Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : MITOPLASTICITY (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : University Hospital Cologne — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1199987.5 €

A fundamental question in neuroscience is to reveal the energy constrains governing the plasticity of brain circuits. Mitochondrial energy metabolism is increasingly recognized for regulating the activity and integrity of existing synaptic terminals, however it is unclear how changes in mitochondrial function are coupled with the generation of new neurons and the ensuing circuit remodelling, e.g. in response to experience or disease. We have recently shown that a regionalized restructuring of the mitochondrial network in astrocytes upon cortical injury underlies their ability to enter a state of reactivity and sustain cellular energy metabolism, suggesting that local changes in mitochondrial network architecture govern cellular adaptations in register with local metabolic demand. Here, I focus on the adult hippocampal circuitry and its almost unique structural plasticity to broaden this fundamental concept and evaluate whether local mitochondrial remodelling orchestrates the metabolic changes underlying the directed genesis of new neurons and their evolving connectivity in face of experience. First, we will utilize state-of-the-art imaging and genetic techniques to investigate the precise role of mitochondria in regulating adult neural stem cells (NSCs) quiescence, mode of division and neurogenic potential in response to experience. This will set the stage for examining whether state-specific energy metabolism programs regulate the fate plasticity of adult NSCs, as following their directed differentiation towards distinct lineages in vivo (Aim I). We will then elucidate whether mitochondria contribute to mechanisms of metabolic and synaptic competition in new neurons, in particular to their critical period of heightened structural and functional synaptic plasticity (Aim II). Lastly, we will use novel tracing techniques to dissect the local energy needs for activity- and experience-dependent remodelling of new neuron functional connectivity (Aim III).

Mots-clés : synaptic plasticity,adult neurogenesis
Projet ERC : FOC (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Tel Aviv University — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1239838.0 €

A fundamental research challenge in modern cryptography is understanding the necessary hardness assumptions required to build different cryptographic primitives. Attempts to answer this question have gained tremendous success in the last 20-30 years. Most notably, it was shown that many highly complicated primitives can be based on the mere existence of one-way functions (i.e., easy to compute and hard to invert), while other primitives cannot be based on such functions. This research has yielded fundamental tools and concepts such as randomness extractors and computational notions of entropy. Yet many of the most fundamental questions remain unanswered. Our first goal is to answer the fundamental question of whether cryptography can be based on the assumption that P not equal NP. Our second and third goals are to build a more efficient symmetric-key cryptographic primitives from one-way functions, and to establish effective methods for security amplification of cryptographic primitives. Succeeding in the second and last goals is likely to have great bearing on the way that we construct the very basic cryptographic primitives. A positive answer for the first question will be considered a dramatic result in the cryptography and computational complexity communities. To address these goals, it is very useful to understand the relationship between different types and quantities of cryptographic hardness. Such understanding typically involves defining and manipulating different types of computational entropy, and comprehending the power of security reductions. We believe that this research will yield new concepts and techniques, with ramification beyond the realm of foundational cryptography.

Mots-clés : foundation of cryptography,minimal hardness assumption,hardness amplification
Projet ERC : INTERACT (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : University of Luxembourg — Pays : Luxembourg — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1929976.0 €

A grand challenge in today’s materials research is the realization of flexible materials that are also intelligent and functional. They will be the enablers of true breakthroughs in the hot trends of soft robotics and wearable technology. The standard approach to the latter is to decorate rubber sheets with electronic components, yielding two serious flaws: rubber is uncomfortable as it does not breath and solid state electronics will eventually fail as a garment is flexed and stretched when worn. While the softness of rubber is ideal it must be used in the form of textile fibers to provide breathability, and for long-term failure resistance we need intelligent components that are soft. A solution to this conundrum was recently presented by the PI with the concept of liquid crystal (LC) electrospinning. The extreme responsiveness of LCs is transferred to a non-woven textile by incorporating the LC in the fiber core, yielding a smart flexible mat with sensory function. Moreover, it consumes no power, providing a further advantage over electronics-based approaches. In a second research line he uses microfluidics to make LC rubber microshells, functioning as autonomous actuators which may serve as innovative components for soft robotics, and photonic crystal shells. This interdisciplinary project presents an ambitious agenda to advance these new concepts to the realization of soft, stretchable intelligent materials of revolutionary character. Five specific objectives are in focus: 1) develop understanding of the dynamic response of LCs in these unconventional configurations; 2) establish interaction dynamics during polymerisation of an LC precursor; 3) elucidate LC response to gas exposure; 4) establish correlation between actuation response and internal order of curved LCE rubbers; and 5) assess usefulness of LC-functionalized fibers and polymerized LC shells, tubes and Janus particles in wearable sensors, soft robotic actuators and high-security identification tags.

Mots-clés : responsive materials,actuators,liquid crystals,elastomers,wearable technology,soft robotics,electrospinning,microfluidics
Projet ERC : QED-PROTONSIZE (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : VU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2497664.0 €

A key component of the Standard Model is Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). QED explains e.g. the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron and small energy shifts in the energy structure of atoms and molecules due to vacuum fluctuations. After decades of precision measurements, especially laser spectroscopy in atomic hydrogen, QED is considered the most successful and best-tested theory in physics. However, in 2010 precision spectroscopy in muonic-hydrogen (where the electron is replaced with a muon) has lead to discrepancies in energy level structure that cannot be accounted for. If QED is considered correct, then one way of interpreting the results is that the size of the proton is different in normal (electronic) hydrogen by as much as 4% (a 7 sigma effect) compared to muonic hydrogen. Despite great theoretical and experimental efforts, this 'proton size puzzle' is still unsolved. I propose to perform precision spectroscopy in the extreme ultraviolet near 30 nm in the helium+ ion, to establish an exciting new platform for QED tests and thereby shed light on the proton-size puzzle. The advantages of helium ions over hydrogen atoms are that they can be trapped (observed longer), QED effects are more than an order of magnitude larger, and the nuclear size of the alpha particle is better known than the proton. Moreover, the CREMA collaboration has recently measured the 2S-2P transition in muonic He+ (both 3He and 4He isotopes) at the Paul Scherrer Institute. Evaluation of the measurements is ongoing, but could lead to an 8 fold (or more) improved alpha-particle radius, so that it is no longer limiting QED theory in normal He+. I will use several ground-breaking methods such as Ramsey-comb spectroscopy in the extreme ultraviolet to measure the 1S-2S transition in trapped normal electronic He+, with (sub) kHz spectroscopic accuracy. This will provide a unique and timely opportunity for a direct comparison of QED in electronic and muonic systems at an unprecedented level.
Projet ERC : 2DHIBSA (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Bristol — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499597.0 €

A key synthetic challenge of widespread interest in chemical science involves the creation of well-defined 2D functional materials that exist on a length-scale of nanometers to microns. In this ambitious 5 year proposal we aim to tackle this issue by exploiting the unique opportunities made possible by recent developments with the living crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA) platform. Using this solution processing approach, amphiphilic block copolymers (BCPs) with crystallizable blocks, related amphiphiles, and polymers with charged end groups will be used to predictably construct monodisperse samples of tailored, functional soft matter-based 2D nanostructures with controlled shape, size, and spatially-defined chemistries. Many of the resulting nanostructures will also offer unprecedented opportunities as precursors to materials with hierarchical structures through further solution-based “bottom-up” assembly methods. In addition to fundamental studies, the proposed work also aims to make important impact in the cutting-edge fields of liquid crystals, interface stabilization, catalysis, supramolecular polymers, and hierarchical materials.

Mots-clés : block copolymer self assembly
Projet ERC : ChemPrime (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University of Sheffield — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 148318.0 €

A large proportion of global crop yield is annually lost to plant diseases. While pesticides help to reduce these losses, there are growing concerns about pesticide resistance and their impacts on health and environment. The objective of this proof-of-concept project is to develop a crop protection technology that is based on priming of the plant’s own immune system, providing an enhanced defensive capacity to resist attackers. While priming is considered attractive for exploitation in integrated pest and disease management, chemical priming agents have never reached their full economic potential due to undesirable non-target effects on plant growth and yield. My former ERC project (‘Prime-A-Plant ́) has revealed key insights in the mechanisms by which plants perceive and respond to priming-inducing chemicals. We showed that the benefits of priming by beta-aminobutyric acid (BABA) can be uncoupled from the associated stress response (Luna et al. 2014; Nature Chem. Biol.). More recently, we discovered a structural analogue of BABA, R-beta-homoserine (RBH), which primes plant defences against multiple diseases without affecting growth (Buswell et al. 2018; New Phytol.). The current ‘ChemPrime’ project aims to develop these discoveries into a crop protection strategy through co-design with commercial stakeholders. The first project part involves translational research to make the concept more attractive for adoption by commercial stakeholders. We will examine the effectiveness of RBH against a range of economically relevant crop diseases, identify genetic targets in crops to improve the effectiveness of the RBH priming response, assess chemical residues in crop products and waste streams, and optimise RBH formulation for applications in different production systems. The second project part involves engagement activities to initiate collaborative research & development with agri-tech companies and develop the concept into a commercially viable crop protection strategy.

Mots-clés : plant immune priming,crop protection,chemical priming agents,plant disease resistance,genetic crop improvement
Projet ERC : ProLiCell (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
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 : 1999389.0 €

A long standing dogma in the field of cell-based technologies is that bulk mechanical properties of solid substrates are essential to enable cell spreading, proliferation and fate decision. The use of solid materials to culture adherent cells constitutes an important hurdle for the scale up, automation and speed up of cell culture and recovery. Our recent results show that bulk solid substrates are not necessary to promote cell adhesion, growth and fate regulation as adherent stem cells spread and proliferate readily at the surface of ultra-soft materials, even liquids. In such cases, cell adhesion is enabled by the formation of a mechanically strong layer (nanosheet) of proteins at the interface between the oil (liquid substrate) and aqueous medium. This key discovery opens the door to the engineering of protein nanosheets enabling the use of liquid, free-flowing substrates sustaining cell adhesion, expansion, isolation and recovery. ProLiCell will design the biochemical and mechanical properties of extracellular matrix (ECM) protein nanosheets that can sustain the formation of adhesion protein complexes and support cell proliferation and culture on materials with very weak bulk mechanical properties (liquids). The engineered ECM nanosheets will be applied to: 1. the design of 3D bioreactors based on emulsions, for the culture of stem cells; 2. the formation of stem cell sheets at oil-water interfaces for tissue engineering; 3. the isolation and purification of stem cells using emulsions presenting antibody-adsorbed interfaces. ProLiCell will provide fundamental insights into ECM nanosheet design and advance our understanding of the mechanisms via which cells adhering to such interfaces sense and respond to nanoscale cues. Such fundamental understanding will enable liquid-liquid platforms to transform stem cell technologies by borrowing a wider range of processing and manufacturing concepts to the field of Chemical Engineering.

Mots-clés : protein nanosheet,self assembly,liquid liquid interface,stem cells
Projet ERC : RustBelt (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1946250.0 €

A longstanding question in the design of programming languages is how to balance safety and control. C-like languages give programmers low-level control over resource management at the expense of safety, whereas Java-like languages give programmers safe high-level abstractions at the expense of control. Rust is a new language developed at Mozilla Research that marries together the low-level flexibility of modern C++ with a strong "ownership-based" type system guaranteeing type safety, memory safety, and data race freedom. As such, Rust has the potential to revolutionize systems programming, making it possible to build software systems that are safe by construction, without having to give up low-level control over performance. Unfortunately, none of Rust's safety claims have been formally investigated, and it is not at all clear that they hold. To rule out data races and other common programming errors, Rust's core type system prohibits the aliasing of mutable state, but this is too restrictive for implementing some low-level data structures. Consequently, Rust's standard libraries make widespread internal use of unsafe blocks, which enable them to opt out of the type system when necessary. The hope is that such unsafe code is properly encapsulated, so that Rust's language-level safety guarantees are preserved. But due to Rust's reliance on a weak memory model of concurrency, along with its bleeding-edge type system, verifying that Rust and its libraries are actually safe will require fundamental advances to the state of the art. In this project, we aim to equip Rust programmers with the first formal tools for verifying safe encapsulation of unsafe code. Any realistic languages targeting this domain in the future will encounter the same problem, so we expect our results to have lasting impact. To achieve this goal, we will build on recent breakthrough developments by the PI and collaborators in concurrent program logics and semantic models of type systems.

Mots-clés : type systems,program verification,semantics,concurrency,weak memory models
Projet ERC : KNOWLEDGE MOVES (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
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 €

A major challenge of the Anthropocene is for individuals to adapt to rapidly changing environments. In long-lived species, adaptation will require successful innovations to spread efficiently through social units, emphasising an increasing role of social learning and culture. Given that humans are the most cultural species on the planet, what factors limit or enhance social transfer in other species? Vervet monkeys are an ideal model species to study knowledge flow due to their social structure, with males migrating multiple times within their lifetime. Moreover, with the establishment of my field site, I am uniquely placed to conduct experiments on multiple groups. At the individual level, using innovative technology (bio-loggers and molecular tools), I will detect how males adjust to their new physical and social environment following migration with respect to dialects and diet, and respectively how groups adapt to migrants. To test how information spreads, I will conduct experiments using novel touchscreen technology to discover whether migrants always conform to their new group’s knowledge or if groups can learn from migrants. Quantitative models based on the vervet data will be constructed to capture information spread at group and population levels. Primates being living links to our past, comparing these models to the existing literature on humans will reveal to what extent social transmission seen in humans is common throughout the primate lineage, and what differences make human culture so unique. By linking ground-breaking approaches in the wild with modelling work, this project will revolutionise our current knowledge of social information transmission within primate societies. Understanding information movement under changing environments will improve our ability to predict how primates will cope with the constantly increasing human impact and an unpredictable future, as well as refine our understanding of the uniqueness of cultural transfer in humans.

Mots-clés : cultural evolution,primatology,evolutionary anthropology,evolutionary psychology
Projet ERC : Sense2SurviveSalt (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : Wageningen University & Research — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WUR
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999843.0 €

A major gap in our knowledge of how plants respond to soil salinity is their initial perception of sodium (Na+) ions. Salt is detrimental to plants and soil salinization is an increasing threat to global food security; 6% of the world’s total land area and 20% of irrigated land is affected by salinity. I recently discovered Na+-specific root growth responses of plants and will now exploit these to identify the elusive sodium sensing mechanism of plants. I will use an innovative approach combining genome-wide genetic screens in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana with dedicated biochemical assays. I will identify candidate Na+-sensor genes through a natural genetic variation screen for the Na+-specific inhibition bending of the root in response to gravity (WP1). In parallel, I will follow a chemical genomics approach to find novel compounds that impair Na+ sensing, and their target proteins in plants (WP2). Subsequent complementary in silico and biochemical approaches will characterize Na+-affinity of the candidates (WP3). Selected putative Na+ sensors will be characterized in planta, by studying their localization, activity, their interactors, and by salt response phenotyping of mutants (WP4). Finally, mutant varieties of sensors will be introduced in the economically relevant crop plant tomato, to provide proof-of-concept for improving salt tolerance by modulating sensor function and implementation in crop improvement programs (WP5). The impact of elucidation of plant Na+ sensing will be monumental; it will reveal how plant responses to salinity stress are driven, and ultimately what is required to cope with salinity. In addition, it will open up new applied directions for agriculture, where improved sodium sensing modules will be used to allow crop growth on marginal, saline soils.

Mots-clés : plant salt tolerance,natural variation,tomato,arabidopsis,salinity stress,sodium  na   perception,halotropism