Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : HYADES (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
Entité participante : Université Jagellonne — Pays : Pologne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3000000.0 €

The advent of standardized small satellites called CubeSats has made astronomical research from space more accessible than ever before. The proposed ERC project directly derives from the vast research possibilities offered by this platform, and aims at the construction of a miniature UV space telescope designed specifically to detect hydrogen and deuterium around comets and asteroids through the ultra-luminous Lyman alpha transition. Thanks to the unparalleled sensitivity to these atoms, the envisioned satellite will provide definite answers to some of the most profound problems of the near Universe. First, it will enable ultra-sensitive investigation of future interstellar objects passing through the Solar System in search of their hydrogen clouds, with direct implications to our understanding of orbital anomalies in the absence of detectable dust, such as seen in ‘Oumuamua, as well as their physical nature in general. Second, the satellite will allow for deep investigation of hydrogen content around main-belt comets, probing water-ice outgassing from these bodies with a better sensitivity than the best present-day limits. The high level of sensitivity will be routinely achieved for all known objects of this class, including new main-belt comets discovered by LSST, transforming our knowledge of the ice reservoir in the outer Main Belt. Finally, the satellite will provide homogeneous, model-independent and self-consistent measurements of the D/H ratio for dozens of comets from different dynamical classes down to 12 mag of total brightness, which is a factor-of-hundred improvement in sensitivity over the state-of-the-art methods and a major leap in measurement reliability. The D/H measurements will ultimately resolve the puzzle of cometary origin of water on Earth, and unveil the link between present-day cometary reservoirs and their original place of formation in the solar nebula.

Mots-clés : comets asteroids interstellar minor objects
Projet ERC : HypFlow (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Entité participante : Lyon-I université — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Lyon I
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2965000.0 €

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has become a well-established and versatile tool in numerous fields of research and in industry, but features a relatively low sensitivity which prevents solving today’s most pressing challenges in modern science. Hyperpolarization by dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization (dDNP) provides a partial solution by enhancing sensitivity 10’000-fold. However, hyperpolarized solutions are available only once (single-shot), and are contaminated and diluted. This is incompatible with most NMR experiments, except for some niche applications. HypFlow will reach the ground-breaking overall aim of providing inexhaustible (multi-shot) and pure (unpolluted and undiluted) hyperpolarization, thus truly compatible with NMR by: 1) designing and building a pulsed-DNP freeze&flow polarizer, 2) integrating the use of hyperpolarizing matrices with polarized electrons, and 3) validating multi-scan applications in metabolomics, drug discovery, and chemistry. Liquid NMR samples will freeze in the HypFlow system where high levels of polarization will be generated, will then melt and flow toward the spectrometer, and will recirculate repeatedly. This will offer, for the first-time, inexhaustible and pure hyperpolarization with a 10’000-fold boost in sensitivity. The PI has a unique combined leading expertise in most recent instrumental, methodological and chemical developments in dDNP that will empower him to tackle the scientific challenges of HypFlow. HypFlow will deepen the fundamental scientific knowledge of nuclear and electron spin polarization generation, transfer, and relaxation phenomena. It will enable detection of hyperpolarized samples in a fully compatible way with a broad range of NMR applications, radically transforming and democratizing the practice of hyperpolarized NMR in research laboratories and industries.

Mots-clés : nuclear magnetic resonance,hyperpolarization,dynamic nuclear polarization
Projet ERC : SpicTrans (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: B iological  Mechanisms , Structures  and Functions
Entité participante : Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Inserm
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999539.0 €

mRNA translation is a universally conserved process consisting on translating the genetic code into proteins, the primary building blocks of all living organisms. Translation is mainly operated by the ribosome, a hybrid molecule made of RNAs and proteins. In most eukaryotes, at least two types of mRNA translation coexist in nearly all cells. Indeed, although the quasi totality of the proteins is translated in the cytosol by the cytosolic ribosome, a small yet essential fraction of mRNA translation can take place in the mitochondria, the cell’s power plant. While mitochondrial translation process has proven to be substantially species-specific, numerous species-specific structural and regulatory differences also exist in the cytosolic translation process in spite of their relative conservation among eukaryotic species and are yet to be elucidated. We will use various structural and molecular biology methods to investigate, from a disease-related perspective, several species-specific aspects of mRNA translation modulation in mammals and in pathogenic parasites from the family of kinetoplastids. Namely, 1- we will investigate the molecular roles of several kinetoplastid-specific proteins involved in translation and evaluate their validity as pharmacophores. 2- We will study mitochondrial translation in kinetoplastids and focus on its variable regulation in different forms of the parasites during their life-cycle (blood vs. insect stages). 3- We will study cytosolic mRNA scanning for the start-codon during translation initiation to i) understand its molecular basis in different types of mRNAs (native and modified mRNAs, natural or artificial), ii) and investigate its alteration in colorectal cancer caused by the absence of a ribosomal RNA modification. Results will advance our knowledge of species-specific mRNA translation and open new perspectives for developing treatments against various human diseases and infections (anti-parasites, cancer therapy, mRNA vaccines).

Mots-clés : kinetopladtides,species specific mrna translation modulation,cytosolic ribosome,mitoribosome,atp synthase,kozak sequence,translation initiation,cryo em,form differentiation in trypanosomes
Projet ERC : EcoViolence (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université d'Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

The ongoing destruction of the natural world raises critical questions about responsibility. How do we remember the victims, both human and non-human? And who is to blame? Contemporary culture plays a crucial role in addressing these questions. Large-scale processes like ecocide and extinction pose significant conceptual and representational challenges. This project posits that writers, artists and filmmakers are responding to these challenges by adapting existing repertoires, especially ones that emerged in response to the Holocaust, slavery, and other atrocities. In so doing they reveal the historical, structural and discursive links between crimes against humanity and crimes against nature. EcoViolence will be the first comprehensive, transnational, comparative study of the cultural imaginary of environmental violence. Bringing together recent work in cultural memory studies and ecocriticism, we will develop an innovative ecological model for the study of violence and its representation. We will document how texts, films, art works, plays and exhibitions represent ecoviolence; map how they link it to colonialism and genocide; and analyse how they reflect on questions of guilt and responsibility, as well as culture’s own implication in the violence it depicts. Furthermore, we will explore how these representations harness affect and emotion to help people relate to the environmental crisis and promote critical self-reflection.  EcoViolence will effect a major reorientation in cultural memory research and ecocriticism by providing a framework to think about violence and memory in more-than-human terms. The project will result in a “best practices” guide to engage cultural representations in pedagogy to enhance critical literacies about ecoviolence and move beyond simplistic stories where everyone is either a victim or a perpetrator that have stifled full responses to our collective ecocidal trajectories.

Mots-clés : cultural memory environmental humanities representation responsibility affect
Projet ERC : InVIRium (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and I mmunotherapy
Entité participante : Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Inserm
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2475808.0 €

Respiratory viruses can rapidly spread worldwide with a devastating impact, as dramatically highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the pandemic threat posed by influenza A viruses (IAV) or coronaviruses, respiratory viruses, including IAV, influenza B virus (IBV), seasonal coronaviruses and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), are the cause of yearly epidemics, with a huge impact on human health. The vast majority of in vitro studies has been performed with model cancer cell lines. However, they share limited features with the primary cells found within the human respiratory epithelium. Robust and relevant, ex vivo models of human primary airway epithelia, cultured at the air-liquid interface (ALI) have been developed over the years and nicely recapitulate the structure and composition of the in vivo respiratory epithelium. Nevertheless, in depth studies on the genes and the potent innate immune, interferon (IFN)-induced, defences regulating viral replication in such pertinent models are still lacking. The InVIRium project will address this knowledge gap by combining a newly acquired expertise in the generation and gene editing of human ALI airway epithelia, with a strong expertise in CRISPR screens and virology. The objectives of InVIRium will be to explore in depth the relationships between major human respiratory viruses, SARS-CoV-2, IAV, IBV and RSV, and their relevant, primary target cells. InVIRium will characterize the IFN-stimulated-genes responsible for the potent antiviral state, explore the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 escape from the IFN system and define the landscape of host genes regulating respiratory virus infection in this physiologically relevant ALI model. InVIRium will bring a change of paradigm in the way we study respiratory viruses, by implementing cutting-edge approaches in highly pertinent human models and will gather fundamental knowledge that is currently lacking on the interactions between viruses and their primary target cells.

Mots-clés : host cell respiratory virus interactions pertinent ex vivo human models,primary airway epithelia sars cov 2 coronavirus,influenza viruses,iav,ibv,rsv pneumovirus gene editing,crispr screen innate immunity interferon,interferon stimulated genes,interferon antagonism
Projet ERC : ADAMI (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Université d'Anvers — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999706.0 €

The ability to study tissue microstructure in vivo and completely noninvasively using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the potential to radically change how we detect, monitor, and treat diseases, in particular the many neurodegenerative diseases that affect our world’s aging population. Unfortunately, the MRI signal is a very indirect measure of microstructure, and the variety of contributing factors complicates a one-to-one association between the MRI measurements and the biological substrate. As a result, microstructural mapping is still a poorly understood and challenging inverse problem that often yields inconsistent and contradictory outcomes. In ADAMI, I will take the next leap in microstructure imaging by approaching the problem in a completely data-driven fashion as opposed to the state-of-the-art that is model-driven. This paradigm shift will enable me to turn the MRI scanner into a powerful in vivo microscope that can provide reliable information about tissue microstructure that closely matches the underlying cellular composition. Rather than relying only on a single source of contrast, I will exploit the versatility of MRI and use multiple, independent contrast mechanisms that will provide the necessary information to distinguish reliably between microscopic substrates. Rather than relying on preconceived models, I will use machine learning to learn the appropriate models directly from the data. Rather than performing a posteriori histological validation of these new microstructural models, I will acquire a priori histological data to directly inform this learning process, guaranteeing, for the first time, a close match between microstructural readouts obtained from MRI and invasive histology. Through these innovations, ADAMI will advance the field of medical imaging by introducing a groundbreaking data-driven approach to microstructure imaging which will significantly impact the understanding, diagnosis, and monitoring of brain diseases and beyond.

Mots-clés : magnetic resonance imaging,multimodal,diffusion magnetic resonance imaging,tissue microstructure,data driven analysis,machine learning,deep learning,artificial intelligence,optimal experimental design,neurodegeneration,non invasive
Projet ERC : RADIUNCE (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université d'Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1995424.0 €

Political elites-political representatives who can take binding decisions, e.g. ministers, parliamentarians, local politicians-face numerous radically uncertain phenomena, from Covid-19 to the long-term effects of Brexit. Radical uncertainty is characterized by manifold unknowns, ambiguity and vagueness, and it differs fundamentally from resolvable uncertainty, those situations in which it is possible to assign probabilities to outcomes, like the electoral consequences of welfare retrenchment. RADIUNCE will explore how these phenomena influence political elites' behavior. Do they "avoid" uncertainty, as some did with the coronavirus; use rules of thumb, "heuristics", e.g. comparing Covid-19 to the flu; or display other behavioral responses? Answering this is urgent: different responses have different outcomes that may impact how representative democracies function and how effective they are at solving problems. For example, avoiding a virus may cost lives, while using heuristics may result in faulty courses of action.  RADIUNCE's aim is to develop a theoretical model of how political elites respond to both radically and resolvably uncertain phenomena. We will focus on four countries with different institutional opportunities and constraints for responding to uncertainty: Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, 1996-2021. The model will be multidisciplinary, integrating insights from political science, behavioral economics, decision theory, psychology and public administration. We will collect new, unique comparative data from politicians through an innovative combination of automated text analysis and survey experiments. Taking a multimethods approach, we will integrate quantitative data with qualitative methods (process tracing, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, interviews). The new model will explain how political elites respond to the challenges and opportunities in our face-pace world from digitalization to Covid-19 to migration.

Mots-clés : political elites behavioral responses radical uncertainty resolvable uncertainty decision making qca
Projet ERC : HeaLS (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université d'Oslo — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UiO
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1584405.0 €

Mental illness is a major health burden worldwide and the health problems with the heaviest financial burden in Norway. Half of chronic mental disorders emerge before the age of 14, and mental health problems in youth are increasing. The Norwegian government has implemented the interdisciplinary topic "Health and life skills" (HLS) in primary and secondary education to provide pupils with competences to promote health and self-efficacy. School-based interventions may improve mental health and academic performance, but their effects depend on the quality of implementation. There are large variations in how HLS is implemented within and across schools due to lack of national guidelines and a reliance on teachers’ professional judgement. Delayed implementation for some grades and longitudinal nationwide registry linkages forms a natural experiment and rare opportunity to investigate the impact of diverse implementation methods of a politically determined, long-term and population-wide measure. The aim of this interdisciplinary study is to evaluate how variations in the implementation of HLS relate to the intervention’s effect on pupils' mental health, quality of life, school environment, academic performance and dropout. We will collect new HLS implementation data from 5,000 teachers/employees, 1,000 school principals and 180 school owners. Information from these key samples will be combined with prior linked data for 750 000 pupils from existing national registries and large surveys, including educational, health and background information.  The research group includes researchers specialized in education, mental and public health, health promotion, classroom research, school surveys, register-based studies and advanced multi-level methods. The evaluation may affect further implementation and practice of HLS nationally and globally, and thereby promote pupils’ mental health and academic performance and thus also their future.

Mots-clés : curricular changes implementation mental health socio emotional school environment
Projet ERC : DIPP-IMMUNE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and I mmunotherapy
Entité participante : Université Paris-Est Créteil — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UPEC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1995918.0 €

Long term humoral immunity essentially relies on two types of cells exported from germinal centers (GC): plasma cells (PCs), which secrete antibodies, and memory B cells (MBCs). Both subsets of cells can survive for decades in humans, being responsible for the extended protection afforded by the most successful vaccines but also therapeutic failures in the context of B-cell mediated autoimmune diseases. Which cells are selected and what drives them to become long-lived, in normal or pathological conditions, remains a central question in immunology. Studies in humans have so far been curtailed by the limited amount of material available and the lack of longitudinal access to lymphoid organs. This proposal aims to address three intertwined questions for understanding the selection mechanisms underlying protective and pathogenic long-lived humoral immunity: 1. What are the cellular and molecular mechanisms driving the contraction of the MBC response in a vaccine/infectious setting? 2. Do PCs targeting a self-antigen or a vaccine/viral antigen differ in their selection, transcriptomic profile and maintenance? 3. What drives effective/defective self-reactivity purging in vaccine and pathogenic GC-dependent antibody repertoire? To tackle these questions, we have garnered unique access to key lymphoid tissues (spleen and bone marrow) involved in the initiation and long-term maintenance of the immune response from vaccinated donors and patients with a prototypic B cell-mediated autoimmune disease (immune thrombocytopenia, ITP). We believe this set of samples puts us in an ideal position, combining innovative and integrated single cell experimental approaches, to perform an in depth functional analysis of viral- and self-antigen-specific GC, MBCs and PCs and further advance our understanding of long-lived humoral immunity.

Mots-clés : memory b cell plasma cell germinal center vaccination autoimmunity
Projet ERC : UNI PROB (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : VUW
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 100803.23 €

Is the human mind an evolutionary one-off? Or does it reflect a ‘universal mind’ in which similar cognitive mechanisms repeatedly evolve via convergent evolution? Avian cognition offers a powerful model system for answering this fundamental question about the nature of our mind, because birds last shared a common ancestor with humans 312 million years ago and have evolved brains with a very different structure. However, to unlock the potential of this model system we need to robustly test whether mechanistic convergence has occurred between the minds of birds and humans (the convergent mind hypothesis) and rule out cognitive similarities between birds and humans due to shared ancestry (the ancestral mind hypothesis). UNI PROB takes advantage of decades of research on probabilistic inference, a central, but imperfect aspect of human cognition, to overcome these challenges. To test for mechanistic convergence, UNI PROB will use the cognitive biases and errors humans show in their probabilistic inferences (e.g. the conjunction fallacy, base rate neglect and the hot hand fallacy) as diagnostic signatures for the presence of a similar cognitive system in a species demonstrating the best performances on probabilistic inference tasks of any animal tested to date: the kea parrot. To test for shared ancestry, UNI PROB will present novel, non-verbal probabilistic inference problems not only to humans and kea, but also to a phylogenetic control for shared ancestry: rats. If convergent evolution has occurred, then only humans and kea will solve these problems while showing the same cognitive biases and errors. By testing for the convergent evolution of this cognitive system, UNI PROB can generate conclusive evidence that probabilistic biases are adaptive features of the human mind and discover if there is a new frontier in cognitive science, namely a universal mind that evolves repeatedly via convergent evolution.

Mots-clés : comparative cognition,intelligence,probabilistic inference,evolution