Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : HELIMIDE (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Université de Wurtzbourg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 953464.46 €

The introduction of chirality in conjugated organic compounds gives rise to properties such as absorption and emission of circularly polarized light, spin-selective charge-transport, and magneto-chiral anisotropy, which enable conceptualization of new functions. Therefore, chiral organic semiconductors (OSCs), which utilize both charge and spin of the carriers, are needed as new materials to drive the development of next-generation (opto)electronics such as spin-LEDs, 3D displays, and quantum-based optical computing. While the field of OSCs has matured, there is an urgent need for chiral OSCs, which can offer high charge-carrier mobilities along with the strong chiroptical response to transform the laboratory-based proof-of-concept research on chiral OSCs into real-world applications.  The objective of the proposed research is to develop chiral OSC materials, which will exhibit (i) effective chiroptical responses, (ii) high fluorescence quantum yields, and (iii) dynamic spin-selective charge-transport.  To achieve this goal, I plan to develop a new class of functional chiral molecules, namely, [n]helicene diimides ([n]HDI), where two six-membered imide moieties are spanned by an [n]helicene spacer. The proposed research bridges two well-established research fields: (i) planar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons bearing diimide units, which are excellent semiconductors, and (ii) 3D [n]helicenes, which display strong chiroptical responses. The research plan will capitalize on three synthetic strategies: (1) A small-molecule approach to gain a fundamental understanding of the structure-function relationship, originating from the through-bond and through-space coupling between imide moieties. (2) A multi-helicene approach to expand the application scope by taking control over the electronic energy levels and self-assembly behavior. (3) Macromolecular approach to develop homochiral multifunctional materials employing enantiopure [n]HDIs as molecular synthons.

Mots-clés : n helicenes,rylene diimides,polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,organic semiconductors,chirality,stereoselective synthesis
Projet ERC : BeeSpace (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Université de Wurtzbourg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499988.0 €

With ease, we daily navigate through our places of residence. From any familiar place, we can compute the shortest route to our workplace or to our favorite coffee shop. Additionally, we can flexibly adjust our route, if a road is suddenly blocked. This flexibility in route planning is based on a topological representation of different places in our brain (cognitive map). While place cells, a neuronal substrate of cognitive maps, have been identified in diverse species across the vertebrate lineage, a cognitive map is highly contentious in insects. Among insects, bees, especially, demonstrate remarkable navigational feats including taking novel shortcuts, which requires a highly sophisticated spatial memory. Given their limited neural bandwidth, it is likely that insects use computationally less demanding navigational strategies compared to a cognitive map. Such strategies have been implicated in the ‘insect base model’ which is centered on remembering vectors bound to views of the terrestrial landscape. Although this model can explain many behavioral findings in navigating insects, the underlying neural mechanisms are not entirely understood. Due to technical constraints of monitoring brain activity in freely moving insects, it is unclear how space is represented in the insect brain. With neural recordings from freely foraging bees, I recently identified cells exhibiting a spatial tuning that strikingly resembles the one of vertebrate place cells. These ground-breaking findings represent the foundation for my proposal to study the neural basis of insect navigation. The cutting-edge recording techniques, which I recently developed, will enable me to gain unprecedented insights into how the insect solves navigational tasks. Understanding how insects navigate through their home terrain with numerically simpler neural circuits, will help us to reveal innovative ways to design autonomously navigating vehicles.

Mots-clés : neuroethology,spatial memory,insects
Projet ERC : GuT Memory (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and I mmunotherapy
Entité participante : Université de Wurtzbourg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1600683.0 €

A detailed understanding of intestinal T cell memory is crucial for novel treatments against inflammatory bowel disease but also for efficient vaccine design. Th cells induced by the gut microbiota are important for pathogen defence and tolerance, but it is unknown whether they form immunological memory characterised by long-term, antigen-independent maintenance. This has been due to the technical inability of disconnecting T cell induction from bacterial persistence in the gut. The GuT Memory project will yield unique insights into microbiota-directed Th cell memory and its (dys)regulation through uncoupling Th cell induction from luminal persistence of the microbe. Mutant strains of non-pathogenic gut bacteria engineered to transiently colonise germ-free mice will be combined with state-of-the-art adoptive transfer experiments to trace antigen-specific Th cells into the memory phase after their inducing bacterium has been cleared from the gut. With this, I aim to (1) elucidate how the longevity of such responses is regulated by host survival niches versus microbiota-mediated attrition. Uncovering (2) how the sequence of bacterial exposures and their microbial context shape the functional repertoire of such Th cells will demonstrate the impact of lineage flexibility on their protective versus pathogenic potential. (3) Ultimately, successive transient colonisations will provide a novel approach to dissect the physiological relevance of microbiota-specific memory Th cells for the luminal microbe, host protection, and epithelial function. These findings will aid mucosal vaccine design and indicate novel approaches to target pathogenic Th cells in chronic inflammatory disorders. The ground-breaking nature of this proposal lies in the innovation of being able to uncouple microbiota-mediated T cell induction from luminal antigen persistence to understand how T cell maintenance is fine-tuned to promote host–microbial mutualism while avoiding aberrant inflammation.

Mots-clés : immunological memory,host microbial mutualism,microbiota,microbiome,intestine,gut,cd4 t cells,vaccine
Projet ERC : PhotoDark (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Entité participante : Université de Padoue — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UniPd
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1494500.0 €

The efficient conversion of solar energy into molecular fuels has been recognized as one of the grand challenges facing society today. This is motivated by the urgent need to develop affordable, reliable, sustainable modern energy as a way to address the problems arising from the burning of fossil fuels and global warming. Rapid progress is being made in the development of photocatalytic systems that use directly solar light to produce fuels but do so only during daylight. This is a significant oversight, as the overall processes are inefficient due to the intermittent nature of the solar energy source. The next frontier in energy conversion, and the key objective of my proposal, are smart materials that perform photocatalysis under irradiation and, in addition, can trap and concentrate (sun)light to then use it for catalysis under low or no illumination. To achieve this ambitious goal, TENEBRIS aims to develop an unprecedented strategy to enable dark or persistent photocatalysis by using self-assembled materials. TENEBRIS will (i) provide missing insights into light-driven supramolecular polymerization, (ii) deliver smart, autonomous and transient self-assembled materials that perform photocatalysis also under dark, and (iii) establish design principles to be generally applicable for tailor-made (nano)materials with functions unattainable through conventional methods. The fundamental outcomes of this research will lead to non-incremental advances in various chemical research areas (photocatalysis, out-of-equilibrium supramolecular chemistry, and materials science and engineering) and to a substantial impact beyond them.

Mots-clés : dissipative self assembly non equilibrium systems out of equilibrium chemistry
Projet ERC : OriSha (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Padoue — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UniPd
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1138211.25 €

How an organism takes shape is a longstanding challenHow an organism takes shape is a longstanding challenge in modern biology and medicine. Understanding how, during the 3D embryo development, different molecular players, such as genetic programs, morphogens, and forces work together to build the shape of the body is still far to be understood, especially for humans. In recent years, some progress has been made to understand the inaccessible state of human development through models of human embryos derived from pluripotent stem cells. Although they brought very exciting findings, this approach failed in reconstructing the dynamic of the proper axes formation and 3D spatially ordered structure of tissues. OriSha will provide a ground-breaking technology to control over time and space the early stage of human shaping by modulating in an in vitro model the biochemical and biophysical properties of the microenvironment. I will develop a hydrogel-microfluidic system to accurately and dynamically deliver liquid instructive signals coupled with 3D shape-controlled organoid technology to guide the geometry during morphogenesis and recapitulate the very early and inaccessible stages of human embryo development. With this technological approach, I will instruct gradients of signalling molecules by imposing morphogens into the targeted tissues with unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution. To demonstrate the unique potential of this approach I will focus my interest on the development and morphogenesis of the neural tube that is the primordium of the central nervous system. Thanks to my cutting-edge approach, for the first time I will have the opportunity to investigate the correlation between the spatio-temporal dynamics and the 3D tissue patterning and self-organization during human embryonic development. The proposed project has the potential to become the new gold-standard for in vitro human developmental modelling, completely overcoming the need of human embryos.
Projet ERC : HYPMET (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Entité participante : Université de Padoue — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UniPd
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499968.75 €

HYPMET proposes a pioneering research methodology for hyperpolarized magnetic resonance for real-time monitoring of upregulated metabolic pathways in cancer cells and in-vivo and for body fluid metabolic analyses with the prospect of revolutionizing the medical approach to personalised treatments. A common analytical method for structural biology, medical imaging, and chemical analysis is nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which is flexible but intrinsically insensitive. Even in the most sensitive NMR spectra, many endogenous compounds found in blood, saliva, or urine are currently unresolved. HYPMET will establish a ground-breaking technology enabling the detection of body fluids metabolites below the current limit of NMR detection (~μM) and the real-time monitoring of clinically relevant metabolic pathways in-cells and in-vivo; it will enable NMR metabolomics analyses at the point-of-care and will be fully compatible with personalised medical treatments; it will be compact (less than 10×10×30 cm) and will not require superconducting magnets. Emerging methods (e.g. hyperpolarisation methods - HM) can boost the NMR signal intensity. HYPMET will merge two HMs to achieve NMR signal enhancements of several thousand-fold continuously, in the liquid state and at ultra-low-magnetic field (ULF, i.e. <10 mT) for many nuclear isotopes. The two HMs are: Overhauser Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (ODNP) and Signal Amplification By Reversible Exchange (SABRE). The PI unique expertise spans method development on various HMs and development and implementation of a protocol for real-time monitoring of pyruvate to lactate conversions in-cells and in-vivo to probe the state of a tumor in real-time. Success in this multidisciplinary project will pave the way for efficient NMR metabolomics analyses and for better real-time metabolic conversion monitoring directly at the point-of-care. In the future, the technology could be further reduced in size and become a widespread clinical tool.

Mots-clés : nmr,phip,dnp,odnp,hyperpolarized magnetic resonance,pyruvate metabolism,biofluids
Projet ERC : CONTROL (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Université Louis-et-Maximilien de Munich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499991.0 €

Lead halide perovskite quantum dots (peQDs), with their sub-10 nm sizes, excitonic absorption, fast radiative recombination, and coherent single photon emission, are on track to fulfill the increasing demand for smaller, more efficient, and more complex optoelectronic and quantum devices. However, the ionic chemistry of these tiny emitters is fast and difficult to control, which limits their tunability, stability, processability, efficiency, and therefore their integration into future quantum devices. The aim of CONTROL is to create the first generation of tunable core-shell peQDs with fully tunable ligand shells, advancing their optical properties and surface chemistry far beyond what is currently possible. This will be achieved by obtaining a fundamental understanding of the intricate and fast chemistry, and use this knowledge to rationally redesign the synthesis of. To do so, CONTROL will develop new in situ tools, including a robotic synthesis platform with in situ spectroscopy capabilities and isothermal titration calorimetry customized to the ionic chemistry of peQDs. The mechanistic and thermodynamic insight gained with these new tools will allow us to rationally redesign the interface and surface chemistry of pQDs, take control of their epitaxial growth ontop of non-perovskite semiconductors, and control their surface chemistry. We will develop tunable core-shell peQDs, including quantum shells and infra-red emitters, with fully functional ligand shells, including conductive and polar surfaces for efficient integration into QD devices. This will open new pathways for the processability, tunability, stability and functionality of peQDs. Thus, CONTROL will not only deliver fundamental insight into the synthesis and ligands of peQDs but also make crucial, significant advancements in tuning their optical properties and surface chemistry, preparing them for integration into the next generation of efficient, stable, and tunable classic and quantum light sources.
Projet ERC : nanoBASH (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Université catholique de Louvain — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UCL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Daily ingestion of nanoparticles (NPs) is inevitable due to their wide use by the food sector, some as bactericidal agents. But their antimicrobial effects towards our gut bacteria remain largely unknown. While some studies investigated their impact on microbial composition, very few explored microbial functional changes and significance for host health. It is alarming that our gut microbiome, unanimously recognized as central in many diseases, is currently overlooked in nanotoxicology. Among key roles of microbiota, we and others underlined that secondary bile acids (BA), generated by the gut bacteria, regulate inflammation in the liver by interacting with host receptors. We showed in mice that altered BA pool in the portal blood, connecting the gut to the liver, exacerbated chronic fatty liver disease, an increasingly prevalent disorder representing a major unmet medical need.  Assembling the two puzzle pieces, I was the first to explore the impact of some food NPs on fatty liver diseases via the microbiota-BA axis in mice. But BA metabolism differs between species stressing the need to rely on human data. The current knowledge gaps on microbial BA metabolism, the inaccessibility of the portal blood and the challenges in testing NPs ex vivo hamper such study in fatty liver disease patients. Drawing on promising preliminary data and using human-based methodologies, I aim to timely elucidate if microbial BA dysmetabolism and resulting altered portal BA pool drives fatty liver diseases and if ingestion of food NPs contribute to fatty liver diseases via this microbiota-BA axis. I anticipate that the new approach methodologies and mechanistic knowledge derived from this proposal will offer the scientific community a toolbox towards ‘precision toxicology’ to assess potential toxicity of food NPs (and other food chemicals) on microbiota-BA-liver axis in humans, supporting the necessary implementation of preventive actions at both the individual and population level.

Mots-clés : nanoparticles,adverse outcome pathway,bile acids,fatty liver diseases
Projet ERC : BodyCrave (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Université catholique de Louvain — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UCL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1514370.0 €

Despite extensive research and numerous therapeutic efforts, addiction remains a chronic condition for many individuals, with relapse rates alarmingly high. Traditional approaches predominantly emphasize cognitive and neural aspects of addiction, often overlooking the crucial interoceptive dimension, the perception of internal bodily states. Even though evidence suggests that physiological states contribute to the development and persistence of addiction, and patients report intense bodily sensations during craving episodes, we still lack tools to measure bodily processes associated with craving, understand their role in addiction risk, and effectively address them in therapy.  Through a transdiagnostic and multidisciplinary approach, I will address the interoceptive basis of craving. Work Package 1 involves experimental craving induction and self-administration procedures in non-clinical alcohol and tobacco users to establish how interoceptive processes influence the motivation to consume substances and contribute to escalation in substance use severity. Work Package 2 extends this research to real-world settings using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) in patients diagnosed with alcohol and tobacco use disorder. By integrating real-time data on craving, stress, and interoception into network analyses, I aim to identify interoceptive markers predictive of craving and relapse. Finally, a randomized controlled trial will test the effectiveness of incorporating individualized interoceptive feedback generated from EMA data into cognitive-behavioral therapy.  By focusing on the bodily dimension of craving and relief, this approach brings novel perspectives to the aetiology of addictive disorders and can yield breakthrough interoception-based treatments that can improve therapeutic efficacy and reduce relapse rates, addressing what it feels like to be in the body of someone suffering from addiction.

Mots-clés : interoception,addiction,craving,alcohol use disorder,tobacco use disorder,ecological momentary assessment,network analysis,randomized controlled trial,respiratory interoception,cardiac interoception,psychophysiology,psychopharmacology,alcohol administration,tobacco administration
Projet ERC : CECC (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université Louis-et-Maximilien de Munich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

This project investigates how children in three small-scale Indigenous societies develop moral understandings and behavior in relation to different environments and environmental transformations. Communities across the world are experiencing rapid changes to the spaces they inhabit, such as deforestation or changing land use, forcing them to radically alter their ways of life and subsistence. But we know very little about how these may impact the moral development of children. Environments are frequently invoked as playing important roles in the formation of morality, from the immediate home environments that provide the contexts for a child’s ontogenetic development, to the evolutionary environments in which the human species evolved particular moral dispositions, such as cooperation or altruism. But on either timescale, environments are mostly taken for granted as providing stable contexts for human action. To date there is no detailed study of the concrete ways in which environmental affordances and moral socialization interact, and of consequences of environmental transformations. The aim of this project is to develop a new framework for the study of the role of environments in human moral development through longitudinal, family-based ethnography in three Indigenous former hunter-gatherer communities in Paraguay, Malaysia, and Namibia. These communities have experienced dramatic environmental changes and settled in villages or town, but they also still go on extended foraging treks in nearby nature reserves. Comparing these two environments allows us to examine differences between past and present modes of existence and understand how environmental change impacts sociality and morality. Through video-based analysis, ethnography, interviews, and psychological experiments, the international team of researchers will analyze children’s everyday interactions with caregivers and peers across environments, as well as reflexive understandings of attendant moral values.

Mots-clés : children,sharing,cooperation,ethics,morality,indigenous people,hunter gatherers,social change,environmental change,family ethnography,video ethnography,linguistic anthropology,conversation analysis,child development,psychological anthropology