Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : 2DMAGSPIN (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Université de Groningue — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : RUG
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2495000.0 €

Dimensionality plays a crucial role in the physical properties of condensed matter systems. In the last century, the optimization of FET technology led to the discovery of a new state of matter, in which quantum mechanics fully confines any electron motion to parallel to the interfaces, i.e. the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Magnons, the elementary excitations of the ground state magnetic order (either ferro, ferri, or antiferromagnetic) also carry spin. In high-quality magnetic materials magnons enable long-distance electronic spin information transfer. Magnonics has been studied extensively in magnetic bulk materials, or in thin films where still several sub-bands are thermally populated. The challenging major next step is to realize and study magnon and electronic spin transport in the ultimate 2D magnetic regime. The aim of this ERC Advanced project is to combine and study strictly 2 dimensional spin transport in two types of vdW magnets: in a 2D magnon gas (2DMG) in electrically insulating Van der Waals ferro and antiferromagnets and in a 2D spin gas (2DSG) in proximity-induced magnetic graphene. To achieve this aim, I will (i) fabricate high quality 2D vdW materials, heterostructures and devices; (ii) realize and study spin transport in a two-dimensional magnon gas (2DMG); (iii) realize and study a two-dimensional spin gas (2DSG) in magnetic graphene; and (vi) develop new spintronics functionalities in hybrid 2DMG and 2DSG heterostructures. This project will open a regime that has not been explored before. Magnon-magnon, magnon-phonon, and magnon (electronic) spin interactions in 2D will lead to phenomena that are either difficult to realize in 3D, such as hydrodynamic spin current flow and self-oscillations, or have not yet been anticipated at all. 2DMG and 2DSG controlled by gates and, possibly, operating at room temperature will enrich the vdW spintronics and provide new strategies for information technology including heat management.

Mots-clés : van der waals materials,magnons
Projet ERC : DUSTSPEC (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
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 : 2314680.0 €

Planets form in discs of gas and dust around young stars. Within these discs, micron-sized dust particles need to clump together to grow 14 orders of magnitude to form Earth-like planets as well as the cores of giant planets. It is a major challenge to understand dust growth from start to finish. State of the art observations provide spectacular glimpses of the dust distribution at a limited range of sizes: ALMA produces images of the thermal emission of mm-sized dust, while instruments such as SPHERE probe the distribution of much smaller particles. However, for a comprehensive theory of planet formation, we need to understand the process from start to finish, from micron-sized to planet-sized. This is therefore the story of the dust size distribution: how many dust specks, pebbles and boulders are present? While there are large size ranges that are out of reach observationally, in this project we will exploit the fact that all dust sizes are coupled to the gas via friction to take a panoptic view of the size distribution for the first time. Since the gas feels friction from all dust sizes, the size distribution is encoded in the gas kinematics, and therefore in every single dust size as well. We will perform hydrodynamical simulations including the full dust size distribution to write the polydisperse story of planet formation. We aim to reconstruct the full size distribution from sparse observations, thereby avoiding the need for expensize multi-wavelength observations. We will compare dust and gas distributions with observations of protoplanetary discs as well as the composition of Solar system bodies. We will use a novel numerical method that allows us to perform these computationally expensive simulations, and employ machine learning to speed up the calculations. This way, we will for the first time be able to build up a complete picture of how dust particles grow into planets and construct a comprehensive model of planet formation.
Projet ERC : HIPSTAR (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Université de technologie de Delft — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Delft
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 133701.25 €

With 40 million patients in Europe, osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common chronic and disabling disease. OA is incurable, and symptomatic treatments have limited effect. Therefore, prevention by identifying and targeting asymptomatic persons that develop a clear OA risk factor is sorely needed. Hip dysplasia is the strongest risk factor for hip OA. Hip dysplasia is a condition of mechanical instability of the hip caused by insufficient coverage of the femoral head (ball) by a shallow or obliquely oriented acetabulum (socket). This results in high cartilage stress, and subsequent hip OA. In Europe we screen for developmental hip dysplasia in infants (prevalence 2%), enabling early treatment. However, we discovered that hip dysplasia can (further) develop during skeletal maturation and thus remains unrecognized. In 1100 Dutch 9-year-old children we found a 6% and 26% prevalence of marked and mild hip dysplasia, respectively. Hip dysplasia can be influenced until the stage where hip growth plates close at about age 13. I propose a novel research program (HIPSTAR) where I will uniquely unravel the mechanisms behind late childhood hip dysplasia in order to pave the way for devising preventive measures that reduce the prevalence of adult hip dysplasia and, thus, hip OA. In a birth cohort of 8000 children (followed from foetal life until adulthood), I will first uniquely built a 5D growth model on how hip shape develops over time from age 2-18 years. I will gain novel knowledge regarding causal factors of dysplastic growth, and whether there are various phenotypes that have different underlying mechanisms. I also will study how and when dysplastic growth will already impact on the integrity of the young adult joint, and discover very early signs of joint aberration leading to OA. Finally, in a computational model, I will test the influence of loading factors on dysplastic growth mechanistically, and provide detailed information regarding the potential remedial options.

Mots-clés : osteoarthritis,hip,growth and development,risk factor,joint diseases,phenotype
Projet ERC : LubeTwin (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Materials Engineering
Entité participante : Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FhG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2453946.0 €

A non-empirical continuum-physics-based digital twin for boundary and mixed lubricated tribosystems (the LubeTwin) would revolutionize the design and operation of sliding contacts in machines. Today, reliable continuum models of thermo-elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication (TEHL) are routinely used for component design. However, these standard TEHL models are considered to be invalid when the sliding surfaces are not separated by a thick enough lubricant film. My preliminary work suggests that TEHL can then still be applied provided constitutive equations (CEs) are employed that consider finite-size effects such as slip and lubricant layering at walls. Based on my hypothesis that the Reynolds lubrication equation works down to sub-monolayer lubricant films, the construction of a LubeTwin is proposed that quantitatively describes all microscale lubrication regimes in engineering sliding contacts – from dry sliding to hydrodynamic lubrication. This is achieved by a massive effort to produce a variety of atomistic benchmark data by molecular dynamics (MD) with non-reactive force fields for the lubricant rheology and with machine learning potentials for the lubricant-surface tribochemistry. Coarse-grained extreme-scale MD of lubricated µm-sized rough surfaces and high-throughput all-atom MD for nm-sized parallel channels will allow for an effective validation and training of novel physics-based CEs for an extended TEHL model. This makes the proposed LubeTwin a predictive tool linking nanoscale molecular structure of constituents to the friction of components at the macroscale. The final goal is to quantitatively describe lubrication in tribological experiments under high loads and to predict optimal conditions for super-low friction and wear in energy-efficient and sustainable machines. Embedded in a large interdisciplinary environment of multiscale modelers and experimentalists, a team of nine scientists will find ideal conditions to realize the vision of LubeTwin.

Mots-clés : tribology,friction,digital twin,extreme scale molecular dynamics,lubrication equations
Projet ERC : Nanocubic (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and Communication Engineering
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 : 2293558.0 €

After spectacular advances in microscopy, a next leap is needed to enable biological studies at the deep sub-cellular scale of cells in their native multi-cellular tissue environment. Currently, it is impossible to image in 3D with isotropic resolutions below 100 nm over volumes larger than (100 micron)^3. I want to disprove the paradigm that there should always be a trade-off between resolution, imaging volume and sample longevity. Building on my track record in super-resolution microscopy, I propose a revolutionary optical architecture where the volume is illuminated and scanned sequentially using three tilted 2D light sheets that form three mutually orthogonal planes. These light sheets are created by illumination from both sides of the sample to form interference-based light patterns with fine 200 nm scale pitch. Together with new structured illumination image reconstructions this enables a 3D fully isotropic resolution twice as good as conventional light sheet microscopy. In a second conceptual advance, the patterned light sheets are applied in single-molecule imaging to achieve 3D isotropic enhanced localization precision at the 1 nm level, an order of magnitude better than current methods. The omni-directional illumination and imaging also enables refractive index tomography, leading to time and space-variant point spread functions. These are used in-silico in first-ever super-resolution image reconstructions that are fully adapted to volumetric sample heterogeneity. In a final step, the tomographic refractive index data is projected to spatio-temporal aberration maps that are fed into adaptive optics for dynamic correction of sample-induced aberrations to boost super-resolution imaging of live cells over extended times. The envisioned suite of information-optimal computational microscopy modalities, rooted in fundamental physics, not only overcomes imaging barriers but also paves the way to break open black box approaches in image reconstruction.

Mots-clés : microscopy,super resolution,light sheet,adaptive optics
Projet ERC : PeroxyZyme (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems E ngineering
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 : 2500000.0 €

Chemistry is far away from being a mature science: many desirable transformations are still out of scope. One important example is the selective (oxy)functionalisation of non-activated C-H bonds, which still represents a dream reaction of organic chemistry. This is because balancing high reactivity (needed for the activation of inert C-H bonds) with selectivity is difficult to achieve. Enzymes, specifically monooxygenases, are catalysts that principally solve this challenge. Monooxygenases, however, are not practical catalysts for organic chemistry. This is because they have evolved to enable the survival of their host organisms and not to suit the needs of organic chemists. In particular the complex molecular architecture of monooxygenases (necessitating O2, stoichiometric reductants and additional catalytic components) together with mechanistic challenges arising from their complex molecular architecture impede their chemistry-wide application. PeroxyZyme aims at solving these issues and establish evolved monooxygenases (peroxyzymes) as practical catalysts for organic chemistry. Peroxyzymes will be able to function with simple hydrogen peroxide rather than via the natural, albeit complex and vulnerable electron transport chains. This fundamental change in the monooxygenases’ catalytic mechanisms will be achieved by a mechanism-driven and experimentally validated semi-rational engineering approach. Evolved peroxyzymes will be characterised using up-to date (ultra)fast spectroscopy identifying catalytic bottlenecks and possible inactivation mechanisms. This molecular understanding will provide the basis for further improvement of first generation peroxyzymes. The practical usefulness of evolved peroxyzymes will be demonstrated on preparative-scale by using them in non-aqueous reaction media enabling high product concentrations and space-time yields.

Mots-clés : oxyfunctionlisation chemistry biocatalysis enzyme mechanism industrial biotechnology
Projet ERC : LeakingOceans (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
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 : 2461240.0 €

In our solar system, most of the oceans are covered by kilometers of ices. These buried oceans, considered amongst the most promising places to host extraterrestrial life, are now a priority in both ESA and NASA’s programs for in situ observations with landing missions. To prepare for these programs, and the scientific return of current/future missions, we need to understand how buried oceans interact with the surface, the paths to reach them, and whether we can know more about their composition and physical conditions before visiting them. In fact, while these oceans are buried under a crust of kilometers thick ice, they manage to leak to the surface and can be indirectly observed in several ways. Ocean water escape through geysers (plume) on the Saturnian moon Enceladus, subsurface fluids spill over onto the surface of the Gallilean moon Europa, or subsurface materials (ocean) lose some molecules that diffuse through the ice until reaching the surface where they are observed as ice. In parallel, James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations of the moons Ganymede and Europa have reported spectra showing subtle variations within the moon surface that are difficult to interpret but likely linked to the formation and evolution of surface ices. The aim of LeakingOceans is to determine the spectral signatures of ices produced by leaking oceans (plume, spilling or diffusion) allowing to identify these leaks in the observations. For this purpose, the processes by which buried oceans become surface ice will be studied experimentally and theoretically to obtain ices’ characteristics and spectral signatures. These tools will be instrumental for searching plumes on Europa or other moons. By determining signature and efficiency of the oceans’ leaks on icy moons, we will (1) understand the dynamics between oceans and surfaces of icy moons (2) deduce the composition and conditions present in these ocean worlds and (3) provide ways to reach these oceans for future exploration.

Mots-clés : icy moons laboratory experiments ocean surface interaction plume jwst observations
Projet ERC : KolmoCrypt (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Technion - Institut de technologie d'Israël — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1662500.0 €

Cryptography—and its basic tasks such as encryption, authentication and key exchange—is essential for ensuring privacy and security on the Internet. The question of whether “unbreakable” encryption methods exist has fascinated mathematicians and cryptographers for thousands of years, and is closely related to the famous NP vs. P problem. This question is still wide open and consequently, Internet security today relies on cryptographic constructions based on the *conjectured* hardness of some computational problems (such as e.g., the factoring problem, the discrete logarithms problem or various noisy linear algebra problems). However, these conjectured hard problems all contain significant (e.g., algebraic) *structure*, that may make them vulnerable to attacks. Furthermore, for tasks such as key exchange and public-key encryption, only a *handful* of candidate hard problems are known on which these tasks can be based. As a result, some unexpected algorithmic developments for structured problems could upend the whole infrastructure we rely on for communicating and transacting on the Internet.  In this project, we propose to develop an alternative approach: a foundation for provably-secure Cryptography from *unstructured hardness* assumptions. Towards resolving this long-standing challenge, we will leverage our recently-discovered connection between Cryptography and the seemingly unrelated area of Kolmogorov Complexity. Specifically, we will develop new hardness assumptions rooted in Kolmogorov Complexity on which the cryptographic tasks (e.g., private-key encryption, key-exchange, public-key encryption) can be based. Critically, these assumptions will lack algebraic and other computational structure that may make them vulnerable to attacks. Overall, KolmoCrypt will provide a new theoretical foundation for the hardness assumptions on which Cryptography is based, and ultimately, a more secure foundation for the Internet (and beyond).

Mots-clés : cryptography,foundations of cryptography,computational hardness,kolmogorov complexity,provable security,computational hardness assumptions,one way functions
Projet ERC : IDeS (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
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 : 2463893.0 €

Inertial Dense Suspensions are very common in nature and industry, with examples including blood flow, recycling, waste slurry transport, additive manufacturing, and energy storage solutions. While they are of great practical importance, these suspension flows are poorly understood. A direct consequence is that we cannot predict even the most basic properties of these flows with sufficient accuracy. For instance, the current best models over- or underestimate the measured pressure drop in a suspension pipe flow by 30-40% for various flow rates. This means that designing or controlling these flows is difficult, as there is no reliable relation between the flow rate and pressure difference (i.e. pumping power) for a given suspension.  Our inability to predict these flows stems in part from the fact that they defy the conventional dichotomy of ‘laminar’ versus ‘turbulent’ flow; they inhabit a terra incognita. Most theoretical studies so far have been limited to confined suspensions in the viscous regime. In the applications mentioned, this idealized approach is not valid: Due to the finite size and velocity of the suspended particles, several inertial phenomena occur, such as particle-induced fluctuations, a gradual transition to turbulence, and shear-induced migration. These are at best only qualitatively understood, yet they dramatically alter the flow behavior.  We can only now start investigating these flows systematically. The opacity of suspensions severely limited our ability to obtain experimental data using conventional flow measurement techniques. In recent years, I pushed the capabilities of non-optical techniques (e.g. ultrasound, MRI), which have opened up this important field. Using unique experimental facilities supplemented with resolved simulations, I will obtain the much-needed data and study the fundamental physics involved in this problem. I will use this to construct a comprehensive conceptual model and then reduce it to formulate predictive rules.

Mots-clés : experimental fluid mechanics,multiphase flow
Projet ERC : BREPOCI (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Central Institute of Mental Health — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CIMH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2290594.0 €

Cognitive disability and decline play key roles in neuropsychiatric conditions but lack effective therapies. Erythropoietin (EPO) is a hypoxia-inducible growth factor, named after its original description in erythropoiesis. We discovered - by 'reverse approach' (human trials first) - that recombinant human (rh) EPO has potent procognitive effects, hematopoiesis-independent. Searching for mechanistic insight in mice, we saw that rhEPO markedly drives differentiation/maturation of pyramidal neurons and oligodendrocytes from non-dividing precursors in cornu ammonis, outside known neurogenesis areas. In parallel, rhEPO dampens microglia. This suggests that endogenous, brain-expressed EPO (bEPO), acting in auto/paracrine fashion, has fundamental, hitherto overlooked physiological significance. BREPOCI will pursue the groundbreaking hypotheses that (I) 'functional hypoxia' is a physiological consequence of increased neuronal activity, inciting an integrated response of many brain cell types and (II) this activity-induced hypoxia stimulates bEPO expression to optimize multicellular brain plasticity, providing substantial 'hardware upgrade'. (III) Also, BREPOCI postulates diverse EPOR in brain and will study their nature and contribution to these pivotal processes upon normoxia, 'functional', and inspiratory hypoxia. (IV) rhEPO treatment of intellectual disability/autism caused by Tbr1 or Zbtb20 loss-of-function mutations will constitute a first mechanistic approach to specific brain pathologies, translatable to humans. This ERC project can build on acquired novel genetic mouse tools (cell-type specific EPO/EPOR mutants, inducible hypoxia reporters, multiomic mice), sophisticated behavior tests, MRI/MRS, multiphoton imaging, NanoSIMS, sc/snRNA-seq, confocal/Lightsheet/electron microscopy, electrophysiology. BREPOCI will illuminate rhEPO/bEPO effects on physiological brain functions and explore how it limits developmental delay, intellectual disability, or neurodegeneration.

Mots-clés : hypoxia,motor cognitive challenge,erythropoietin,epo,erythropoietin receptor,multicellular brain plasticity,autism,cognitive disability,cognitive decline