Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : DISPATCH Neuro-Sense (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : KU Leuven — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KUL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1489656.0 €

The possibility to chronically monitor the brain 24/7 in daily-life activities would revolutionize human-machine interactions and health care, e.g., in the context of neuroprostheses, neurological disorders, and brain-computer interfaces (BCI). Such chronic systems must satisfy challenging energy and miniaturization constraints, leading to modular designs in which multiple networked miniature neuro-sensor modules form a ‘neuro-sensor network’ (NSN). However, current multi-channel neural signal processing (NSP) algorithms were designed for traditional neuro-sensor arrays with central access to all channels. These algorithms are not suited for NSNs, as they require unrealistic bandwidth budgets to centralize the data, yet a joint neural data analysis across NSN modules is crucial. The central idea of this project is to remove this algorithm bottleneck by designing novel scalable, distributed NSP algorithms to let the modules of an NSN jointly process the recorded neural data through in-network data fusion and with a minimal exchange of data. To guarantee impact, we mainly focus on establishing a new non-invasive NSN concept based on electroencephalography (EEG). By combining multiple ‘smart’ mini-EEG modules into an ‘EEG sensor network’ (EEG-Net), we compensate for the lack of spatial information captured by current stand-alone mini-EEG devices, without compromising in ‘wearability’. Equipping such EEG-Nets with distributed NSP algorithms will allow to process high-density EEG data at viable energy levels, which is a game changer towards high-performance chronic EEG for, e.g., epilepsy monitoring, neuroprostheses, and BCI. We will validate these claims in an EEG-Net prototype in the above 3 use cases, benefiting from ongoing collaborations with the KUL university hospital. In addition, to demonstrate the general applicability of our novel NSP algorithms, we will validate them in other emerging NSN types as well, such as modular or untethered neural probes.

Mots-clés : neural data processing algorithms,brain computer interfaces,distributed signal processing algorithms,eeg processing,body area networks,sensor networks,neural probes,neural dust
Projet ERC : ProCrystal (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Aalto University — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1997502.0 €

The possibility to direct nanoscale structural order in complex matter is an important prerequisite for the preparation and characterisation of next-generation functional materials. Hierarchically ordered multicomponent materials are particularly interesting in this respect, since they allow controlled integration of different nanoparticle/material building blocks into periodic nanostructures with lattice constants that are much shorter than the wavelength of light. However, most of the current nanostructured materials consist of fully synthetic or biological materials since the integration of biological and synthetic building blocks in a designed manner remains a challenging task. Here we propose an approach based on the co-assembly of biological protein cages and synthetic materials to bridge the gap between ordered synthetic materials and biological assemblies. Protein-based nanocages, such as ferritins and virus capsids, offer a complex yet monodisperse and geometrically well-defined cage that can be used to encapsulate different materials. We will utilize ferritin and virus particles as a size constrained reaction vessels to prepare monodisperse iron oxide nanoparticles and combine these electrostatically with synthetic noble metal nanoparticles to yield diverse crystal arrangement with coupled magnetic and plasmonic properties. During the course of the project, we will address important challenges, such as how to design responsive and collectively behaving biohybrid materials and to push the research and results beyond the current state-of-the-art. We aim to achieve this by using unconventional methods in designing, synthesising and applying new functional materials whose interactions and co-crystalline packing with biomacromolecules can be controlled. Potential outcomes include magnetically tuneable plasmonic assemblies, porous materials capable of simultaneous binding of organic and inorganic guest and protein cage crystal template inorganic nanostructures.
Projet ERC : ProNANO (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : CIC biomaGUNE — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1718849.99 €

The precise synthesis of nano-devices with tailored complex structures and properties is a requisite for their use in nanotechnology and medicine. Nowadays, the technology for the generation of these devices lacks the precision to determine their properties, and is accomplished mostly by “trial and error” experimental approaches. Bottom-up self-assembly that relies on highly specific biomolecular interactions of small and simple components, is an attractive approach for nanostructure templating. Here, we propose to overcome aforementioned challenges by using self-assembling protein building blocks as templates for nanofabrication. In nature, protein assemblies govern sophisticated structures and functions, which are inspiration to engineer novel assemblies by exploiting the same set of tools and interactions to create nanostructures with numerous potential applications in synthetic biology and nanotechnology. We hypothesize that we can rationally assemble a variety functional nanostructures by the logical combination of simple protein building blocks with specified properties. We propose to use a designed repeat protein scaffold for which we acquired a deep understanding of its molecular structure, stability, function, and inherent assembly properties. Only few conserved residues define the structure of the building block, which allow us to mutate its sequence to modulate assembly properties and to introduce reactive functionalities without compromising the structure of the scaffolding molecule. First, we will design a collection of protein-based nanostructures. Then, we will introduce reactive functionalities to create hybrid nanostructures with nanoparticles, metals and electro-active molecules. Finally, these conjugates will be used to build nano-devices such as nanocircuits, catalysts and electroactive materials. The outcome of this project will be a modular versatile platform for the fabrication of multiple protein-based hybrid functional nanostructures.

Mots-clés : protein engineering,nanostructures,protein self assembly,functional hybrid materials,nanotechnology,molecular lego,protein scaffolds,bottom up fabrication
Projet ERC : TRUFLOW (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Sorbonne Université — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Sorbonne U
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2490585.0 €

The prediction of heat and mass transfer across fluctuating fluid interfaces is a considerable challenge. It is however not only an ubiquitous part of industrial processes, but also a critical component of the global climate system through ocean-atmosphere interactions. Sustainable development and greenhouse gas emission containment will require an overhaul of already knowledge-intensive processes. TRUFLOW thus aims at enabling the quantitative prediction of the heat and mass transfer in fluid flow using simulation, high performance computation and multiphysics, multiscale methods. Using presently available, cutting edge interface tracking and subgrid scale methods TRUFLOW will investigate a range of critical processes, allowing for example industry to plan for improved carbon capture processes such as rotating packed beds, new processes such as hydrogen-based metallurgy to replace carbon based metallurgy, heat and mass transfer in hydrogen fuel cells, boiling and cavitation simulation and CO2 transfer across the wavy ocean surface. The key limiting factor in the success of simulation in this domain is the considerable range of scales expected, with slowly diffusing chemicals creating boundary layers that are orders of magnitude smaller than the typical fluid structures, bubbles or droplets. Critical heat fluxes in boiling and interface motion at the microscale are determined by contact line motion, which involves tiny molecular scales. TRUFLOW will bridge these various extreme length scale gaps using state of the art methods. It will result in direct high performance simulations of heat and mass transfer, coupled simulation and analysis of existing experimental data, an analysis of the performance of reduced models of flows with tiny scale transfers, and a systematic use of these models in industrial or natural configurations.

Mots-clés : interfaces,high performance computing,multiscale models,heat and mass transfer,sustainable development
Projet ERC : PRIMCHEM (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UVSQ
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1487500.0 €

The presence of organic compounds was essential to the emergence of life on Earth 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. Such compounds may have had several different origins; amongst them the ocean-atmosphere coupled system (the primordial soup theory), or exogenous inputs by meteorites, comets and Interplanetary Dust Particles. Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is the best known observable analogue of the Early Earth. I recently identified a totally new source of prebiotic material for this system: the upper atmosphere. Nucleobases have been highlighted as components of the solid aerosols analogues produced in a reactor mimicking the chemistry that occurs in the upper atmosphere. The specificity of this external layer is that it receives harsh solar UV radiations enabling the chemical activation of molecular nitrogen N2, and involving a nitrogen rich organic chemistry with high prebiotic interest. As organic solid aerosols are initiated in the upper atmosphere of Titan, a new question is raised that I will address: what is the evolution of these organic prebiotic seeds when sedimenting down to the surface? Aerosols will indeed undergo the bombardment of charged particles, further UV radiation, and/or coating of condensable species at lower altitudes. I expect possible changes on the aerosols themselves, but also on the budget of the gas phase through emissions of new organic volatiles compounds. The aerosols aging may therefore impact the whole atmospheric system. An original methodology will be developed to address this novel issue. The successive aging sequences will be experimentally simulated in chemical reactors combining synchrotron and plasma sources. The interpretation of the experimental results will moreover be supported by a modelling of the processes. This complementary approach will enable to decipher the aerosols evolution in laboratory conditions and to extrapolate the impact on Titan atmospheric system.

Mots-clés : planetary atmospheres
Projet ERC : SuN2rise (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Polytechnic University of Turin — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1498750.0 €

The preservation of our planet is the most urgent issue in the world, and the COP21 conference pushed a lot of researchers to work on technologies for the storage/conversion of CO2 into chemicals. However, since I believe that it is easier not to produce CO2 than setting-up plants to treat it, I propose an alternative breakthrough based on a versatile solar-driven strategy leading to redesign industrial processes. Facing the Haber-Bosch process for ammonia production (one of the most impactful chemical processes today), I propose the electrochemical fixation of dinitrogen into ammonia, by simply using air, water and ambient conditions. I will demonstrate an integrated device where a photovoltaic (PV) unit will power a regenerative electrocatalytic cell converting dinitrogen to ammonia (E-NRR). A newly proposed Li-mediated approach under mild conditions, derived from a interdisciplinary contamination between electrocatalysis and Li-batteries, will be the key towards a >95% N2 conversion, bypassing both the competitive hydrogen reduction reaction and the complete irreproducibility of recent E-NRR approaches attributed to N-contaminations or degradation of N-based catalysts. I will further move beyond the state-of-the-art by fabricating transparent devices, that can be integrated in greenhouses, allowing the production of ammonia and ammonium fertilizers directly in farms, bypassing the known issues related to the massive infrastructure of ammonia plants and difficulties in reaching remote communities. The proposed approach will significantly impact also the field of liquid fuels, being ammonia safer and with higher energy density than hydrogen. Achieving these goals will require multidisciplinary expertise in the field of chemical, material, process and device engineering. In my career I have demonstrated skills in similarly complex projects and in each of these challenging fields, bringing to technological and socio-economic benefits.

Mots-clés : electrocatalysis,hybrid photovoltaics,water based systems,nitrogen fixation,sustainability,nitrogen reduction,integrated devices,solar driven chemistry,ammonia synthesis,electrolytes,ammonia refinery
Projet ERC : RobSpear (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

The prevalence of hearing impairment amongst the elderly is a stunning 33%, while the younger generation is sensitive to noise-induced hearing loss through increasingly loud urban life and lifestyle. Yet, hearing impairment is inadequately diagnosed and treated because we fail to understand how the components that constitute a hearing loss impact robust speech encoding. A recent and ground-breaking discovery in animal physiology demonstrated the existence of a noise-induced hearing deficit -cochlear neuropathy- that coexists with the well-studied cochlear gain loss deficit known to degrade the audibility of sound. Cochlear neuropathy is thought to impact robust encoding of the audible portions of speech and occurs before standard hearing screening methods indicate problems, implying that a large group of noise-exposed people with self-reported hearing problems is currently not screened, nor treated. To design effective hearing restoration strategies, it is crucial to understand how cochlear neuropathy interacts with other hearing deficits to affect robust speech encoding in every-day listening conditions. Through an interdisciplinary approach, RobSpear targets hearing deficits along the ascending stages of the auditory pathway to revolutionize how hearing impairment is diagnosed and treated. RobSpear can yield immense reductions of health care costs through effective treatment of currently misdiagnosed patients and studies the impact of noise-induced hearing deficits on our society. To achieve this, RobSpear: (i) Builds a hearing profile that, based on a computational model of the auditory periphery, develops physiological measures that differentially diagnose hearing deficits in listeners with mixtures of deficits. (ii) Designs individually tailored speech enhancement algorithms that work in adverse conditions and target perceptually relevant speech features, using an unprecedented validation approach that combines novel psychoacoustic and physiological metrics.

Mots-clés : auditory modeling,psychoacoustics,hearing impairment,psychological and physiological acoustics,neural responses to speech,otoacoustic emissions,auditory signal processing
Projet ERC : RobSpear (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Ghent University — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UGent
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499780.0 €

The prevalence of hearing impairment amongst the elderly is a stunning 33%, while the younger generation is sensitive to noise-induced hearing loss through increasingly loud urban life and lifestyle. Yet, hearing impairment is inadequately diagnosed and treated because we fail to understand how the components that constitute a hearing loss impact robust speech encoding. A recent and ground-breaking discovery in animal physiology demonstrated the existence of a noise-induced hearing deficit -cochlear neuropathy- that coexists with the well-studied cochlear gain loss deficit known to degrade the audibility of sound. Cochlear neuropathy is thought to impact robust encoding of the audible portions of speech and occurs before standard hearing screening methods indicate problems, implying that a large group of noise-exposed people with self-reported hearing problems is currently not screened, nor treated. To design effective hearing restoration strategies, it is crucial to understand how cochlear neuropathy interacts with other hearing deficits to affect robust speech encoding in every-day listening conditions. Through an interdisciplinary approach, RobSpear targets hearing deficits along the ascending stages of the auditory pathway to revolutionize how hearing impairment is diagnosed and treated. RobSpear can yield immense reductions of health care costs through effective treatment of currently misdiagnosed patients and studies the impact of noise-induced hearing deficits on our society. To achieve this, RobSpear: (i) Builds a hearing profile that, based on a computational model of the auditory periphery, develops physiological measures that differentially diagnose hearing deficits in listeners with mixtures of deficits. (ii) Designs individually tailored speech enhancement algorithms that work in adverse conditions and target perceptually relevant speech features, using an unprecedented validation approach that combines novel psychoacoustic and physiological metrics.

Mots-clés : auditory modeling,psychoacoustics,hearing impairment,psychological and physiological acoustics,neural responses to speech,otoacoustic emissions,auditory signal processing
Projet ERC : MOAB (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University of Bergamo — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UniBg
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 45000.0 €

The problem that we address is that the pharmaceutical companies do not develop radically new drugs anymore, because the development process lasts ten years and costs around one billion euro. Development of a new drug is subjected to regulatory approvals following three demonstrations: lab discovery in vitro, animal testing in vivo and clinical trial on patients. This process has 99.9% overall failure, of which 96.4% because the drug efficacy measured in vitro is not confirmed in animals. In fact, the most widespread technology used to test therapeutic agents in vitro, a flat culture dish in which single cell populations are cultured and the drug to be tested is added to the culture, is obsolete. In many pathologies such as cancer and neurodegeneration, in vivo response to drugs is based on complex interactions, occurring in three-dimensions (3D) between several cell populations. To solve this problem, in the context of an ERC consolidator grant (CoG) that I currently lead, I integrated a novel nano-patterned 3D substrate for stem cell culture, called the “nichoid”, into an existing miniaturised optically accessible bioreactor (MOAB). The MOAB allows to culture 3D organoids of few millimetres in size, under continuous perfusion of the culture medium, infusion of the drug to be tested and diagnostics of cell response both in real time and also post-cultivation. Both the original inventions (the nichoid and the MOAB) are covered by Italian patents originated in the frame of the CoG project and already extended as PCT. The goal of this PoC proposal is to perform a technical and commercial feasibility to move to the market the MOAB device integrating the nichoid-patterned substrate. I will characterize the fluid-dynamics of the bioreactor chamber that has been modified to accommodate the nichoid substrate. Also, I will set a market assessment and an actionable IPR strategy with identification of a suitable exploitation strategy for valorising the patent/know how.

Mots-clés : bioengineering,drug discovery,cell model,bioreactor,scaffold,millifluidic,computational fluid dynamics,perfusion,optical microscopy,miniaturization,two photon polymerization,nano fabrication,stem cells
Projet ERC : TiNT (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : University of Glasgow — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1385951.0 €

The problem this project addresses is that operative modes for interpreting the Greek New Testament (NT) rely upon critical editions, not manuscripts. NT editions are scholarly abstractions that focus on reconstructing an “original” text, and that fail to account for a rich manuscript tradition that preserves evidence for key disciplinary questions. Instead of asking how manuscripts help reconstruct a text, this project examines what manuscripts say about the ways the NT was interpreted by the communities that produced them. This is accomplished by comprehensively analysing the forms and wordings of the title preserved in all non-lectionary NT manuscripts (c. 3500). Titles are malleable paratexts that provide a substantive vector to rethink approaches to the NT by seriously considering contexts of production and interpretation ranging from 2rd century Egypt to modern Mt. Athos, moving beyond the 1st century Roman world. Titles demonstrate that material and paratextual variance in form and design are constitutive aspects of the NT. Adopting New Philology as a methodology, the project critiques dominant approaches by taking each manuscript seriously as evidence for specific reading events, using titles as primary evidence. Titular analysis informs a range of topics, including authorship, locales of production, contexts of use, bibliography, and literary interpretation. The NT is best understood as an omnibus of manuscripts that constitute specific reading events, reflecting the interpretations of the communities that used them. The NT has never been a single reconstructed text, but a collection of texts in specific material and paratextual contexts. Despite the value inherent in the manuscripts, scholarship has focused almost exclusively on the NT’s original context of composition. Resisting this trend, the project argues that titles are a rich resource for mapping the interpretation of the NT in contexts overlooked by critical scholarship: its own manuscript matrix.