Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : NOSHAKE (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Conseil supérieur de la recherche scientifique — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

NOSHAKE aims at proving the effectiveness of an innovative concept to forecast and manage induced seismicity in geo-energy projects. Humans need to take urgent action to achieve a climate-neutral society. Among the necessary actions, deployment of geothermal energy projects to produce renewable energy, geologic carbon storage to decarbonize the hard-to-abate industry, and subsurface energy storage, like hydrogen storage, are estimated to reduce 20% of the current CO2 emissions, i.e., 8 Gt/yr. This reduction implies scaling up the current capacity of geo-energies in two orders of magnitude by 2050. Yet, this massive deployment of geo-energies may be hindered by felt induced earthquakes. Current concepts to manage induced seismicity have failed in some occasions, leading to felt earthquakes that have ended up in project cancellation with millionaire loses. NOSHAKE proposes a change of paradigm in the way injection-induced seismicity is forecasted and managed by incorporating the physical processes that induce seismicity and basing the analysis on site characterization. The high gain of NOSHAKE is the safe deployment of geo-energies to mitigate the climate emergency. Nevertheless, forecasting induced seismicity is a grand challenge that contains high risks. In particular, the concept may not be effective for all geo-energy applications. To address this, developments will be made to the proposed concept to enhance its effectiveness, by adding thermal effects and/or fluid injection into a porous media instead of into a fault. We will disseminate and communicate the project outcomes to stakeholders and end users. We plan to (1) patent the NOSHAKE concept and establish consultancy agreements to assess energy companies in managing induced seismicity of geo-energy projects and (2) define a commercialization roadmap with the advice of industrial collaborators and experts in knowledge transfer that eventually may end up in the creation of a spin-off.
Projet ERC : BoldJet (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Twente — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Needle-based injections are very common in modern medicine, notably in ongoing vaccination efforts worldwide. However, needle phobia and infection risks affect patient compliance with medical treatments, while millions of used needles contaminate the environment. Lastly, the effectiveness of certain drugs increases when injected intradermally, but targeting the dermis is challenging. Thus, new minimal-invasive procedures are needed. Jet injectors are needle-free medical devices that pressurize thin liquid filaments to penetrate the skin. Jet injections have been effective in subcutaneous and intramuscular delivery, ex vivo, and in vivo. However, the expected needle-free revolution for medical treatments has neither been fulfilled, nor widely commercialized due to factors such as: a) Bruising, a painful consequence of delivering large volumes in a single location. b) When using wrong energy settings, or misalignment with respect to the skin, the injected liquid can perfuse other layers. c) The rejected liquid splashes back, leading to an incorrect dose delivery, risks of cross contamination of the injector parts, or splash-back on the care giver. d) Commercial jet injection methods, such as springs or compressed gas, are noisy which can distress the patient. Hence, there is a need to develop a new way to deliver smaller doses with maximum accuracy in targeting specific skin layers. Bold-Jet is aimed at revolutionizing the experience of people who receive or perform frequent injections by developing for the first time a needle-free device using microjets that is safer, minimally invasive, and eco-friendly. By avoiding the use of needles, we can increase adherence to treatments by patients with fear to sharps and expand clinical routes for existing drugs and treatment.
Projet ERC : RFmatCarac (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institut polytechnique de Grenoble — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Grenoble INP
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

RF characterisation of dielectric materials is increasingly an important scientific and commercial activity insofar as even if a very significant effort of the RF community has allowed the development of reliable characterisation solutions, it remains that these techniques rely on RF test fixtures that is heavy to implement, expensive, with a limited field of use (type of materials, frequencies, resolution…) and therefore not adapted to the ever-increasing needs of companies, most of which have neither advanced skills in the field nor the equipment to implement these characterisation methods. Indeed, the explosion of the IoT and thus of wireless communication solutions has given rise to the need for companies in a wide range of sectors (not only specialised in electronics and even less in RF) to have a better understanding of the RF performance of the materials they use or wish to use for the fabrication of their devices. For cost or supply reasons, these companies are forced to use materials that are not necessarily suitable for RF (or simply whose RF characteristics are not known), typically plastics that under the same name may in fact have very different dielectric characteristics, particularly in terms of losses, and therefore pose a problem. The idea of the project is to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of a new solution for RF characterisation of dielectrics. This approach breaks with the techniques currently used insofar as it will make it possible to be able to characterise a larger number of materials (plates, solids, liquids, powders, etc.) at a lower cost compared with current solutions. We hope that in a few years this solution will become the reference solution for a large number of companies that until now have not access to these test fixtures.
Projet ERC : METADRUG (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Laboratoire européen de biologie moléculaire — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : EMBL
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Despite the major efforts in the modern drug discovery and development, the field is still in its crisis with the productivity increasingly declining. A major source of drug development failure is the toxicity where the adverse drug reaction is often caused by off-target effects of drug candidates that can be revealed only late in the drug development process. Metabolomics was proposed as an emerging promising approach to monitor off-targets effects on metabolic enzymes or transporters thus providing mechanistic understanding of drug toxicity. However, there are multiple challenges in applying metabolomics in this context including the inability to resolve the drug metabolic response on the single-cell level. In this PoC project, we propose to commercialize the technology of single-cell metabolomics developed in the ERC CoG project METACELL. Specifically, we propose using our single-cell metabolomics technology in conjunction with the data-driven metabolic modulation approach for revealing single-cell metabolic response and metabolic mode of action of drugs and drug candidates.
Projet ERC : TARLIT (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Conseil supérieur de la recherche scientifique — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Cancer accounted for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020. Half of all cancer patients are treated with radiation therapy, either alone or combined with other therapeutic modalities (mainly surgery and chemotherapy). One of the first concerns related to radiotherapy is the toxicity of healthy organs and tissues close to the tumour. It is well-known that radiation therapy not only kills cancerous cells that divide, but also affects to the cells in division in healthy tissue. Neutron capture therapy (NCT) is a form of radiotherapy that exploits the potential of some specific isotopes for cancer treatment. The nuclear reaction that takes place when some isotopes are irradiated with neutrons, produces lethal particles with path lengths that can limit the destructive effects to a single cell, thus conferring high therapeutic precision to this form of radiotherapy. For this therapy to be successful, enough neutron active atoms must be delivered to the tumour site so a lethal capture reaction can take place. However, current benchmark pharmacologic agents are limited in their performance due to the low concentration of active species delivered in the tumour sites. TARLIT goes beyond the state-of-the-art and presents an innovative approach that consists on the design of nanoparticles as carriers of enriched lithium compounds. The possibility to deliver lithium nuclides into cancer cells, and the fact that nuclear reactions of lithium resultant from neutron irradiation produce higher energetic particles that the current state of the art, can significantly improve the efficiency of NCT in the eradication of cancer cells and tumours.
Projet ERC : SYNTROPIC (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institute of Science and Technology Austria — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ISTA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Mental health problems are a critical and ever-increasing burden to society. Psychiatric medications aim to adjust imbalances in synapse signaling, but often have only moderate-to-weak efficacy. Psychiatric medications aim to adjust imbalance in synapse signaling but often have only moderate-to-weak efficacy. The main challenge is that certain neuronal infrastructures for cognitive and emotional skills are secured with a rigid extracellular matrix known as the perineuronal net (PNN) that forms around neurons and locks the brain in a function state. Enzymatic interventions that can release the lock have been evaluated in mice, but they are not appropriate for translating into human therapeutics because they are invasive and prevent the reformation of PNN making the brain vulnerable. In the context of the ERC StG, we discovered that non-invasive external light entrainment at highly-selective 60-Hz enables microglia localized within the neuronal network to transiently remove PNN in a controlled and brain region-specific manner in both sexes with improved cognitive performances in mice. Thus, our discovery solves the urgent need for a targeted, non-invasive, non-pharmacological, therefore environmental-friendly therapeutic intervention. This ERC Proof-of-Concept will allow us to expand on our discovery and evaluate the therapeutic potential in a preclinical mouse model of anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our objectives are to identify at which stage of the fear memory formation 60-Hz entrainment shows the highest benefit, adjust treatment length and repetition frequency, and validate physiological parameters as a therapeutic success criterium. These insights will refine the first prototype development and set the therapeutic frame, which will both be critical to smoothen the transition into a clinical study post-ERC PoC, and will set the foundation for a spin-off company.
Projet ERC : MUTAPREDICT (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Princess Máxima Center — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Autres
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Assessing mutagenicity, the capacity of a substance to cause permanent and potentially harmful changes to an organism's DNA, is a pivotal concern in drug development. This assessment is crucial because it helps to predict the carcinogenic potential of new pharmaceuticals, ensuring that they are safe for human use. The importance of evaluating mutagenicity in drug development cannot be overstated. Drugs are designed to interact with biological systems to treat or prevent diseases, but they must do so without causing harmful genetic alterations. The process of developing a new drug involves a complex, time-consuming, and costly sequence of research and testing to ensure efficacy and safety. If mutagenicity is not accurately assessed, the consequences can be severe. Addressing the complexities and limitations associated with assessing mutagenicity in drug development, an innovative approach utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and whole genome sequencing (WGS) data presents a promising solution. MUTAPREDICT introduces an innovative AI-driven platform designed to revolutionize the field of drug development by accurately predicting the mutagenic potential of new chemical compounds. This platform is set to address the ethical, economic, and temporal challenges associated with conventional animal testing and in vitro analyses, promoting a more humane, cost-effective, and efficient approach to drug safety assessments. Leveraging advanced WGS data, our solution significantly accelerates the drug development process, ensuring both safety and efficacy. Our value proposition encompasses ethical and sustainable drug development by offering a viable alternative to animal testing, thus meeting the growing demands for ethical research practices.
Projet ERC : ExplainableAD (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : École polytechnique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : X
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

In the ExplainableAD project, we address the problem of eXplainable Anomaly Detection (XAD) on data streams with evolving, previously unknown, complex anomaly types. To bridge the gap between growing demands in the data industry and severely limited industry-grade solutions available today, we propose a breakthrough XAD system that offers unprecedented capabilities for safeguarding digital services. To this end, it seamlessly integrates deep learning-based anomaly detection (AD), which unlocks the power of detecting evolving, previously unknown, complex anomaly types, and explanation discovery (ED), which overcomes the non-interpretability of deep learning by returning human-readable, actionable insights. To establish a pathway from fundamental research to innovation, we will conduct 1) additional research activities on automated model selection, scalable execution, and data visualization; (2) prototyping, benchmarking analysis, and system demonstration; (3) large-scale use case studies with industry partners, leveraging ongoing collaborations and building new use cases across banking, finance, and healthcare domains; (4) market analysis and market entry strategy development to enable technology transfer. Our XAD system will have a direct impact on end users across a variety of sectors, including fraud analysts in banking and financial services to combat ever-growing, complex fraud types, IT departments and cloud services to manage malfunction and performance challenges proactively, and biomedical researchers and staff to benefit from enhanced diagnostic accuracy and improved confidence. The PI will bring extensive experience from the ERC CoG grant, including a large number of publications and a highly skilled team, to this project. With a proven track record of delivering cutting-edge solutions to critical challenges faced by enterprises and society, she will leverage her strong industry connections to facilitate the transition from research to innovation.
Projet ERC : CAR-T-uning (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Innsbruck Medical University — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MUI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

CAR-T(uning) will assess the technical and commercial feasibility of an improved and broadly applicable chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) approach based on a novel implemented mechanism of action. There is an urgent need for more effective treatment strategies against cancer, which remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Immuno-oncology regimens such as, immune checkpoint blockade therapy (ICT) and CAR-T therapy emerged as powerful tools in cancer treatment, however, in the majority of patients these fail to achieve long-lasting therapy response. Further, they remain costly and applicable to a limited range of cancer types. Specifically, CAR-T therapy faces two unresolved challenges: 1) limited therapy persistence; 2) tumor-induced immunosuppression. Consequently, no CAR-T therapy against solid tumor cancers has reached the market. Prof. Gottfried Baier has uncovered that inhibition of orphan nuclear receptor NR2F6, a downstream target of T cell antigen receptor signaling intermediate PKCθ, overcomes these shortcomings in a two-fold manner: 1) increased therapy persistence to improve its long-lasting effects; 2) reduced immunosuppression at the tumor site to improve immune response. Within this ERC PoC, first we will technically validate this approach using in vivo mouse and ex vivo patient-derived tumor models. We will focus on NSCLC as first indication, as it is one of the most-difficult to treat solid cancers with high mortality rate and disease burden. Subsequently, commercial feasibility will be determined by verifying IP position and strategy, performing in-depth market and competitor analyses, and finally consolidating these into a business plan to establish the best path to commercialization. Successful commercialization of CAR-T(uning) would reduce the socioeconomic burden of NSCLC, extending and improving patient lives, and enable the development of long-lasting, (cost-)effective CAR-T therapies applicable to a greater range of cancer types.
Projet ERC : BRAINmade (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Rome « La Sapienza » — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Up to 44% is the abandonment rate of upper-limb prostheses. The lack of training and rehabilitation is among the reasons underlying the high rejection rate. When available, traditional treatments lead to ineffective results because they are repetitive, tedious, and discouraging. When considering the EU investments in prosthetic development (173.5 million, period 2019-2022) and the costs granted by the national health system for assistance, this problem gets worse. BRAINmade proposes a paradigm shift to change the current situation. Within the ERC-funded HANDmade project, we exploit the idea that natural hand usage shapes behavior and brain activity. We reinforced the conviction that long-term, continuous, specialized training is prodromal for prosthesis acceptance. By integrating virtual reality (VR) scenarios controlled by electromyographic (EMG) activity in upper-limb amputees, our experimental data on a 4-week long motor training show high motor performance and embodiment even of non-anthropomorphic prosthesis (e.g., tweezers). Beyond being highly specialized as it contains the hand degrees of freedom, we realized that this virtual bionic tool simplifies action intention and execution by exploiting motor properties hardwired in the brain. Thus, the difficult transition toward prosthesis acceptance may imply a progressive acquisition of new motor skills and adopting BRAINmade prosthetic devices built on an individual's expertise (and neural resources). The proposed motor training protocol also integrates fully-customized inkjet-printed and low-cost EMG sensors - designed on the patient's stump and residual muscle activity - and daily monitoring of the motor performance. Those data will serve prosthesis fabrication and feed freely-available databases for developers in the R&D sectors of upper-limb prostheses. With the ultimate project goal of reducing prosthesis abandonment, our idea can significantly impact amputees' lives and transform rehabilitation practice.
Projet ERC : T-BAP (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IRCCS
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

BAP1-related mutations are common genetic lesions of several cancers and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). BAP1 is a deubiquitinase that removes the repressive mono-ubiquitination at histone H2AK119 (H2Aub1) deposited by the Polycomb Repressive Complex 1 (PRC1) by associating with several regulatory subunits to form the Polycomb Repressive Deubiquitinase (PR-DUB) complex.  BAP1 inactivating mutations represent a hallmark in Malignant Mesothelioma (MM) for which genetic models proved its oncogenic role. Mutations further extend to several other cancers, also involving other essential PR-DUB regulatory subunits. This makes PR-DUB inactivation a major oncogenic event with ~40k new diagnosis each year between EU and US for which no precision therapeutic approaches exist. The work of my Dissect-PcG ERC project found that the major role of BAP1 is to counteract H2Aub1 diffusion across the entire chromatin. This preserves chromatin plasticity enhancing Polycomb-mediated control of transcriptional identity, which is decommissioned when BAP1 is inactivated and oncogenic H2Aub1 accumulates. We also found that diffused H2Aub1 is controlled by a specific form of PRC1 - namely PRC1.3/5 - immediately suggesting a strategy to “correct” the effects of BAP1-related mutations. Indeed, we found that specific PRC1.3/5 loss restored normal H2Aub1 levels while compromising MM cells viability, demonstrating the therapeutic potential of targeting this non-essential arm of PRC1 repressive machinery.  By building a multidisciplinary team, the T-BAP project aims to develop compounds that can target PRC1.3/5 in living cells. We propose to use PRC1.3/5 structural data to identify specific binders that can function as warheads for the development of PROTAC degraders. This will generate a new class of molecules for the development of therapeutic strategies that can aid oncological patients with BAP1-related mutations, with a further potential application in specific NDD syndromes.