Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : TubulinCode (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of California System — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2402495.0 €

Microtubules (MT) are core components of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton with essential roles in cell division, cell shape, intracellular transport, and motility. Despite their functional divergence, MTs have highly conserved structures made from almost identical molecular building blocks – tubulin proteins. A variety of posttranslational modifications (PTMs) diversifies these building blocks, which is thought to control most of the properties and functions of the MT cytoskeleton, a concept referred to as the ‘tubulin code’. While they appear to have subtle effects at the molecular level, tubulin PTMs are essential for maintaining cellular functions of MTs over large spatial and temporal scales. Yet, a comprehensive knowledge of the principles of the tubulin code, connecting its functions across the molecular, cellular and organismal levels, is almost entirely lacking. Our project aims to obtain a novel molecular and mechanistic understanding of how tubulin PTMs control long-term cellular function and homeostasis. Our unique approach bridges all relevant scales of biology and relies on a synergy between our powerful experimental models and expertise in biochemistry, structural biology, single-molecule assays, systems-biophysics, cell biology, and physiology. Specifically, we will: (1) Determine how different tubulin PTMs affect biophysical and structural properties of MTs and their interactions with associated proteins; (2) Define the impact of tubulin PTMs on overall MT cytoskeleton behaviour and the resulting physiological implications in neurons; (3) Combine zebrafish and mouse models and develop a novel fish model for lifelong in-vivo imaging to determine how the tubulin PTMs control lifelong MT-based functions. Our work will define the importance of tubulin PTMs by revealing their critical molecular functions over the lifetime of an organism. The project has the potential to substantially change our perception of the cytoskeleton’s role in homeostasis and disease.

Mots-clés : microtubule cytoskeleton,tubulin code,tubulin posttranslational modifications,axonal transport,neuronal homeostasis,zebrafish,mouse,danionella,in vivo imaging,motor proteins,in vitro reconstitution,cell mechanics
Projet ERC : GWSky (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of California System — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3025000.25 €

General Relativity (GR) is more than a century old, but is still our best macroscopic description of gravity. Key GR predictions are black holes (BHs) and gravitational waves (GWs), whose spectacular confirmation led to two recent physics Nobel Prizes. The future of GW astronomy, however, is even brighter, since detectors will observe BHs at cosmic dawn and probe their enigmatic event horizon, where GR clashes with quantum mechanics in the information loss paradox. These experiments will measure signals hundreds of times smaller than today, necessarily discovering anomalies and deviations from current predictions, e.g., due to the astrophysical environment. On the fundamental side, precision GW astronomy will open countless possibilities for understanding the standard model of particle physics (and its extensions), gravity and cosmology. By itself, however, precision is not knowledge. To harness the power of these measurements, a groundbreaking framework is urgently needed to solve the very nonlinear equations of GR and develop waveform models to unprecedented accuracy, and to convert these results into concrete interpretation tools. GWSky will leverage the world-leading expertise of its PIs in astrophysics, GW-source modeling, particle physics and GR, and recent paradigm shifts to build an overarching framework answering a fundamental question: When, inevitably, an anomaly in a GW signal is identified, what is it? A gravitational effect not predicted by GR? The influence of nearby matter? Or merely an imprecise calculation of the expected signal? Even tiny deviations from GR would shake physics to its core, but to claim a deviation from it, one needs to filter out first the contributions from the astrophysical environment, instrumental artifacts and systematic modeling uncertainties. GWSky will provide tools to disentangle these contributions, enabling precision GW astronomy with upcoming observational runs, and new facilities on the ground and in space.

Mots-clés : the two body problem in general relativity
Projet ERC : nilomorph (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de l'Oregon — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 443966.25 €

NILOMORPH sets out to explain how linguistic evolution took a highly unexpected turn in one family of languages spoken in East Africa. They have evolved a morphological system where multiple grammatical categories are expressed simultaneously within a single syllable, through subtle modulations of its phonological properties. For example, in the Dinka language the word tèm, meaning ‘to cut’, can be made to mean ‘she cuts it for someone’ by lengthening the vowel, changing the low tone to high, and pronouncing it with breathy voice quality: té̤ːm, and more than dozen other contrasts can be generated by similar means. A sin-gle monosyllabic word in language like Dinka attains a degree of information density unparalleled else-where in the languages of the world. Surprisingly, comparative evidence suggests that the West Nilotic lan-guages were once much more conventional, using suffixes to mark grammatical categories. As has hap-pened in many other languages, such as English, these suffixes were lost over time. But rather than simply disappearing, they were transformed into suprasegmental phonological properties pronounced concurrently with the word stem. The aim of NILOMORPH is to reconstruct this evolution. But because of the extreme rarity of this morphological type, we need to explain not just how it happened here, we also have to explain why it did not happen in other language families. It is therefore not enough just to retrace the history of linguistic forms. NILOMORPH proposes a transformative step in historical linguistics: the reconstruction not just of external features, but of the cognitive motivation behind them. This will be achieved through the synergy of three teams, DESCRIPTION, MORPHOLOGY and RECONSTRUCTION, employing a combination of field linguistics, acoustic analysis, experimental linguistics, computational simulation, typology, and the historical-comparative method.

Mots-clés : linguistic morphology,inflection,phonology,nilo saharan languages,africa,language documentation,agent based modelling,artificial language experiments,linguistic reconstruction,digital humanities
Projet ERC : AI4AMR (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale — Pays : France — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Inserm
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2421120.0 €

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most pressing global health problems of our times. To counteract AMR, we urgently need new antibiotics, particularly with novel modes of action (MoA). However, while typical antibiotic screening pipelines can identify compounds that impair bacterial growth, they are unable to predict drug targets and MoA so must be followed up by time-consuming target identification steps. By synergizing our expertise in microbiology, genetics, advanced microscopy, metabolomics, medicinal chemistry, computational biology and artificial intelligence (AI), we propose to create a new pipeline at the forefront of the antibiotic discovery field that will be capable of informing simultaneously on the bioactivity and MoA of new antibiotic candidates. Working with seven pathogens, our improved acquisition strategies for both imaging-based high-content screening and metabolomics will generate a massive dataset of rich multidimensional phenotypes of libraries of genetic mutants and of bacteria exposed to a range of perturbants, at unprecedented scale. Deep learning analyses will then enable us to explore these massive datasets to correlate chemical-induced phenotypes to those from mutants, linking drugs to genes to elucidate the target/MoA of new drugs. This innovative pipeline will enable us to explore unique chemical spaces, including complex natural product extracts (without the need for isolation of individual components) and novel synthetic compounds. Promising candidates with novel MoA will be tested against drug-resistant clinical isolates and against a future pandemic 'pathogen X', demonstrating our pipeline as an AI-powered solution for achieving higher productivity in antibiotic discovery. AI4AMR will provide the community with a new pipeline to efficiently screen large compound libraries to identify novel antibiotics and define their MoA and target, helping directly to combat AMR.

Mots-clés : antibiotics,metabolomics,chemical libraries,natural products,mutant libraries,high content imaging,artificial intelligence,drug discovery
Projet ERC : TASTADE (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Lancaster — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : CO-PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2970152.56 €

Abstract  From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, slave traders of mostly European origin violently transported more than 12.5 million African men, women, and children to the Americas. This was the largest forced transoceanic migration in human history. Scholars have focussed on the effects of this migration on African and American history, while treating the slave trade’s effects on European societies as marginal. This supposition of marginality stems from two biases in existing research: a focus on the companies and individuals who directly outfitted slaving voyages instead of on the far larger group of people who invested in these voyages, and an over-emphasis on slave trade profits, leaving out many other relevant indicators of the economic, political, and cultural significance of slave traders. The trans-Atlantic slave trade and the development of Europe project (TASTADE) will correct this imbalance by identifying thousands of men and women who financed the slave trade and scrutinizing their embeddedness in their local, regional, national, and transnational contexts, to answer the following research question: How did the investors in the trans-Atlantic slave trade based inside and outside Europe shape the economies, politics, and cultures of Europe? TASTADE will transform existing scholarship by delivering a ground-breaking assessment of the national and trans-national networks that facilitated this trade and by linking these networks to key aspects of European development. In realising this overarching objective, TASTADE will reshape our understanding of the history of capitalism, colonial and commercial politics, and European culture. Our unique pan-European perspective relies on the distinctive synergy of approaches provided by the members of the core research team, who will inscribe the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade fully into the story of European development and help European society confront, disclose, and memorialise the sl

Mots-clés : slavery,slave trade,trading companies,prosopography,investment,transnational analysis,legacies of empire
Projet ERC : TRANSDIFFUSE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université polytechnique de Madrid — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : CO-PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3347250.0 €

The quest for carbon-neutral aviation propels us toward uncharted technological frontiers. In TRANSDIFFUSE, we present an ambitious program to develop an AI-driven model that may revolutionize propulsion technologies. As a synergistic consortium, we unite the numerical modelling prowess of Valero’s team, the high-fidelity computational capabilities of Lehmkuhl’s group, and Paniagua's experimental ingenuity. TRANSDIFFUSE aims to develop new tools related to clean propulsion, specifically an AI-driven model called FluidGPT. In doing so, we expect to enable major advancements to the aeronautical and power generation sectors, including, for example, hydrogen pressure gain combustion (PGC) engines, which are compact, lightweight, high-efficiency turbines. In initiating FluidGPT, we aim to overcome challenges like those facing PGC, by exploiting the thing that has made compact turbomachinery so difficult to design: the troublesome transonic flows propelled from the combustor. With our model we aim to control and manipulate those transonic flows. Our approach to FluidGPT is anchored in characterizing, predicting, and then manipulating the intricate, unsteady, inherently difficult transonic flows—thus unlocking the design and development of transonic diffusing passages, a notorious obstacle to designing turbomachinery passages in new, compact, efficient engines. FluidGPT will model the Navier-Stokes equations for such conditions, enabling the prediction and control of previously unmanageable flow behaviours. A complete model of the Navier-Stokes equations in transonic diffusing passages has never been achieved by the scientific community, and our model will be able to reproduce flow configurations never seen before. Embracing innovation and synergy, TRANSDIFFUSE will also unlock new design guidelines and flow control techniques to surmount limitations across the aeronautical and power generation sectors. This program may redefine fluid dynamics modelling and control.

Mots-clés : navier stokes modelling,sensitivity analysis,flow control,measurement techniques,transonic turbomachinery
Projet ERC : BATPROTECT (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Leibniz-Gemeinschaft — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WLG
Type d'entité : Autres
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3091572.5 €

The medical, financial, and emotional costs imposed by ageing and infectious diseases are major challenges for our societies. Strikingly, while past research has not provided solutions for extending human healthspan and preventing the harmful consequences of infections, nature has solved both problems in the only flying mammals – the bats. Among mammals, bats exhibit an exceptional longevity with little signs of age-related diseases. Despite being reservoirs for numerous deadly viruses, viral infections in bats are mostly asymptomatic due to unique immune system adaptations. The overarching goal of BATPROTECT is to achieve breakthroughs in our understanding of the molecular basis of bats’ extended healthspan and disease resistance to ultimately discover new directions to improve human healthspan and disease outcome. BATPROTECT integrates a team of world-leading experts in bat biology, genomics, immunology and gerontology to synergistically: (i) elucidate the molecular mechanisms that bats use to slow down expected ageing; (ii) identify the driving molecular mechanisms behind bats’ viral tolerance and limited age-related inflammation; (iii) uncover the genomic basis and evolution of extended healthspan and disease tolerance in bats; and, (iv) develop transgenic animal models to functionally validate the uncovered bat adaptations. We will generate 150 reference quality bat genomes, the novel immunological, bioinformatic, cellular and molecular tools required to take an integrative multi-omics approach and uncover the age and immune changes that occur in wild and captive bats across the ageing spectrum. We will identify the top regulators of longevity and immunity, using deep neural networks analyses, to functionally validate in our cellular systems and novel transgenic animal models- BatWorms and BatMice. Ultimately, we will provide a deeper understanding of extended healthspan and disease resistance and will pave the way for future therapeutics.

Mots-clés : bat biology,healthy ageing,antiviral responses,c elegans,genome sequencing,comparative gerontology,wildlife immunology,multi omics,ecology,evolution
Projet ERC : GravNet (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université Johannes-Gutenberg de Mayence — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : JGU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2081211.0 €

The overarching goal of the GravNet project is to develop, test and deploy a novel experimental platform that could enable the first detection of gravitational waves (GWs) in the frequency range of MHz to GHz, thereby providing a new and unique window into astrophysical processes that have so far eluded observation. The first detection of gravitational waves by LIGO in 2015 ushered in a new era of fundamental physics. Since then, a network of ground-based GW interferometers has probed the frequency range from 10 Hz to 10 kHz, detecting nearly a hundred mergers of black-hole and neutron-star binaries. In 2023, a signal at much lower frequency, in the nHz band, was detected by timing radio signals from pulsars. The race is now on to explore other bands. Of particular interest in this context is access to the MHz-GHz range, as in this range signals may be generated copiously by events such as primordial-black-hole-merger, by the dynamics of ultra-light dark matter overdensities or violent phenomena in primordial cosmological times - all processes related to some of the most pressing open questions about our Universe.  The use of cavities in strong magnetic fields has been identified as one of the most promising techniques to search for high-frequency gravitational waves. So far, efforts were focused on cavities with small volumes that are tuned to search for axion-like particles. By contrast, the GravNet scheme is based on combining different technologies and methodological approaches to measure synchronously cavity signals from multiple devices in magnetic fields operated as a network across Europe, increasing the sensitivity to high frequency GWs (HFGWs) by several orders of magnitude compared to current approaches. In this way, GravNet will open up a new, vast parameter space for gravitational-wave searches and might be the enabling step towards the first detection of HFGWs - with the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the Universe.

Mots-clés : high frequency gravitational waves,electromagnetic cavities,quantum sensors,sensor network,machine learning
Projet ERC : EUROpest (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Białystok — Pays : Pologne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 324775.0 €

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 : MEDGREENREV (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Reading — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2526323.54 €

As Mediterranean societies prepare for the impacts of climate change over the next few decades, a case study to inform their future resilience is associated with one of the defining events in world history: the emergence of Islam in the 7th century, the subsequent Arab (and later Berber) conquests of the southern and western Mediterranean, their associated population movements and the environmental adaptations that enabled these new societies to flourish. The introduction of new forms of agriculture that transformed the economies of the conquered regions has been previously framed as the “Green Revolution”. Moving beyond the limited focus of earlier research, with its restricted spatial and chronological scope, this project will adopt an integrated ecological approach, encompassing plants, animals and soils, from production through to consumption, and compare the impact and legacy of environmental transformations associated with long-term societal change in the western Mediterranean (Iberia and Morocco), beyond the initial Arab/Berber conquests. Adopting a broader chronological span, from the century before the conquests through to the century after the dissolution of the last Islamic polity in Iberia, the transition from Islamic to Christian regimes in Iberia will be compared, for the first time, with the persistence of Islamic polities in northwest Africa, against the backdrop of climatic fluctuations. This will enable relationships between environmental transformations and sequences of political and demographic change to be effectively contextualised. The synergy between our groups will combine regional specialisms with a wealth of scientific expertise, enabling us to conduct the first long-term and inter-regional study of how conquest, migration and encounters with resident populations and landscapes drove environmental transformation in the western Mediterranean during this formative period in world history.

Mots-clés : geoarchaeology,zooarchaeology,archaeobotany,palynology,gis,multiculturalism,state formation,mediterranean,iberia,north africa,longue dur e,arab conquest,medieval green revolution