Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : TRIGGDRUG (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2470400.0 €

How could a molecular cancer therapy look like in 2040? In cancer, gene expression is deregulated due to amplification, mutation and translocation of genes. Next generation RNA sequencing provides us with the opportunity to identify the number and identity of the gene products aberrantly expressed in a patient. But do we have methods that take advantage of the personalized sequence data? In this research project we propose the idea to use the RNA molecules expressed upon disease-type gene expression as instructors for the chemical synthesis of drug-like molecules that cure the disease. Accordingly, drug-like molecules would only be formed in those cells that express the disease-specific RNA molecules. Such a personalized molecular therapy would eliminate side effects caused by unwanted perturbation of healthy cells. The idea to use cellular RNA molecules as triggers for drug synthesis requires methods that couple RNA recognition with a change of chemical reactivity. Reactive molecules must be able to “read” and “translate” the sequence of a RNA molecule into a drug-like output. We will develop mRNA-triggered reactions that i) proceed with turnover in template to cope with low mRNA copy numbers and ii) allow the single-step synthesis of highly active drug-like molecules to address deregulated protein targets inside cancer cells. To achieve this aim, we will advance chemical acyl transfer and alkylidene transfer reactions. The reactions on disease-specific mRNA will form peptides/peptidomimetics/small molecule-based kinase inhibitors which will induce apoptosis in cancer cells. We will target validated drug targets. Synergy between the nucleic acid and protein worlds will be harnessed. Furthermore, we will develop a RNA-promoted reaction with turnover beyond product inhibition. This will enable a transcriptome-activated photodynamic therapy. In a nutshell, we will develop a chemistry-based tool to hijack disease mRNA and rewire the cell death program.

Mots-clés : nucleic acid chemistry,peptides,proteins,catalysis,apoptosis,smart drugs
Projet ERC : ANCESTORS (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Sapienza University of Rome — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 383400.0 €

How did politics and inequality work in prehistoric Europe? Traditionally, politics has been seen in terms of discrete political ranks identified through differential treatment of individual burials. But this results in classifying much of prehistory, where the dead were treated in ways which effaced individual identity, as egalitarian. The result is an artificially dichotomous history: Neolithic people had landscapes, rituals and ancestors, Bronze and Iron Age people had politics and inequality. In the last two decades this approach has been strongly critiqued. Burial treatment rarely relates to status so directly; the dead serve many different political roles. Inequality in pre-state groups rarely consists of clear strata; inequality and equality exist in tension within groups. Inequality may have been present throughout European prehistory, but manifest situationally through differential life chances, kinship, ritual or ancestorhood, rather than overtly through political command, wealth or identity. But this new perspective has never been tested empirically. This project tests alternative models of prehistoric inequality and deathways. To investigate social relations in life, it uses osteobiography, reconstructing life stories from skeletons through scientific data on identity, health, diet, mobility and kinship. To understand deathways, it employs a second new methodology, funerary taphonomy. Combining osteobiography and taphonomy allows us to connect ancient lives and deaths. Peninsular Italy provides a substantial test sequence typical of much of Europe. For each of three key periods (Neolithic, 6000-4000 BC; Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, 4000-1800 BC; Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age, 1800-600 BC), 200+ individuals will be analysed. The results will allow us to evaluate for the first time how inequality affected lives in prehistoric Europe and what role ancestors played in it.

Mots-clés : osteobiography,ritual taphonomy,ancestors,death,prehistory,kinship,politics
Projet ERC : COLD (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GFZ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499308.0 €

How do erosion rates in glacial landscapes vary with climate change and how do such changes affect the dynamics of mountain glaciers? Providing quantitative constraints towards this question is the main objective of COLD. These constraints are so important because mountain glaciers are sensitive to climate change and their deposits provide a unique history of Earths terrestrial climate that allows reconstructing leads and lags in the climate system. The climate sensitivity of mountain glaciers is influenced by debris on their surface that impedes ice melting. Theoretical models of frost-related bedrock fracturing predict that rates of debris production are temperature-sensitive and that its supply to mountain glaciers increases during warming periods. Thus a previously unrecognized negative feedback emerges that lowers ice melt rates and potentially buffers part of the ice retreat due to warming. However, the temperature-sensitivity of debris production in glacial landscapes is poorly understood. Specifically, we lack robust erosion rate estimates for these landscapes, which are key for testing models of frost-related bedrock fracturing. Here, I propose an innovative combination of new tools that capitalize on recent developments in cosmogenic nuclide geochemistry, landscape evolution modelling, and planetary-scale remote sensing analysis. I will use these tools to quantify headwall erosion rates in mountainous glacial landscapes and to gauge the sensitivity of mountain glaciers to variations in debris supply. Expected results will provide a basis for assessing the impacts of global warming, for improved predictions of valley glacier evolution, and for palaeoclimate interpretations of glacial landforms. COLD will focus on glacial landscapes, but the inverse modelling approach I will develop is applicable to any landscape on Earth and has the potential to fundamentally transform how we use cosmogenic nuclides to constrain Earth surface dynamics.

Mots-clés : geomorphology,debris covered glaciers,cosmogenic nuclides,erosion rates
Projet ERC : InPairs (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : University of Lisbon — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1951123.5 €

How do extreme electromagnetic fields modify the dynamics of matter? Will quantum electrodynamics effects be important at the focus of an ultra intense laser? How are the magnetospheres of compact stellar remnants formed, and can we capture the physics of these environments in the laboratory? These are all longstanding questions with an overarching connection to extreme plasma physics. Electron-positron pair plasmas are pervasive in all these scenarios. Highly nonlinear phenomena such as QED processes, magnetogenesis, radiation, field dynamics in complex geometries, and particle acceleration, are all linked with the collective dynamics of pair plasmas through mechanisms that remain poorly understood. Building on our state-of-the-art models, on the availability of enormous computational power, and on our recent transformative discoveries on ab initio modelling of plasmas under extreme conditions, the time is ripe to answer these questions in silico. InPairs aims to understand the multidimensional dynamics of electron-positron plasmas under extreme laboratory and astrophysical fields, to determine the signatures of the radiative processes on pair plasmas, and to identify the physics of the magnetospheres of compact stellar remnants, focusing on the electrodynamics of pulsars, that can be mimicked in laboratory experiments using ultra high intensity lasers and charged particle beams. This proposal relies on massively parallel simulations to bridge the gap, for the first time, between the pair plasma creation mechanisms, the collective multidimensional microphysics, and their global dynamics in complex geometries associated with laboratory and astrophysical systems. Emphasis will be given to detectable signatures e.g. radiation and accelerated particles, with the ultimate goal of solving some of the central questions in extreme plasma physics, thus opening new connections between computational studies, laboratory experiments, and relativistic plasma astrophysics.

Mots-clés : extreme plasma physics,electron positron plasmas,laboratory and relativistic plasma astrophysics,particle in cell,simulations,high performance computing
Projet ERC : HexaTissue (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Leiden University — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1897018.0 €

How do hexatics flow? Forty years after Nelson’s and Halperin’s first prediction of the existence of this phase of two-dimensional matter, intermediate between crystalline solid and isotropic liquid, this seemingly elementary question is still unanswered. Whereas the delicate nature of hexatics could partially justify this oversight, recent findings in tissue mechanics have created the urgent demand to fill this gap, by providing this phase with unexpected biological relevance. Like two-dimensional crystals on the verge of melting, tissues are often neither ordered solids nor disordered liquids, but inhabit a continuum of intermediate states known as the epithelial-mesenchymal spectrum. This versatility lies at the heart of a myriad of processes that are instrumental for life, such as embryonic morphogenesis and wound healing, but also of life-threatening conditions, such as metastatic cancer. Understanding the physical origin of these mechanisms requires going beyond the current hydrodynamic theories of complex fluids and introducing a new theoretical paradigm, able to account for hexatic order and biomechanical activity. This multidisciplinary program aims to develop a systematic theory of hexatic hydrodynamics and use it to gain insight into the physical mechanisms underpinning the dynamics of tissues and the progression of metastatic cancer. The program will consist of three themes. First we will develop the necessary formalism to describe viscous flow in hexatics. Next, we will extend it to tissues and investigate the interplay between hexatic order, activity, topological defects and flow. Finally, we will use the new framework to explore the first three steps of the metastatic cascade: 1) the detachment of clusters of mesenchymal cells from the primary tumour; 2) their subsequent invasion of the extracellular matrix; and 3) their translocation across blood vessels, which allows metastases to enter into the bloodstream and disseminate to distant organs.

Mots-clés : hexatic,liquid crystals,active matter,tissues,cancer,metastasis
Projet ERC : T-MIGRANTS (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499813.0 €

How do migrants influence culture, its institutions and the production of the art? How does the migration process feed back into the migrants’ mind-sets, activities and social relations? These are pivotal questions today as in the past. The nineteenth century was a period of significant mass migration, and theatre – one of the mass media of the day – was profoundly affected by it. T-MIGRANTS will carry out the first systematic and in-depth analysis of nineteenth-century European theatre migrants. By reclaiming and positioning this group of agents, which has largely been ignored by national theatre historiographies, and by stressing their crucial but hitherto neglected influence on processes of modernity and global entanglement within theatre in and beyond Europe, the project will open up new ways of evaluating the influence of migration on culture and its institutions. Focusing on three geographic areas (Europe, the USA and South America), the project has three main objectives: 1. To systematically collect, analyse and make digitally accessible a new stock of data on nineteenth-century migrants, their theatrical work and their international networks. 2. To contextualise European theatre migrants within the migration processes of the nineteenth century. 3. To investigate the pivotal consequences of theatre migrants on institutional and aesthetical level, including significant impulses towards cross-cultural flows and tensions within the theatre business. Utilising a combination of previously unexamined archival material, comparative approaches and cutting-edge methods of digital humanities, T-MIGRANTS will revise established national narratives in theatre historiography, providing the crucial momentum towards a transnational history of theatre. It will make a substantial contribution to our understanding of historical and contemporary discourses on migration processes, integration and cultural identity and to the question of the cultural self-conception of Europe.

Mots-clés : theatre,migration,transnational history,nineteenth century
Projet ERC : MADE (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UvA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1748656.25 €

How do processes of development and social transformation shape human migration? More specifically, how do development process affect the geographical orientation, timing, composition and volume of both internal and international migration? The relation between development and human mobility is highly contested. While economic development in poor countries and areas is usually seen as the most effective way to reduce migration, other studies suggest that development actually increases migration. However, evidence has remained highly inconclusive so far because of theoretical and methodological limitations. This research develops new theoretical and empirical approaches to gain a fundamental understanding of the relation between development processes and human migration. While prior analyses focused on a limited number of economic and demographic ‘predictor’ variables, this project applies a broader concept of development to examine how internal and international migration trends and patterns are shaped by wider social, economic, technological and political transformations. This will be achieved through (i) theory-building (reconceptualising migration as an intrinsic part of broader development processes) enabling the formulation of appropriate hypotheses; (ii) quantitative tests drawing on new, innovative databases on international and internal migration flow and stocks; and (iii) mixed method case-studies of six countries (provisionally Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Italy, Morocco and the Netherlands) representing different development-migration trajectories over the 19th and 20th centuries. This project is scientifically ground-breaking by fundamentally shifting our understanding of how long-term development and social transformation processes shape human migration. This is also relevant for policy by challenging popular understandings of migration as a development failure and to make more realistic assessments of how future global change may affect migration.

Mots-clés : international migration,internal migration,mobility,development,social transformation,migration theory
Projet ERC : SHOW AND TELL (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Lund University — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499788.0 €

How do scientists use new kinds of imagery to show what they know, and to convince diverse others to accept the evidence they offer? Images like brain scans and botanical illustrations are central to scientific practice. But today, accessible technologies can create lifelike algorithmically generated images – photo-like pictures made not with lenses but through the manipulation of digital data. These new kinds of images have introduced distinctive challenges to our ability to trust the things we can see with our own eyes. Show & Tell is an in-depth ethnographic study of new digital methods for the documentation, analysis, and visualization of physical places with a focus on their movements between academic research, police and forensic work, and courtrooms. We will follow researchers and practitioners as they develop manipulable, immersive environments to document and analyze archaeological excavations and crime scenes alike. Show & Tell focuses on three interconnected research questions: How do scientific visualizations produce agreement across diverse epistemic cultures – what makes it possible for images be understood by and convince scientists from multiple disciplines as well as prosecutors and judges? How do old ways of seeing interact with new technologies when scientists use new kinds of imagery as evidence? How do specific formal and material qualities influence the credibility of new kinds of images as they move between science and the law? Show & Tell uses a unique object of study to investigate the ways that scientists use new kinds of imagery to show what they know and how they go about the work of convincing others to know it themselves. The project will provide theoretical breakthroughs illuminating the processes that let us believe our eyes (or prompt us to question them) when we encounter new kinds of imagery, and will offer a new conceptual framework for understanding scientific visualizations as they move between epistemic cultures.
Projet ERC : SELF-UNITY (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Karolinska Institutet — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2583560.0 €

How do we come to experience ourselves as single physical entities? Under normal healthy conditions, we humans always experience a single body as our own physical self, and this bodily self is undivided and perceived as a single whole. But what cognitive processes and brain mechanisms mediate this unity of the bodily self? This fundamental question has long been beyond the reach of experimental studies because of the lack of behavioral paradigms that allow controlled manipulation of basic components of the self-unity. To address this issue, we here propose the use of novel full-body illusion paradigms to “fragment”, “duplicate” or “split” the sense of bodily self during well-controlled behavioral and neuroimaging experiments. By studying the behavioral and neural principles that determine specific illusory changes in perceived self-unity, we can elucidate much about the neurocognitive mechanisms that support the sense of having a single unitary bodily self under normal conditions. Our pioneering behavioral paradigms utilize the newest virtual reality technologies, and these are combined with multimodal neuroimaging using the most advanced analysis methods, such as multivariate pattern recognition. The aims of the project are to unravel (i) how we come to experience a single bodily self as opposed to multiple ones; (ii) how we perceive a coherent bodily self instead of fragmented parts; and (iii) how information from different sensory modalities – including vestibular and interoceptive signals – are integrated to achieve this coherent sense of a singular bodily self. The new basic knowledge generated by this project will be important for future clinical neuroscience research into major psychiatric and neurological disorders with disturbances in self-unity, such as schizophrenia, dissociative disorders and stroke with body neglect, by providing novel ideas for hypotheses about the involved neurocognitive pathophysiology.

Mots-clés : perceptual illusions,body ownership,self consciousness,functional magnetic resonance imaging,virtual reality,cerebral cortex
Projet ERC : moreSense (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HHU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1494058.75 €

How do we experience the visual world around us? The traditional view holds that the retinal input is analyzed to reconstruct an internal image that generates our perceptual experience. However, a general theory of how visual features are experienced in space and time is lacking. The fundamental claim of this grant proposal is that only motor knowledge - i.e. the way we interact with the world - establishes the underlying metric of space and time perception. In this model view, the spatial and temporal structure of perception is embedded in the processing of neural motor maps. The project moreSense has four major objectives: First, it will unravel how neural motor maps provide the metric for the experience of visual space. It will be hypothesised that there is no central neural map of space or time but a weighted contribution of all maps. Novel experimental techniques are required to uncover the motor basis of perception, which are available by recent developments in head-mounted displays and online motion tracking. Second, it will provide a general understanding of time perception being implicitly coded in movement plans to objects in space. Third, results from the first two objectives will be applied to the long-standing mystery of visual stability and continuity across movements. A bayesian model, supported by quantitative measurements, will demonstrate how information combination from the various motor maps leads naturally to stable and continuous perception. Fourth, this new theory of space and time perception will be investigated in patients suffering from a breakdown of space perception. The results will establish causal evidence that space and time perception are generated by processing in motor maps. New rehabilitation procedures will be developed to re-establish spatial perception in these patients. The experiments in this grant proposal will unravel the fundamental spatiotemporal structure of perception which organizes our sensory experience.