Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ActiveBioFluids (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Delft University of Technology — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Delft
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

The emergence of coherent behaviour is ubiquitous in the natural world and has long captivated biologists and physicists alike. One area of growing interest is the collective motion and synchronization arising within and between simple motile organisms. My goal is to develop and use a novel experimental approach to unravel the origins of spontaneous coherent motion in three model systems of biofluids: (1) the synchronization of the two flagella of green algae Chlamydomonas Rheinhardtii, (2) the metachronal wave in the cilia of protist Paramecium and (3) the collective motion of swimming microorganisms in active suspensions. Understanding the mechanisms leading to collective motion is of tremendous importance because it is crucial to many biological processes such as mechanical signal transduction, embryonic development and biofilm formation. Up till now, most of the work has been theoretical and has led to the dominant view that hydrodynamic interactions are the main driving force for synchronization and collective motion. Recent experiments have challenged this view and highlighted the importance of direct mechanical contact. New experimental studies are now crucially needed. The state-of-the-art of experimental approaches consists of observations of unperturbed cells. The key innovation in our approach is to dynamically interact with microorganisms in real-time, at the relevant time and length scales. I will investigate the origins of coherent motion by reproducing synthetically the mechanical signatures of physiological flows and direct mechanical interactions and track precisely the response of the organism to the perturbations. Our new approach will incorporate optical tweezers to interact with motile cells, and a unique μ-Tomographic PIV setup to track their 3D micron-scale motion. This proposal tackles a timely question in biophysics and will yield new insight into the fundamental principles underlying collective motion in active biological matter.

Mots-clés : active fluids,synchronization,biological locomotion
Projet ERC : ASIAPAST (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : University of Bristol — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 666885.0 €

The emergence of mobile pastoralism in the Eurasian steppe five thousand years ago marked a unique transformation in human lifeways where, for the first time, people relied almost exclusively on herd animals of sheep, goat, cattle, and horses for sustenance and as symbols. Mobile pastoralism also generated altogether new forms of socio-political organization exceptional to the steppe that ultimately laid the foundation for nomadic states and empires. However, there remain striking gaps in our knowledge of how the pastoralist niche spread and evolved across Eurasia in the past and influenced cultural trajectories that frame the human-herd systems of today. Little is known about the scale of pastoralist movements connected with the initial translocation of domesticated animals, how mobility became embedded in pastoralist life, or how movement contributed to the formation of sophisticated political networks. There is a poor understanding of the character of herd animal husbandry strategies that were central to pastoralist subsistence and how these co-evolved alongside pastoralist dietary intake and ritual use of herd animals. We have a remarkably poor understanding of what pastoralists ate, especially the dietary contribution of dairy products - the quintessential dietary cornerstone food of pastoralist societies. ASIAPAST addresses these gaps through a biomolecular approach that recovers the dietary and mobility histories of pastoralists and their animals recorded in bones, teeth, and pottery. This project pairs these methods to detailed analyses of the economic and symbolic use of herd animals preserved in zooarchaeological archives. These investigations draw from materials obtained from key sites that capture the transition to mobile pastoralism, its intensification, and emergence of trans-regional political structures located across the culturally connected regions of Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

Mots-clés : stable isotopes,organic residue analysis,zooarchaeology,zooms proteomics
Projet ERC : EVADER (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : University of Valencia — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UV
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2436500.0 €

The emergence of new human pathogenic viruses from animal reservoirs is an increasing concern, but also a poorly understood process. Massive sequencing programs have been recently launched to characterize wildlife viruses, but empirical information on how these viruses function and whether they can potentially infect humans is needed. However, the isolation and culturing of wildlife viruses is too often unfeasible due to technical issues, biosafety concerns, or lack of full-length sequence information. Furthermore, we need to investigate viral emergence from an evolutionary standpoint to better understand how host-range mutants appear and adapt to human cells. To achieve these goals, we will focus on the receptor-dependent cell tropism of enveloped RNA viruses, a central and experimentally tractable process involved in viral emergence. First, we will use high-throughput gene synthesis to create hundreds of pseudoviruses coated with the envelopes of previously uncharacterized wildlife viruses belonging to different families, and we will examine their ability to infect a panel of humans cells from various tissues. This will deliver the most comprehensive landscape of viral human cell infectivity to date. Second, we will use experimental evolution, massive parallel sequencing, and site-directed mutagenesis to explore how viral envelopes diversify, undergo cell tropism shifts, and adapt to human cells. This will provide important clues about the role of spontaneous mutation in viral emergence, and may reveal repeatable evolutionary pathways that could help us improve outbreak predictability. Finally, we will use our experimental results to infer candidate cell receptors for wildlife viruses using machine learning, and to explore the feasibility of broad-range, clade-level antiviral therapies that could be used for combating emerging viruses in the future.

Mots-clés : experimental evolution,virology,zoonosis,emergent diseases,synthetic biology,viral pseudotyping,comparative biology
Projet ERC : SENSQUID (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Bar-Ilan University — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : BIU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499778.0 €

The emergence of novel states of matter in low-dimensional systems is one of the most intriguing current topics in condensed matter physics. For instance, interfaces between certain non-magnetic insulating oxides were shown to give rise to surprising metallic, superconducting, and magnetic states, which are still far from being understood. I have recently demonstrated in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 that there is a strong influence of the constituent’s structure on the interface conductivity (quasi-1D rather than 2D) and sub-micron ferromagnetic patches that coexist with inhomogeneous superconductivity. However, the origin of the interface magnetism, its relation to transport properties, and the mechanisms that control the different interface states are yet to be understood. I believe that the only way to fully understand the electronic and magnetic behavior in reduced dimensions is by combining extremely sensitive, non-invasive, local techniques, but such characterization tools are lacking. The aim of this project is to investigate the rich phenomena that appear at transition metal oxides interfaces, starting with LaAlO3/SrTiO3 as a model system, and expanding to other ground states (e.g. multiferroics, quantum materials, metal-insulator), as well as to other low-dimensional systems, including 2D-superconductors, topological insulators and carbon nanotube coils. To this end, I will develop an advanced scanning SQUID technology for higher temperatures, improved resolution, simultaneous mapping of orthogonal properties, and high throughput. By detecting nano-magnetism, traces of superconductivity, and non-invasively mapping the path of current flow, our tool will detect new states of matter, follow their interactions, correlations, and response to modulation in the local potential with extreme sensitivity. Our results will open up access to fundamental physics in atomically engineered materials, and to the control of their properties for use in next generation nanoelectronics.

Mots-clés : complex oxide interfaces
Projet ERC : BROKERS (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Radboud University Nijmegen — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1497570.0 €

The emergence of participatory governance has resulted in the delegation of governmental responsibilities to citizens. Individuals position themselves as voluntary mediators, or brokers, between the government and their fellow citizens. This research asks: what are the roles of such brokers in participatory urban governance, and how do they influence democratic governance? This study will investigate ethnographically how brokers position themselves in administrative schemes, and examine the formal and informal dimensions of their performance. It will analyse the practices, discourses and networks, both in and out of officially sanctioned channels and government institutions. The research approaches brokers as ‘assemblers’, connective agents who actively bring together different governmental and citizen actors, institutions and resources. The scholarly debate on brokerage within participatory governance is divided into two different arguments: first, an argument about neoliberal deregulation located in the Global North, which encourages the practices of active citizen-mediators, and second, a modernization argument in the Global South, which sees brokers as remnants of a clientelist political system. This research will combine these arguments to study settings in both the North and the South. It employs a comparative urbanism design to study four cities that are recognized as pioneers in democratic participatory governance, two in the North and two in the South: Rotterdam (NL), Manchester (UK), Cochabamba (Bolivia) and Recife (Brazil). This research builds upon theories from political anthropology, urban studies, citizenship studies and public administration to develop a new framework for analysing brokerage in participatory urban governance. Understanding how the formal and informal dimensions of participatory governance are entwined will contribute to our ability to theorize the conditions under which this type of governance can give rise to more democratic cities.

Mots-clés : anthropology of the state,brokerage,brazil,informal politics,informality
Projet ERC : Moving Stories (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999482.0 €

The emergence of sectarianism forms a key element of the impact of modernization and globalization on Middle Eastern history. Yet we still lack a full picture of how new forms of sectarianism developed within the region, and in exile, and how these sectarianisms became such a powerful force in the volatile history of a decolonizing Middle East. The Moving Stories project concentrates on two areas of research. First, the project will explore the global circulation of Middle Eastern sectarianism and the variety of sectarianisms that developed in specific localities across the Middle East, the Americas, and Europe. Second, the project will focus on what it calls the ‘moving stories’, or emotive forms of storytelling, used by individuals to describe, explain, and represent sectarianism as much to themselves as to multiple publics in local, national, and international contexts. At the heart of the project lies an activist strategy of outreach aimed at identifying sources that remain even now hidden away in private, family, and communal archives. Using these sources, the project will reconstitute an ‘Archive of Sectarianism’ spanning four continents, more than half a dozen Middle Eastern and Western languages, and a wide variety of records, documents, and literary sources from the 18th to the 20th twentieth century. The project’s main objective is to write a global history of sectarianism that pays as much attention to the microhistories of individuals and communities as it does to macro narratives of political, social, and religious change. Looking beyond the Middle East, however, the project will also provide a model for understanding how other modern forms of sectarianism have developed through complex shifts in identity in which émigré and diaspora communities have often played a formative role. In this way, the project will open avenues for future research into the comparative study of sectarianism among historians, social scientists, and literary scholars.

Mots-clés : sectarianism,christianity,islam,middle east,diaspora
Projet ERC : GridRepresentations (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Ruhr University Bochum — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : RUB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999243.0 €

The entorhinal cortex contains grid cells, a major cell type underlying spatial navigation. At the same time, it is amongst the first areas of the brain to be affected by Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In humans, grid cell-like representations (GCLRs) have been proposed as a network-level signature of grid cells that can be recorded non-invasively via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). I have recently demonstrated that there is a disruption of GCLRs in genetic AD risk carriers at young age, and suggested GCLRs as a novel biomarker for early disease processes in AD. However, the relationship between GCLRs at a network level and grid cells measured at the single-neuron level is still unknown, as is the pathophysiological relevance of the impaired GCLRs and of compensatory hyperactivity in other navigational systems. In the translational research program proposed here, I aim to unravel the cellular mechanisms, functional relevance, and pathological impact of grid cell-like representations in humans. My specific objectives are to (1) provide the first validation of GCLRs, by directly relating GCLRs at the network level to single unit activity of individual neurons recorded via microelectrodes in epilepsy patients; (2) clarify the functional relevance of GCLRs and complementary navigational systems for spatial behavior via layer-resolved ultrahigh field (7T) fMRI; (3) determine whether impairments of GCLRs and compensatory recruitment of other navigational strategies are related to AD pathology, using tau- and amyloid-PET imaging in AD risk carriers; and (4) restore impaired GCLRs via a pharmacological intervention, which may constitute a novel therapeutic option for modifying early AD. These studies will provide the first detailed understanding of the neural mechanisms and functional role of grid cells in humans across several levels of brain organization and pave the way for novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to AD.

Mots-clés : grid cells,oscillations,intracranial eeg,functional mri,spatial navigation,alzheimer s disease
Projet ERC : TANGO (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : University of Lausanne — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNIL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

The escalating pandemic of obesity and type-2 diabetes represents one of the most pressing and costly biomedical challenges confronting modern society. The brain's impaired ability to sense and respond to variations in energy homeostasis is increasingly recognized as playing a role in the pathophysiology of these disorders. By sensing the nutritional status of the organism, distinct neural cell populations –including neurons and glia present in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (ARH)– tightly regulate energy balance. In the last decade, it has become clear that tanycytes –hypothalamic glial cells lining the bottom of the third ventricle and sending a single basal process into the ARH– are also able to detect variations of nutrient and hormone levels. Henceforth described as “sensors” of the metabolic state, tanycytes would then modulate neuronal function in order to regulate energy balance. However, the mechanisms underlying the communication between tanycytes and ARH neurons in the context of metabolism remain largely unexamined. The overall objective of this project is to elucidate the molecular, structural and functional organization of tanycyte/ARH neuron communications, and their involvement in the regulation of energy balance. A multidisciplinary approach including neuroanatomy, molecular biology, and physiology will be implemented to achieve four specific aims: 1) To decipher the genetic and neuroanatomical features of tanycyte/ARH neuron metabolic units 2) To ascertain the impact of tanycyte Annexin A1 on ARH neuronal function 3) To uncover the role of tanycyte local translation in specific tanycyte/neuron communications 4) To reveal the impact of tanycyte glucose-sensing on ARH neuronal gene expression The elucidation of tanycyte/neuron communications will be essential to explain the regulation of food intake and to allow the development of new therapeutic strategies for obesity and associated metabolic syndromes.

Mots-clés : energy balance,hypothalamus,tanycytes,cel to cell communication,annexin a1,local translation,transcriptomics
Projet ERC : EVOSOM (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : University of Dundee — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2128602.0 €

The evolution of multicellularity allowed specialization of cells into functions that support rather than cause propagation. While yielding immense gain of function, the organisation of these somatic cells into tissues and organs required novel cell-cell signalling systems. We seek to identify the genetic changes that caused transitions to multicellularity and enabled cell specialization. We use genetically tractable Dictyostelia with multicellular structures that contain from 1 to 5 cell-types to address these fundamental questions. Dictyostelia evolved from unicellular Amoebozoa and are subdivided into 4 major groups, with most novel cell-types appearing in group 4. We found that gene expression patterns changed most frequently at the transition between groups 3 and 4, and that across groups ~10% of genes were alternatively spliced in the 5’UTR, indicative of promoter elaboration. Among known genes essential for multicellular development, those involved in intracellular signal processing were mostly conserved between Dictyostelia and unicellular Amoebozoa, while those encoding exposed and secreted proteins (ESPs) were unique to Dictyostelia or groups within Dictyostelia. Starting from a hypothesis that diversification of ESPs and gene regulatory mechanisms are major drivers of multicellular evolution, we will place unicellular relatives of Dictyostelia under selection to induce multicellularity, establish which genes are most changed in evolved populations and whether this involves ESP families that are also most changed in Dictyostelia. We will overexpress altered genes in unicellular forms to assess whether this induces multicellularity. We will retrace evolution of cell specialization by lineage analysis and phenotyping and seek correlations between cell-type innovation and alternative splice events and with emergence of novel signalling genes. Causality will be assessed by replacement of genes or promoters with ancestral forms in evolved species and vice versa

Mots-clés : evolution of multicellularity,evolution of development,dictyostelium,social amoeba,evolution of sociality
Projet ERC : GAIA (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

The exuberant proliferation of herbivorous insects is often attributed to their association with plants, making their interactions of particular importance to understanding what is driving their vast diversity. Early biologists exploring the underlying factors proposed the hypothesis of coevolution (and the escape and radiate model). Despite general support for this hypothesis, the macroevolutionary and genomic consequences of the origins and evolutionary dynamics of host-plant shifts remain elusive. Recent results illustrate the need for a multidisciplinary approach to assessing the role of host plants in shaping insect diversity at macroevolutionary scales. Using the swallowtail butterflies (Papilionidae) and their host plants, this project will develop a macroevolutionary and genomic framework to studying the origin and evolution of an arms race through time and space. We will build a complete species-level phylogeny for Papilionidae relying on whole-genome sequencing for all species. This time-calibrated phylogeny will be combined with species traits to estimate ancestral host-plant preferences and subsequent host-plant shifts. We will reconstruct dated phylogenies of the main host-plant families to estimate whether the butterflies and their host plants diversified concurrently through time and space. Diversification rates will be estimated for shifting/non-shifting and prey/non-prey clades. A matching genomic survey will to look for genes under positive selection by comparing sets of phylogenetic branches that experienced a host-plant shift versus branches without such a shift. Transcriptomes will be characterized for caterpillars and their plants to identify and pinpoint the genes involved in the arms race, as well as to compare them across the swallowtail tree of life. With this ambitious research proposal, we aim to provide answers to longstanding and fundamental evolutionary questions on the mechanisms behind ecological interactions over long timescales.

Mots-clés : biodiversity patterns,phylogenomics,coevolutionary diversication,insect counter defences,plant defences,sequential evolution,host plant shifts,co biogeography,species interactions,phylogenetic tracking