and unsafe currents are required to activate tissues and produce a therapeutic response. I have brought together concepts from tissue engineering for regenerative medicine and bionic device technologies to pioneer living bioelectronics – creating a functional neural cell component as part of the device to avert scar formation. My laboratory has established a range of novel conductive polymeric biomaterials which can be used to coat existing devices or fabricate new devices from conductive polymers, hydrogels, proteins and cells. Living Bionics is based on a world-wide unique combination of technologies and proposes to combine electronic devices with cell laden polymers to generate devices that can bridge the implant interface and improve tissue integration. Pioneering and ground breaking research within Living Bionics includes: • An engineered hydrogel that can support differentiation of stem cells into neural cell networks on devices • 3D patterning of living polymer electrode arrays that contain cells • Understanding of the combined effects of environmental, biological and electrical cues to guide cell fate and create connections to nerve tissues • In vivo proof of principle in the murine model Living Bionics will be a ground breaking step towards safer neural cell stimulation, which is more compatible with tissue survival and regeneration. This research will create a paradigm shift in biomedical electrode design with tremendous impact on healthcare worldwide.

Mots-clés : neuroprogenitor cells,conductive polymers,medical electrodes
Projet ERC : UltimateCOMPASS (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : Lund University — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1805301.25 €

When lost in the desert at night, or in dense forests, people tend to walk in circles. This is because the seemingly simple act of walking in a straight line involves a complex interplay of various sensory modalities, the motor system and cognition. A ball-rolling dung beetle released in the same type of uncharted territory, does not walk in circles, but rather keeps steadfastly to a chosen bearing. The main goal of this project is unravel the sensory and neuronal architecture of the newly discovered ‘snapshot compass’, that supports orientation over all continents and terrestrial habitats on earth (except Antarctica). This goal will be realized through a fusion of biology, bio-informatics and mathematics. A quickly growing pool of studies indicates that neuronal networks are modulated in a context-dependent manner. Therefore, to truly understand how this compass works, and to formulate the core computational algorithms underlying this remarkable system, I aim to obtain the first ever brain recordings from the compass of a freely orienting insect. Is this possible? Certainly! But only in an animal with a robust orientation behaviour, and that is strong enough to carry a little backpack of electronics. The large dung-beetles, with their easily manipulated orientation behavior, offers a unique opportunity to attain this holy grail of neuroethology. The beetle’s compass makes use of a large range of celestial cues, which can vary drastically in availability and strength. While the challenge of cue integration has been solved effectively in the compass system of the beetles, it remains a key problem within the field of cognition and perception, as well as for the design of artificial intelligence systems. Taken together, almost two decades of studies of the dung beetle compass system have paved the way for this timely and unique opportunity, that will impact the advancement of science well outside the field of biology.

Mots-clés : navigation,insect orientation,visual ecology
Projet ERC : CRAACE (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Masaryk University — Pays : Rép. Tchèque — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2253013.29 €

When new political elites and social structures emerge out of a historical rupture, how are art and architecture affected? In 1918 the political map of central Europe was redrawn as a result of the collapse of Austria-Hungary, marking a new era for the region. Through comparative analysis of the visual arts in 3 states built on the ruins of the Habsburg Empire (Austria, Hungary and [former] Czechoslovakia), this project examines how such political discontinuity affected art and architecture between 1918 and 1939. The project is organised into 4 themes, each resulting in a monograph: 1. Vernacular modernisms, nostalgia and the avant-garde 2. Presenting the state: world fairs and exhibitionary cultures 3. Piety, reaction and renewal 4. Contested histories: monuments, memory and representations of the historical past It is the first systematic and comprehensive trans-national study of this type, based on the claim that the successor states to Austria-Hungary belonged to a common cultural space informed by the shared memory of the long years of Habsburg society and culture. The project focuses on the contradictory ways that visual arts of artists and architects in central Europe adapted to and tried to shape new socio-political circumstances in the light of the past. The project thus examines the long shadow of the Habsburg Empire over the art and culture of the twentieth century. The project also considers the impact of the political and ideological imperatives of the three successor states on the visual arts; how did governments treat the past? Did they encourage a sense of historical caesura or look to the past for legitimation? How did artists and architects respond to such new impulses? In answering these questions the project analyses the conflicts between avant-gardes and more conservative artistic movements; the role of the visual arts in interwar memory politics; the place of art in the nexus of religion, national and state identity.

Mots-clés : austria,hungary,czechoslovakia,habsburg empire,modernism,avant garde,post imperial legacies,cultural memory
Projet ERC : ICC (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, 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 : 1017851.0 €

Whether (and why) the market for consumer credit is inefficient is still an open question with important implications for household well-being. The research in this proposal will study sources of inefficiencies in two burgeoning consumer credit institutions: high-cost credit and on-line marketplaces. Each institution serves borrowers on opposite ends of the wealth and credit risk spectrum. Thus, they provide an ideal laboratory for studying the wide range of economic frictions that shape the access and price of credit for households. Despite growing attention from academics and severe scrutiny by policymakers, the economic and social impact of both institutions are yet not well understood. The first stream of projects in the proposal is aimed at providing new evidence on the trade-offs involved in the use of high-cost credit. High-cost credit, such as Payday loans, is often the only source of funding for poor households. Alleviating liquidity shortages with high-cost credit may have negative long term consequences for financial health, an effect often attributed to borrower self-control problems. In the first project of the stream I use data from a Payday lender in the U.K. to explore a new channel for this effect—reputation—that does not rely on borrower irrationality. The second project combines data from 21 police forces in the U.K. to evaluate the social consequences of high-cost credit through the lens of criminal behavior. The second stream of projects characterizes previously unexplored sources of adverse selection in credit markets, with substantive positive and normative implications. Using data from the largest on-line marketplace in the U.S., I aim to demonstrate how asymmetric information distorts maturity choice, and how information gathering by the lender can drive away low-risk borrowers. The final project of this stream will use previously unavailable data to produce the first comprehensive characterization of on-line credit marketplaces worldwide.

Mots-clés : consumer finance
Projet ERC : AgeConsolidate (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Oslo — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UiO
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999481.75 €

Which brain mechanisms are responsible for the faith of the memories we make with age, whether they wither or stay, and in what form? Episodic memory function does decline with age. While this decline can have multiple causes, research has focused almost entirely on encoding and retrieval processes, largely ignoring a third critical process– consolidation. The objective of AgeConsolidate is to provide this missing link, by combining novel experimental cognitive paradigms with neuroimaging in a longitudinal large-scale attempt to directly test how age-related changes in consolidation processes in the brain impact episodic memory decline. The ambitious aims of the present proposal are two-fold: (1) Use recent advances in memory consolidation theory to achieve an elaborate model of episodic memory deficits in aging (2) Use aging as a model to uncover how structural and functional brain changes affect episodic memory consolidation in general The novelty of the project lies in the synthesis of recent methodological advances and theoretical models for episodic memory consolidation to explain age-related decline, by employing a unique combination of a range of different techniques and approaches. This is ground-breaking, in that it aims at taking our understanding of the brain processes underlying episodic memory decline in aging to a new level, while at the same time advancing our theoretical understanding of how episodic memories are consolidated in the human brain. To obtain this outcome, I will test the main hypothesis of the project: Brain processes of episodic memory consolidation are less effective in older adults, and this can account for a significant portion of the episodic memory decline in aging. This will be answered by six secondary hypotheses, with 1-3 experiments or tasks designated to address each hypothesis, focusing on functional and structural MRI, positron emission tomography data and sleep experiments to target consolidation from different angles.

Mots-clés : neuroimaging,magnetic resonnance imaging,aging,episodic memory,memory consolidation
Projet ERC : CAPTUR3D (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of Pisa — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UniPi
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 125000.0 €

Which physical principles govern life regulation at the level of subcellular, membrane-enclosed nanosystems, such as transport vesicles and organelles? How do they achieve controlled movements across the crowded intracellular world? Which is the structural and functional organization of their surface and their lumen? This is only a small subset of key open questions that the biophysical approach envisaged here will allow to answer directly within living matter, for the first time. Thus far, state-of-the-art optical microscopy tools for delivering quantitative information in living matter failed to subtract the natural 3D movement of subcellular nanosystems while preserving the spatial and temporal resolution required to probe their structure and function at the molecular level. CAPTUR3D will tackle this bottleneck. An excitation light-beam will be focused in a periodic orbit around the nanosystem of interest and used to localize its position with unprecedented spatial (~10 nm) and temporal (~1000 Hz frequency response) resolution. Such privileged observation point will push biophysical investigations to a new level. For the first time, state-of-the-art imaging technologies and analytical tools (e.g. fluorescence correlation spectroscopy), will be used to perform molecular investigations on a moving, nanoscopic reference system. The insulin secretory granule (ISG) is selected as a paradigmatic case study. Key open issues at the ISG level are selected, namely: (i) ISG-environment interactions and their role in directing ISG trafficking, (ii) ISG-membrane spatiotemporal organization, (iii) ISG-lumen structural and functional organization, (iv) ISG alterations in type-2 diabetes (T2D). These issues will be tackled directly within human-derived Langherans islets. CAPTUR3D is envisioned not only to foster our knowledge on T2D physiopathology but also to concomitantly drive an unprecedented revolution in the way we address living matter at the subcellular scale.
Projet ERC : HOMEOSTASIS (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Utrecht University — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

While interacting with the external world, the brain can only represent very little of this world in working memory (WM). WM is therefore generally referred to as a limited-capacity system. This limitation is not a problem in daily life, however, because the external world typically remains available and can be accessed relatively easily. The current dominant theory of WM does not explain how the brain balances between internal storage and external sampling, as this theory exclusively relates to situations in which the remembered information is no longer physically present. The HOMEOSTASIS project is motivated by the idea that WM should be studied in interaction with the world that is still within view. HOMEOSTASIS will develop a new theoretical model of WM based on an internal mental economy: I propose that WM maintains a perceptual homeostasis by dynamically trading the costs of accurate internal storage against external sampling of the external visual world. Whereas current research on WM has a strong focus on its maximum capacity, this capacity may hardly be used as observers prefer to minimize internal storage due to the effortful nature of WM storage. I will rigorously test the model’s theoretical basis using novel experimental paradigms in which WM is studied in interaction with the physically present environment. To decode the current content of WM, I will adopt state-of-the-art electroencephalographic decoding techniques. To study WM in interaction with worlds of varying reliability and familiarity, I will employ virtual reality technology. Finally, I will investigate patients with restricted deficits to specific components of the model and use machine learning techniques to discover biometric signatures in eye movements. This new model of WM will open a new window to diagnose WM disorders and for understanding how we interact with computer-manipulated virtual environments in an increasingly computer-dominated world.

Mots-clés : visual memory,working memory,eye movements,eeg decoding,virtual reality,machine learning
Projet ERC : MaTissE (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
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 : 281375.0 €

While magnetic nanomaterials are increasingly used as clinical agents for imaging and therapy, their use as a tool for tissue engineering opens up challenging perspectives that have rarely been explored. Lying at the interface between biophysics and nanomedicine, and based on magnetic techniques, the proposed project aims to magnetically design functional tissues and to explore the tissular fate of nanomaterials. Magnetic nanoparticles will be safely introduced into therapeutic cells, thus allowing them to be remotely manipulated by external magnets. 3D manipulations of the magnetized cells (patented in 2012) will be used to form tissues with a controlled size and shape through the development of a unique magnetic bioreactor. In a self-integrating all-in-one process, 3D tissue will be shaped from cellular "bricks" without the need for a scaffold. The magnetic tissue will be amenable to mechanical stimulation and in situ imaging at each step of its maturation. The project is inherently multidisciplinary: 1) From a biophysics standpoint, controlled tissue stimulation, forced cell alignment, and mapping of cell-cell forces, will be used to answer pressing questions on the role of physical stresses in cell and tissue functions, such as differentiation. 2) From a regenerative medicine standpoint, this magnetic technology will be applied to cartilage and cardiac tissue repair. The functionality of the constructs and their centimetric size range, combined with a surgeon-friendly tissue handling with a dedicated magnetic tool, and the inherent magnetic resonance imaging properties of the constructs will be major advantages for clinical translation. 3) From a nanomaterials standpoint, nanomaterial fate will be explored in situ using nanomagnetic methods, both at the tissue scale (macroscopic) and at the nanoscale. This is a necessary corollary for the use of nanomaterials in regenerative medicine, and one that is largely unexplored.

Mots-clés : nanomagnetism,iron oxide nanoparticles,nanobiodegradation,nanomedicine,magnetic manipulation,tissue engineering,stem cells,tissue mechanics
Projet ERC : TransReg (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Ministry of Health — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 326250.0 €

While myocardial infarction leads to adverse ventricular remodeling ultimately causing heart failure in humans, some animals, including zebrafish can regenerate the injured heart. We recently revealed a high degree of plasticity in cardiomyocyte subpopulations involved in the reconstruction of the injured heart. The gene regulatory network involved in heart regeneration is starting to be elucidated and epigenetic remodeling has been suggested to play a pivotal role during this process. Similarly it is known that the environment can influence the regenerative capacity but whether such an effect can be transmitted from one generation to the next has not been addressed. This mechanism is called transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TEI) and describes the transfer of experiences from parents to their offspring through the gametes, independent on changes in DNA sequence. TEI has also been described in humans: starvation suffered by grandparents affects the metabolism of grandchildren. TEI is also relevant to organ injury: in rats, offspring from parents exposed to liver toxicants revealed reduced hepatic fibrosis in response to the same injury. Changes in DNA methylation, histone modifications and non-coding RNAs have been associated to TEI. We aim to describe for the first time epigenetic inheritance of organ regeneration and unravel its underlying mechanism using the zebrafish model. We will assess whether cardiac injury elicits epigenetic modifications in sperm and determine if offspring from injured parental fish reveal altered heart regeneration. Genetic models will be developed for functional assessment of identified modifications. We will also further analyze cell plasticity during heart regeneration and address whether hearts regenerated from different progenitors respond equally well to further injuries. Our expected findings will constitute a paradigm shift on the origins of cardiovascular disease and define epigenetic priming as a basis for regeneration.

Mots-clés : zebrafish,transgenerational epigenetic inheritance,heart regeneration
Projet ERC : IONOS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Université de Lille — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 184425.0 €

While our understanding of the brain have made huge progresses, we are still inefficient in interfacing biological systems with electronics, both in terms of energy and integration potential. Pushed by the need to use conventional computers for building complex systems dedicated to brain interface applications, we have mostly capitalized on technologies and architectures inherits from microelectronic that are intrinsically not adapted to interface living systems. The IONOS project will shift the brain interface paradigm by developing new technologies designed to interact intimately with biological cells and capitalizing heavily on bio-inspiration. To reach this goal, the IONOS project will explore how to sense, stimulate and compute biological signals from in-vitro neural cells’ assembly based on iono-electronic materials and devices. These emerging devices offer basics functionalities such as memory, ion-electron signal’s transduction, and amplification paving the way to a new field of device and circuit engineering that could efficiently reproduce key biological functions such as learning and spatio-temporal processing of information. This project will demonstrate how these concepts associated to the bio-inspired computing paradigm can unlock our fundamental limitations for communicating with living neural cells. Proof of concept will show how an artificial system can efficiently send, receive and compute information from a biological one, which constitutes the basic of communication.