Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : PIWIdefense (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and I mmunotherapy
Entité participante : Radboud University Medical Centre — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Radboud UMC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

Background: The mosquito Aedes aegypti transmits viruses with pandemic potential but is also host to a large repertoire of mosquito-specific viruses and endogenous retroviruses. These viruses may invade the ovaries and eventually the oocyte to be transmitted from mother to offspring and to expand in the population. This transmission route exposes them to the specific host defense mechanisms of the ovary, which they must overcome to ensure onward transmission. This intriguing virus–host conflict is crucial for virus evolution and ecology and for host reproduction and survival, but has thus far not been studied. Hypothesis: I hypothesize that a specific class of small RNAs, called PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), are essential for protection of the mosquito germline from virus infection. Aim: My goal is to define the role of the piRNA pathway as a host defense system against RNA viruses, endogenous retroviruses, and other genomic parasites, and to identify viral counter-defense mechanisms. Additional to these fundamental aims, we will reprogram the piRNA pathway to induce resistance against pathogenic viruses in mosquitoes. Approach: This interdisciplinary project c¬ombines powerful genetic, genomic, and proteomic approaches at the intersection of virology, RNA biology, and entomology. Of particular importance, we will establish urgently needed tools for tissue-specific gene inactivation in vivo to define the functions of the expanded PIWI gene family of mosquitoes. Importance and Innovation: ERC project PIWIdefense will be the first to define host defense functions of the piRNA pathway in the germline of a major vector mosquito. The project generates unprecedented insights into the fundamental processes that shape the fascinating virus–host conflicts in mosquitoes. In addition, the project establishes a novel approach that can be translated into mosquito-centered intervention strategies against arthropod-borne viruses.

Mots-clés : mosquito biology insect immunity rna silencing
Projet ERC : PlantMemo (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Entité participante : Université de Sheffield — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2498283.0 €

Plants excel in adapting to changing environments, which relies on their ability to store and integrate information from previously encountered stresses. Without a cellular immune system or direct communication with their offspring, plants use alternative pathways to obtain defence memory and prepare their progeny against persistent threats. Biotic stress by pests and diseases triggers changes in the epigenetic makeup and root-associated microbiome of plants, resulting in a multi-faceted defence memory that enhances resistance to recurrent attacks. Despite the potential of these mechanisms to revolutionise crop protection, a comprehensive understanding remains elusive.  PlantMemo will transform our understanding of plant defence memory by exploring the internal (epigenetic) and external (microbial) pathways involved. Focusing on both annual and perennial plants, the project will answer the following questions:  1. How do plants write, maintain, and erase epigenetic memory? 2. What are the genetic, metabolic, and microbial drivers of external memory? 3. How do internal and external memory pathways interact and contribute to disease protection?  PlantMemo will combine the latest epigenomic profiling technology with novel reverse-(epi)genetics approaches to reveal the epigenetic network driving internal memory. Simultaneously, it will develop high-throughput phenotyping protocols to screen genetic mapping populations for key genes in the conditioning of disease-suppressive soils, which drives external defence memory, and link these to root exudation chemistry and microbiota. The project will further integrate these insights by exploring the interplay between internal and external defence memory and their respective roles in intra- and inter-generational stress adaptation.  By uniting multipiple biological disciplines, PlantMemo will uncover how plants adapt to the unpredictable and intermittent nature of biotic stress, paving the way for new crop protection technology.

Mots-clés : plant immunity,immune memory,epigenetics,rhizosphere biology,signalling,crop protection
Projet ERC : MIGMOBS (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université de Leeds — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 278497.0 €

MIGMOBS investigates how borders and hierarchies are maintained between “the West and the Rest”, even as those who are internationally mobile sometimes succeed in challenging the “birthright lottery” - i.e. that citizenship at birth most determines someone’s chances in life. It asks: How does changing categorisation of subordinate populations worldwide in terms of “migration”, “free movement”, and “minorities” relate to these in- and between- country inequalities? It echoes critical migration, mobilities and borders scholars who argue that late capitalism in liberal democracies continues to advance through an ever more sophisticated differentiation and management of population – at the border as well as internal to states. Such work, though, has not adequately examined variation regionally, or across historical shifts in political economy: from post-war liberalism, through neoliberalism, to the era of COVID and beyond. MIGMOBS thus explores in unprecedented empirical breadth and detail how states reproduce sovereign power in an otherwise porous world: selecting and extracting wanted or recognised movers as “immigrants”, brutally excluding many other “migrants”, while simultaneously rendering fluid and untroubling a vast range of banal “mobilities” such as tourism and business travel. Mapping physical, virtual and non-human mobilities, the project details demographic and social connections over time between 21 states. This quantitative comparative historical work underpins co-productive ethnographic case studies rethinking a range of archetypal “migration systems” in and from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. These investigate how subordinate populations resist the categories, statuses and borders imposed upon them. With the pandemic’s impact on border crossings and transactions, new modes of classification and accreditation suggest an increasingly precise biometric control of movement and behaviour: a new phase of late capitalism I call “viral liberalism”.

Mots-clés : migration,mobilities,global inequality,inequalities,development,borders,diversity,liberalism,racism,globalisation,governmentality,transnationalism,decolonial thought,political demography,mixed methods
Projet ERC : OpenMatrix (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Radboud University Medical Centre — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Radboud UMC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2388216.99 €

Immunotherapy can prolong lives of cancer patient subgroups, but fails in solid tumors with dense fibrotic stroma, such as pancreatic cancer. Fibrotic stroma prevents the recruitment and activation of immune effector cells, and, thereby dampens the efficacy of immunotherapy. Mechanistically, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) initiate extracellular matrix (ECM) production, which aggravates fibrosis by reciprocal mechanoactivation and crosstalk with tumor-associated myeloid cells, forming a self-sustainable “pro-fibrotic loop”. However, the central pathways initiating this vicious cycle and signaling compensation maintaining fibrosis under therapeutic conditions remain unclear. Consequently, clinical solutions to disrupt this pro-fibrotic loop are lacking.  I hypothesize that identifying and targeting the multi-step pro-fibrotic loop can be exploited to re-engineer and normalize the perturbed ECM and increase tumor accessibility for immune effector cells and immunotherapy.  To disrupt the pro-fibrotic loop, I will exploit an engineered modular peptido-/nanobio-mimetic toolbox, comprising nature-inspired targeting systems based on in silico design and experimental validation. The peptidomimetics and nano-biomimetics will target cellular interaction mechanisms to (1) inhibit CAF–ECM interactions driving tissue stiffening and fibrosis, and (2) train tumor myeloid cells towards matrix-degrading effectors to restructure fibrotic ECM. These biomimetics will be examined in advanced 3D in vitro and in vivo pancreatic tumor models. The combined effects of biomimetics on the matrisome, matrix architecture and single-cell transcriptomics will be integrated using machine learning to identify ECM fingerprints. OpenMatrix will 1) deliver mechanistic insights into endogenous fibrosis drivers and antagonists, 2) engage these cell-intrinsic mechanisms to revert fibrosis and, thereby, 3) reactivate immune effector function and advance immunotherapy.

Mots-clés : tumor stroma,cancer associated fibroblasts,nanomedicine,drug delivery,extracellular matrix
Projet ERC : ALMEDA (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université de Groningue — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : RUG
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 68515.0 €

Recent years have seen something of a renaissance in African literature, with African novelists becoming global best-sellers and achieving the world’s highest literary accolades. But published novels are restrictively expensive in Africa itself and the novel form is ill-suited to African everyday life, where people are more likely to spend their leisure time engaging with informal, ephemeral and not-for-profit literary and oratory cultural forms, such as spoken-word poetry, street theatre, and a variety of online genres. These informal African literatures are rarely catalogued and therefore exist outside of any structured metadata system. The consequence is that formally published English and French African novels are hyper-visible globally, while the rich literary and oratory cultures of the continent itself are caught in a perpetual state of structural ephemerality. The ALMEDA project addresses this problem in three ways. First, by providing the first history of literary metadata on the African continent, the project will provide a diachronic understanding of how colonial cataloguing systems came to construct the idea of the ‘literary work’ as book-based and thus dismissive of Africa’s oral cultures. Secondly, ALMEDA aims to develop and publish a metadata scheme specifically designed for these informal literary materials. This scheme will be multilingual, which will enable a unique descriptive model that allows African-language genres to inhabit their own categories, rather than having to be forced into European literary ontologies. Thirdly, the project will develop a linked open metadata repository, populated via an interface that allows non-specialist entry of metadata on literary materials. By creating and linking metadata on this body of work, this repository will constitute a major intervention in African literature by making these literatures searchable and their records enduring, thereby opening up entirely new possibilities for scholarship.

Mots-clés : african literature,literary metadata,bibliographic metadata,informal literature
Projet ERC : MultiFlaQS (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Entité participante : Société Max-Planck pour le développement des sciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Société Max Planck
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 966868.0 €

MultiFlaQS aims to develop efficient multifunctional sources of quantum light, namely entangled photon pairs and triplets, and squeezed states, based on ‘flat’ platforms, i.e., ultrathin layers and metasurfaces. The advantages of flat quantum sources (FlaQS) include: (i) small footprint and integrability; (ii) ultrabroadband and ultrafast operation; (iii) the possibility to combine several functionalities in the same device.  Unlike linear and nonlinear ‘flat’ optics, which were developing for almost two decades, FlaQS appeared only recently, and mainly included single-photon sources. A few years ago, also FlaQS of entangled photons emerged; however, their efficiency is low and the advantages of the ‘flat’ geometry are not fully used. Generation of multiphoton quantum states, such as squeezed or graph states, is still a challenge. Most importantly, multifunctional operation has not been demonstrated. MultiFlaQS will make a decisive new step in developing FlaQS, one of paramount importance for quantum photonic technology.  The following objectives are set: - Efficient generation of two-photon states and squeezed states, and their use in quantum sensing; - First-time generation of three-photon states through a direct decay of one photon into three; - Implementation of multiple functionalities: generation of quantum states, their frequency conversion and quantum operations on them. To meet them, the applicant will combine her quantum optics and quantum information expertise, including pioneering steps in developing FlaQS, with recent ideas in nanofabrication design.  As a result, engineering of quantum states of light will be brought to a principally new level. Apart from the compactness, integrability, and broadband operation, FlaQS will be multifunctional and combine generation of quantum states of light with their transformation and frequency conversion. They will enable quantum sensing with subwavelength spatial resolution and subcycle temporal resolution.

Mots-clés : entangled photons,squeezed light,spontaneous parametric down conversion,metasurfaces,subwavelength nonlinear layers,flat optics,liquid crystal
Projet ERC : RandoPEGMed (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Université Johannes-Gutenberg de Mayence — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : JGU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 22500.0 €

PEGylation, the attachment of the highly hydrophilic, biocompatible polymer polyethylene glycol (PEG) to therapeutics, has become a key strategy in current nanomedicine. PEGylation is indispensable for a broad variety of commercial therapeutics. They range from protein drugs to relevant nanocarriers, such as liposomes and lipid nanoparticles. PEG leads to the particular “stealth effect”, i.e., strongly prolonged blood circulation times and apparent “invisibility” for the immune system. This is also used for lipid nanoparticles (LNP) transporting mRNA vaccines, used worldwide against the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this powerful weapon is now in danger of becoming blunt: An increasing body of literature from immunologists, clinicians and biochemists shows a rapid increase of individuals (50-70% in industrialized countries) possessing anti-PEG antibodies (APAs). This causes undesirable rapid elimination of PEGylated drugs from the bloodstream, hypersensitivity and strong allergic reactions. RandoPEGMed introduces PEG-derived random copolymers for nanomedicine. These PEG copolymers with well-defined chain length possess randomly distributed “point mutations” along the chains, which both disables recognition by the immune system and formation of antibodies. The project will thus exploit monomer sequence statistics to eliminate immunogenicity, representing a radically new approach in polymer therapeutics. One pivotal aim is precise understanding of monomer sequence statistics in the anionic copolymerization of glycidyl ether monomers with ethylene oxide (EO). At the interface of polymer synthesis, pharmaceutical chemistry and medicine this project aims at preserving the benefits of PEGylation for the future. Based on our preliminary results and the hypothesis that anti-PEG antibodies cannot be formed against random PEG copolymers, this concept will have vast therapeutic implications for polymer conjugates, therapeutic nanoparticles and stealth liposomes.

Mots-clés : copolymerisation,polyether,monomer sequence regulation,polyethylene glycol,pegylation,bioconjugation,nanomedicine,polymer protein conjugates
Projet ERC : ImmunoMachines (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: B iological  Mechanisms , Structures  and Functions
Entité participante : Université Johann Wolfgang Goethe de Francfort-sur-le-Main — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499938.0 €

To combat daily threats of pathogens and abnormal cells, the human organism features a sophisticated defense mechanism called the adaptive immune system. In broad terms, this intricate mechanism is triggered by specific peptide epitopes presented on molecules of the major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC I), which are scanned by cytotoxic T cells. Intracellular transport, loading, and cell-surface recognition of antigenic peptides on MHC I are orchestrated by machineries, the peptide-loading complex (PLC) and the T cell receptor (TCR) complex. The PLC is composed of multiple subunits, including the antigen translocation unit TAP, the MHC I heterodimer, and several chaperones ensuring that only stable peptide-MHC I molecules are released to the cell surface for decoding by TCR complexes. Ligand binding and the supramolecular organization of TCR complexes are translated into phosphorylation of conserved tyrosine-containing cytosolic sequence motifs that initiate downstream signaling cascades. Based on their incredible efficiency and selectivity, we hypothesize that the biogenesis of MHC I is highly processive and coupled via allosteric networking, and that antigen processing and recognition machineries are compartmentalized by a defined supramolecular organization. However, despite their fundamental importance, these architectural details of the PLC and the TCR, as well as the dynamic networking that is included in the quality control of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and receptor signaling processes, remain enigmatic due to their inherent dynamics, low abundance, and complexity.  This ambitious proposal will contribute to a long-awaited holistic understanding of the machineries that shape the vertebrate adaptive immunity. The expected findings from this project will be groundbreaking in understanding the hidden processes of epitope selection and reception in human disease.

Mots-clés : membrane proteins,macromolecular complexes,er quality control,molecular chaperones,membrane transporters,membrane receptors,cryo em,fluorescence labeling,chemical biology,single molecule techniques,super resolution microscopy,receptor clustering
Projet ERC : HYPSTER (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Université de technologie de Delft — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Delft
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2498741.0 €

Quantum simulation is a promising strategy for understanding the behaviour of quantum systems that are too complex to be calculated directly. HYPSTER will make crucial steps towards creating a quantum simulator from individual magnetic atoms, addressed by means of a scanning tunnelling microscope. I will engineer atomic structures combining electron and nuclear spins – coupled to each other via hyperfine interaction – and read out their collective quantum coherent evolution in real time.  The lifetime of any quantum state is limited by its coherence time. While electron spins on a surface suffer from continuous decoherence due to electrons from the substrate, nuclear spins are much better isolated, holding potential for orders of magnitude longer coherence times. By providing controlled access to the real-time dynamics of the nuclear spin, HYPSTER aims to unlock this invaluable potential. First, expanding upon a unique measurement procedure developed in my group, I will trace the combined time evolution of a nuclear spin coupled to an electron spin, allowing quantum information to be exchanged between the two. Next, I will explore methods to controllably couple and decouple the nuclear and electron spins by rapidly adjusting the local Hamiltonian. This will allow the nuclear spin to evolve by itself, not hindered by external decoherence sources. Finally, I will employ dual-frequency electron spin resonance to enable remote detection of spin dynamics, constructing a pathway towards connecting multiple nuclear spins over a distance.  The objectives of HYPSTER will provide a toolset that can be readily adopted throughout the blooming field of on-surface spin systems and set the stage for true atomic-scale quantum simulation.

Mots-clés : stm,esr stm
Projet ERC : ARCHIATER (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université de Pise — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1676854.39 €

After the Black Death of 1348, hospitals were newly designed to face social disease, further plague’s waves, and new illnesses, e.g. syphilis. Social distancing (like recently with an unknown virus) was the main method to avoid all kinds of contagion. New spatial and safety concepts were developed to care and confine the sick and the poor in structures enhancing the visibility of political or religious agendas. While wars and early globalization contributed to spreading pandemics, charitable bodies exploited their roles to gather capital, which they reinvested in art. Despite an extensive scholarship on hospitals as social institutions, the question of why art and architecture were so vital for hospitals remains open. ARCHIATER tackles this gap, focusing on three objectives: 1) To map hospital visual cultures, agencies and imaginations in European cities before 1750 along terrestrial and maritime routes and according to hospital typology and networks. 2) To analyse the spaces, forms, themes and designs of hospital art and architecture as liminal mediators to manage disease and contagion as well as life passages, healing, death, and salvation. 3) To reconstruct transitions and changing values of hospital materiality and develop ways of ‘curating’ the impressive heritage of premodern hospitals. Bringing together art, architecture, history, and curatorial studies, the project looks at these relations in comparative and interconnected ways. It combines geographical and micro-historical investigations, object-based analysis, and a new conceptual questioning on the ‘liminality’ of hospital art and architecture as mediators between spaces, actors, and intentions in the ‘monumentalization’ of disease, which characterizes historical cityscapes. Addressing these issues will reveal, not only why so many artworks in our museums come from hospital contexts, but also how visible artefacts can contribute to the well-being of a society faced with invisible threats.

Mots-clés : visual culture early modern history comparative and transnational histories history of medicine liminality archives confraternities and social institutions