Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ODYSSEUS (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ESPCI PARIS-PSL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Non-contact cell-resolution imaging of the whole eye is the Holy Grail of ophthalmic diagnosis. If achieved and wide-spread, it can allow detection of diseases at the very earliest stages, resulting in a prominent positive effect both on society through improving the ocular health in the population, and on economy through reducing the number of costly surgical interventions at the late disease stages and through keeping the population economically active. Several highresolution eye imaging instruments reached the market, however they failed to become wide-spread due to their great complexity, high price (Adaptive optics systems) and not patient-friendly imaging procedure, for example, requiring contact with the eye during examination (Confocal microscopy systems). In a course of ERC HELMHOLTZ project, we for the first time we applied Full-field Optical Coherence Tomography (FFOCT) technology to ophthalmology and built two instruments for corneal and retinal imaging. We demonstrated the unique abilities of FFOCT technology to visualize live retina and cornea of the eye with cell-resolution, in a non-contact way, using a simple optical design without complex adaptive optics. In ODYSSEUS we propose to develop a single combined FFOCT instrument for both corneal and retinal examination. The instrument will be compact, cost-effective, adapted for use in clinical environment and will demonstrate the improved imaging performance, meeting the desires of our partners in the hospital. The developed technology will be transferred to our partners in Vision Institute and the Hospital for clinical studies in patients. In addition, we have filled the first patent on ophthalmic FFOCT and, once the prototype is validated, we plan to create a start-up, specializing in manufacturing and sales of FFOCT-based diagnostic devices for ophthalmology.

Mots-clés : imaging,optical coherence tomography,ophthalmology,ophthalmic instruments,retina,cornea,eye diagnostics,full field oct
Projet ERC : Corr-NEQM (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1495478.0 €

Non-equilibrium states of matter occur in a wide range of systems. From microscopic scales of atoms and electrons to stars and galaxies in the universe. These phenomena have observable effects measurable by humans. In many of these systems the laws of thermodynamics do not apply. In spite of the ubiquity of non-equilibrium states, their universal understanding is still rudimentary. A general description of out of equilibrium states is of fundamental importance and can potentially spur technological innovation. Therefore, non-equilibrium systems host a family of questions which can be a source of knowledge and benefit to humankind. In this proposal I will tackle several open problems on correlated non-equilibrium quantum states in condensed matter physics. The remarkable twin discoveries of many-body localization (MBL) and time crystals have opened a new paradigm for non-equilibrium matter where an interacting quantum system violates the laws of equilibrium thermodynamics. By amalgamating tools and ideas from quantum information science, I will theoretically investigate these phenomena in regimes which are thus far unexplored. It will shed new light on MBL in higher dimensions and effect of long range interactions, a common feature in many physical systems. I will explicate the formation of discrete time crystals, a new phase of matter with broken time-translational symmetry, in dissipative systems. Until recently, MBL was considered to be an essential ingredient for time-crystallinity. The project will unravel the underlying principles of dissipative time crystals and the crossover from their semi-classical realization to the purely quantum effect protected by MBL. I will also predict smoking-gun signatures of these phenomena which are testable in semiconductor nanostructures. An answer to these vital questions will provide a deeper understanding of fundamental physics and may open new avenues for spatio-temporal control of entanglement in many-body quantum states.

Mots-clés : many body localization,discrete time crystals,semiconductor nanostructures
Projet ERC : ETI (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : University of Jyväskylä — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1526429.0 €

Not very long ago, it was still common to hold that little of interest took place in Islamic philosophy, theology and science after the death of the Peripatetic commentator Averroes in 1198. Recent research has produced increasing evidence against this view, and experts now commonly agree that texts from the so-called post-classical period merit serious analysis. That evidence, however, is still fragmentary, and we lack a clear understanding of the large scale and long run development in the various fields of Islamic intellectual culture after the twelfth century. This project will investigate debates concerning the nature and methods of knowledge in four of the most ambitious strands of Islamic theoretical thought, that is, philosophy, theology, natural science, and philosophically inclined Sufism. Its temporal scope extends from the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the colonial era, and it focuses on foundational epistemological questions (how knowledge is defined, what criteria are used to distinguish it from less secure epistemic attitudes, what methods are identified as valid in the acquisition of knowledge) as well as questions concerning knowledge as the goal of our existence (in particular, whether perceptual experience is inherently valuable). Our study of the four strands is based on the hypothesis that the post-classical period is witness to a sophisticated discussion of knowledge, in which epistemic realism, intuitionism, phenomenalism, and subjectivism are pitted against each other in a nuanced manner. Hence, the project will result in a well-founded reassessment of the common view according to which post-classical Islamic intellectual culture is authoritarian and stuck to an epistemic paradigm that stifles insight and creativity. Thereby it will provide new ingredients for projects of endogenous reform and reorientation in Islam, and corroborate the view that our future histories of philosophy should incorporate the Islamic tradition.

Mots-clés : epistemology,theory of knowledge,theory of science,islamic philosophy,islamic theology,sufism,history of astronomy,history of medicine
Projet ERC : NOTA (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Babeș-Bolyai University — Pays : Roumanie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UBB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1175100.0 €

Note-taking is a common intellectual practice. In academia, it is a universal endeavor that we share with students since the origin of the universities. Yet no one has focused on this practice as an original and independent object of research that, once investigated, will bring innovation and expand our knowledge of European intellectual history. Project NOTA is an ambitious enterprise, rooted in the discovery that decoding medieval notebooks produced in the context of late medieval universities will reveal invisible aspects of the process of producing scientific knowledge, of the European networking of scholars, and of the dynamic circulation of texts. Stemming from the Faculty of Theology during the 14th and 15th centuries, when paper invaded the university as an accessible material support, the student’s notebooks constitute the ideal laboratory in which we can investigate how knowledge was formed and disseminated by means of note-taking. It was one of the superior faculties, meaning that the note-takers had reached intellectual maturity, offering notes of better quality than those of students in the liberal arts. Proposing a unique corpus of Latin manuscripts, project NOTA will launch creative reflections on the motivation and the technical aspects involved in producing notebooks. The project will combine interdisciplinary approaches (doctrinal, codicological and paleographical) and will impact the present state of the art by showing the potential of data that can be obtained by deciphering the practice of note-taking. New concepts will be launched (classification of notebooks, technical practices), traces of unknown authors and texts will be identified, and connections between scholars, institutions and texts will be established, fully justifying the recognition of notebooks as a new subject in the field of intellectual history and as an element of cultural identity shared by universities all around Europe.

Mots-clés : note taking,latin,critical editions,codicology,intellectual tools,theories of memory,notebooks,commentaries on the sentences,principia,medieval academic exercises
Projet ERC : nbPTMs (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Nucleotide-based post-translational modifications (nbPTMs) play key roles in health and disease, from bacterial pathogenesis to cancer. However, technical challenges of these versatile, but chemically complex protein modifications have constrained our fundamental understanding of even the most intensely studied nbPTMs for decades. The overarching aim of this proposal is to establish, apply and disseminate a methodology to unveil novel types of nbPTMs and allow site-specific proteomic analyses. The conceptual innovation lies in a strategy for turning the complex chemical structures of nbPTMs from a challenge to an advantage. First, shared chemical moieties will be exploited to develop pan-specific enrichment of multiple nbPTMs. For this purpose, we will generate the first nbPTMs-specific antibodies by converting specific signalling proteins into biotechnology tools for chemoenzymatic synthesis of challenging peptide antigens (aim 1). Second, we will take advantage of the chemical lability of nbPTMs to analyse modified peptides using a nucleobase-targeted mass spectrometry approach (aim 2). The unbiased scope of our methodology will make possible the discovery of as yet unknown forms of nbPTMs (aim 3) and nbPTM site mapping throughout eukaryotic proteomes (aim 4). These new materials, methods, discoveries and datasets will be made publicly available to allow future investigations of nbPTMs by the scientific community. The new substrates, sites and nbPTMs will provide starting points for biological characterization (aim 5). Poised at the interface of biology and technology, this interdisciplinary research project has the potential to explore new territories within established biomedical fields and to contribute to the knowledge base for improved treatment of diseases.
Projet ERC : PANAMA (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : University of Tübingen — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1396663.3 €

Numerical tasks - integration, linear algebra, optimization, the solution of differential equations - form the computational basis of machine intelligence. Currently, human designers pick methods for these tasks from toolboxes. The generic algorithms assembled in such collections tend to be inefficient on any specific task, and can be unsafe when used incorrectly on problems they were not designed for. Research in numerical methods thus carries carries the potential for groundbreaking advancements in the performance and quality of AI. Project PANAMA will develop a framework within which numerical methods can be constructed in an increasingly automated fashion; and within which numerical methods can assess their own suitability, and adapt both model and computations to the task, at runtime. The key tenet is that numerical methods, since they perform tractable computations to estimate a latent quantity, can themselves be interpreted explicitly as active inference agents; thus concepts from machine learning can be translated to the numerical domain. Groundwork for this paradigm - probabilistic numerics - has recently been developed into a rigorous mathematical framework by the PI and others. The proposed research will simultaneously deliver new general theory for the computations of learning machines, and concrete new algorithms for core areas of machine learning. In doing so, Project PANAMA will improve the efficiency and safety of artificial intelligence, addressing scientific, technological and societal challenges affecting Europeans today.

Mots-clés : computational statistics
Projet ERC : MITOSENSING (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Fundació Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FCRB;FCRB-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999573.0 €

Nutrient-sensing by POMC neurons is a critical process to monitor the metabolic status of the organism and to coordinate adaptive neuroendocrine, behavioural and metabolic effectors of energy balance. Mitochondria, as central commanders of cellular energy production and primary sources of bioenergetic signals, are logical candidates to play a key role in metabolic control. However, a comprehensive understanding of the mitochondria as nutrient-sensors and modulators of systemic energy homeostasis is lacking. MITOSENSING hypothesizes that dedicated mitochondrial networks in POMC neurons are able to sense, integrate and respond to alterations in the nutritional milieu and engage physiological actions to maintain energy balance. Thus, defects in these mitochondrial nutrient-sensing programs in this subset of neurons underlie the development of metabolic conditions such as obesity and type-2 diabetes (T2D). To test it, we will pursue three aims: 1) to identify transcriptionally-modulated mitochondrial nutrient-sensing programs in POMC neurons; 2) to investigate whether disruption of specific nutrient-sensing programs in POMC neurons cause metabolic disorders; 3) to investigate whether the development of lifestyle-associated metabolic disorders are caused by defective mitochondrial nutrient-sensing programs in POMC neurons. By providing neuron-specific, integrative, functional and mechanistic in vivo strategies, MITOSENSING will represent a major step forward into the understanding of mitochondria as a nutrient-sensing entity, the gene programs involved and their physiological regulatory functions in the context of energy balance control. Adequate coordination of neuronal nutrient-sensing with energy balance control is critical to sustain life, and thus understanding the molecular mechanisms governing these physiological programs will have an enormous scientific impact and also potential therapeutical implications for obesity and T2D.

Mots-clés : hypothalamus,pomc neurons,mitochondria,nutrient sensing,obesity
Projet ERC : ORGEVINE (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Spanish National Research Council — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

ORGEVINE aims to reduce water and phytosanitary chemicals usage as well as enhancing production yield in the wine industry by developing a network of wireless autonomous sensors that will provide real time images of key field parameters such as temperature and humidity. This will be achieved by taking our patented non-toxic thermoelectric materials into prototype organic thermoelectric generators (OTEGs) that will power the low-cost sensors. By taking advantage of the ubiquitous renewable energy source that is the temperature difference between soil and air, the sensors will become self-powered, thus avoiding a major bottleneck in the Internet of Things, i.e. the costly battery replacement. This interdisciplinary project will constitute a key enabling step in the broad field of precision agriculture, as well as environment conservation (e.g. through forestry fire prevention).

Mots-clés : organic thermoelectrics,self powered sensors,precision agriculture,renewable energy,viticulture
Projet ERC : ReCoDE (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : University Medical Center Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UMC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499966.0 €

Obesity and eating disorders are critical problems in society. Many patients with these brain diseases cope with stress by ravenous food intake (binge eating), which engenders new stress and maintains the pathology. Evidence-based treatments for this are urgently needed, but their implementation is hindered by a knowledge gap on: (i) which stress-driven neural disruptions cause binge eating, and (ii) whether these neural circuit changes can be normalized for therapeutic gain. Studies in humans and rodents link binge eating to dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a brain region orchestrating the stress response. However, it is unknown how effects of stress on PFC output cause binge eating. The PFC prominently innervates the lateral hypothalamus (LHA), a region with a crucial role in managing food intake, yet little is known about the function of PFC regulation of the LHA. I predict that stress-induced binge eating requires a functional reorganization of prefrontal cortical control over lateral hypothalamus feeding circuits, and that this control can be restored to limit binge eating. I propose a cutting-edge threefold strategy to address these hypotheses in mouse models: 1. I will unravel the make-up of PFC-LHA circuitry, combining electrophysiology, optogenetics and neural tracing. I will assess how stress functionally alters this complex network. 2. I will determine the concurrent activity at multiple sites within PFC-LHA circuitry as mice engage in stress-driven binge eating, using fiber photometric calcium recordings. 3. I will assess if normalizing stress-altered PFC-LHA synapses rebalances this circuitry in vivo and limits binge eating. For this I will combine optogenetic plasticity protocols, with fiber photometric measurements in freely moving mice. Overall, this challenging project aims to unravel the unclear neurobiology of stress-induced binge eating. If successful, this would provide a key advance in understanding binge eating pathologies.

Mots-clés : binge eating,stress,synaptic plasticity,prefrontal cortex,lateral hypothalamus,patch clamp electrophysiology,optogenetics,calcium dynamics
Projet ERC : The MATRIX (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : University of Gothenburg — Pays : Suède — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 42878.97 €

Obesity and its affiliated metabolic diseases pose serious public-health challenges. However, certain patient subgroups appear protected. To halt the socio-economic burden of metabolic disease, we urgently need to understand what distinguishes the Metabolically-Healthy-Lean (MHL), Metabolically-Unhealthy-Lean (MUL), Metabolically-Healthy-Obese (MHO) and Metabolically-Unhealthy-Obese (MUO) phenotypes, and which factors promote metabolic health. Inflammation has been proposed as a target, as it is a key driver of metabolic disease. However, clinical trials show limited evidence that anti-inflammatory drugs reduce diabetes. Why is that? Inflammation consists of a pro-inflammatory phase followed by a pro-resolving phase, which are regulated by different cells/pathways. This is critical to consider when attempting a therapeutic approach. Based on my preliminary data, I hypothesise that what separates MHL/MHO from MUL/MUO are not pro-inflammatory triggers, but rather the endogenous ability of individuals to resolve inflammation. Adipose extracellular-matrix remodelling appears critical, and pro-resolving lipids promote a MUO-to-MHO switch. My overall goal is to determine molecular pathways that differentiate the MHL/MUL/MHO/MUO phenotypes (Aim 1-4), and to investigate the therapeutic potential of pro-resolving lipids (Aim 5). This multi-disciplinary project combines cutting-edge techniques with state-of-the-art translational approaches. Through my unique access to human biobanks, I will generate patient-specific cell-lines and test drug-targets ex vivo. Novel bioinformatics pipelines will produce protein/lipid/metabolite fingerprints associated with respective patient groups, ultimately providing a new approach to tackle obesity-related comorbidities. My experience in the specialised field of pro-resolving lipid biology, coupled with my lab’s unique placement at a translational site, makes me the right candidate to lead this research program.

Mots-clés : obesity,metabolic health,inflammation,inflammatory resolution,specialized pro resolving lipid mediators,lipoxin