Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ScienceGraph (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Leibniz Association — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : LG
Type d'entité : Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 447000.0 €

Despite an improved digital access to scientific publications in the last decades, the fundamental principles of scholarly communication remain unchanged and continue to be largely document-based. The document-oriented workflows in science have reached the limits of adequacy as highlighted by recent discussions on the increasing proliferation of scientific literature, the deficiency of peer-review and the reproducibility crisis. In ScienceGRAPH we aim to develop a novel model for representing, analysing, augmenting and exploiting scholarly communication in a knowledge-based way by expressing and linking scientific contributions and related artefacts through semantically rich, interlinked knowledge graphs. The model is based on deep semantic representation of scientific contributions, their manual, crowd-sourced and automatic augmentation and finally the intuitive exploration and interaction employing question answering on the resulting ScienceGRAPH base. Currently, knowledge graphs are still confined to representing encyclopaedic, factual information. ScienceGRAPH advances the state-of-the-art by enabling to represent complex interdisciplinary scientific information including fine-grained provenance preservation, discourse capture, evolution tracing and concept drift. Also, we will demonstrate that we can synergistically combine automated extraction and augmentation techniques, with large-scale collaboration to reach an unprecedented level of knowledge graph breadth and depth. As a result, we expect a paradigm shift in the methods of academic discourse towards knowledge-based information flows, which facilitate completely new ways of search and exploration. The efficiency and effectiveness of scholarly communication will significant increase, since ambiguities are reduced, reproducibility is facilitated, redundancy is avoided, provenance and contributions can be better traced and the interconnections of research contributions are made more explicit and transparent.

Mots-clés : scholarly communication,knowledge graphs,semantic technologies,question answering
Projet ERC : LONGHEART (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Hannover Medical School — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MHH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1816250.0 €

Despite clinical advances, diseases of the cardiovascular system are the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in the EU with currently 50 million people suffering from heart failure. These important challenges call for a better understanding of underlying mechanisms to enable development of innovative, effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for heart failure. Cardiac stress such as myocardial infarction or hypertension leads to cellular “remodeling” of the left ventricle resulting in heart failure. Protein-coding genes originate from only 1.5% of the genome, whereas the larger remaining portion is often transcribed to non-coding RNAs, of which functional importance is still ill understood. We pioneered a role of small microRNAs as diagnostics and therapeutic targets for heart failure (Nature, 2008; Nature Comm, 2012, J Clin Invest, 2014). We now will focus on the larger fraction of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and their functional roles, as well as diagnostic and therapeutic use in heart failure. The proposal has the following interconnected objectives: a) identify novel functional relevant cardiac remodeling-associated lncRNAs; b) characterise key lncRNA cardiac targetomes; c) investigate lncRNA-paracrine mechanisms and the diagnostic and prognostic potential of cardiac-derived extracellular lncRNAs using large clinical cohorts; and d) discover their therapeutic potential to prevent cardiac remodeling in clinically relevant animal models. Innovative molecular and cell-based methods, a unique lncRNA-shRNA library, genetic animal models and availability of large clinical biobanks will form the basis for a successful strategy. LONGHEART will lead to ground-breaking new insight into the role of lncRNAs in the heart. These findings will firmly establish lncRNA-based mechanisms to identify fundamentally novel diagnostic and therapeutic entry points for a most serious clinical important disorder in dire need for new diagnostic and therapeutic paradigms.

Mots-clés : non coding rnas,long non coding rnas,heart failure,myocardial infarction
Projet ERC : MEMETic (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : National University of Ireland — Pays : Irlande — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : NUI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999956.0 €

Despite immense efforts to develop therapies for osteoporosis, conventional drugs that target bone loss only prevent osteoporotic fractures in 50% of sufferers, and the worldwide economic burden of treatment is projected to reach $132 billion by 2050. Recently our research has (1) identified important tissue-level changes in osteoporotic bone and (2) provided evidence that the biological mechanisms by which the cells normally respond to their mechanical environment are altered. However, no existing therapeutic approach has been developed to account for these. It is timely to build upon our important research findings and significantly advance the state of the art in the field of mechanobiology to understand osteoporosis aetiology and ultimately inform effective therapies. A particular challenge for the international research field, has been that most current understanding of bone biology and pathophysiology has been derived either using 2D cell culture, which fails to capture vital biomechanical aspects of bone that govern bone biology, or animal studies, whose biology differs from that of humans. So, existing approaches cannot fully capture, or account for both human biological and mechanical factors, and this project seeks to address this challenge. The global objective of the MEMETic project is to provide a paradigm change for studies of bone disease and therapeutics by consolidating, and significantly advancing, our novel approaches to develop advanced ex vivo models that recreate in vivo biomechanical cues in a living and multicellular 3D environment to replicate the mechanobiological function of bone. The MEMETic models will be applied to advance understanding of osteoporosis and a new osteoporosis therapy (sclerostin antibody). A unique multidisciplinary approach, combining cell and molecular biology with biomechanical and mechanobiological techniques, will enable these important advances, and consolidate a world leading mechanobiology research program.
Projet ERC : NewPhysLat (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : University of Edinburgh — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499981.0 €

Despite its monumental success, we have reason to think that the Standard Model of particle physics is an effective description of a more fundamental theory. In order to maximise the chances of success of experiments to pinpoint the breakdown of this theory, it is crucial to provide precise, ab-initio theoretical predictions to compare it with. One of the main challenges in producing these predictions is to reliably take account of the non-perturbative, confining phase of the strong interaction. So far, the most efficient way to achieve that is to use numerical lattice simulations. In this proposal, I focus on theoretical quantities involved in the search for new physics and propose an ambitious lattice simulation programme to determine them precisely. Firstly, I propose to predict rare kaon decays amplitudes. These decays are extremely rare in the Standard Model and are expected to be sensitive to new physics. Secondly, I propose to determine how to include isospin breaking effects in the calculation of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon and meson leptonic and semi-leptonic decay rates. Including these effects is a highly non-trivial task which is necessary to push the theoretical precision of these observables beyond the percent level in order to provide a higher constraint on the Standard Model. Thirdly, I propose to explore holographic cosmology, an ambitious and innovative alternative to ΛCDM, the "standard model" of cosmology. Finally, all these projects will directly contribute to the development of Grid, the emerging world-leading software solution for lattice simulations. All these projects are strongly pushing the boundaries of the application of lattice simulations and the results will be confronted with experimental measurements within the next five years. This proposal focuses on supporting world-leading particle physics experiments and I will deliver high-impact results which have the potential to uncover new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Mots-clés : lattice field theory,rare decays,holography
Projet ERC : ASYMOW (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : National Institute for Nuclear Physics — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : INFN
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 435000.0 €

Despite its success in describing the sub-nuclear realm, the Standard Model of particle and field interactions cannot account for a number of experimental facts that constitute evidence of new and unknown physics. Sitting at both the energy and intensity frontier, the LHC grants the highest chances for solving the current puzzle. By exploiting the data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, ASYMOW aims at attaining an unprecedented experimental accuracy on a fundamental parameter of Nature: the mass of the W boson. As of today, there is a tension between the Standard Model expectation and the measured value of the W boson mass. A new measurement with a 10 MeV uncertainty, i.e. twice as small as the single best measurement, is a breakthrough: it could either rule out the tension or build a convincing case that this anomaly is real, thus implying the existence of new physics. The collider physics community has been pursuing this goal for decades. The quest now seems to have hit the wall of systematic uncertainty. This project proposes a new approach towards the W boson mass measurement, which will circumvent the systematic uncertainties that are currently limiting the precision. The novelty of the proposed method lies in its agnosticism with respect to the microscopic picture of W boson production in hadron collisions. The loss of prior knowledge inherent to this new approach will be asymptotically compensated by the large amount of data available for the measurement, as will be collected at the LHC. ASYMOW will be conducted by a small group of scientists and comes with great experimental and theoretical challenges. The main expected result is the measurement of the W boson mass with a precision better than the state-of-the-art. This may open new scenarios in particle physics.

Mots-clés : w mass,precision electroweak measurements,standard model
Projet ERC : ConvergeAnt (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1880570.0 €

Despite its widespread occurrence across the tree of life, many questions still remain unanswered concerning the fascinating phenomenon of convergent evolution. Ant-eating mammals constitute a textbook example of morphological convergence with at least five independent origins in placentals (armadillos, anteaters, aardvarks, pangolins, and aardwolves). The large extent of convergent morphological evolution, the importance of molecular convergence, and the role of the host microbiome in diet adaptation are currently gaining acceptance. However, large-scale comparative studies combining morphology, host genomics, and metagenomics of the associated microbiome are still lacking. In the ConvergeAnt project, we propose taking advantage of the unique set of convergently evolved characters associated with the ant-eating diet to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypical adaptation. By using state-of-the art phenotyping methods based on X-ray micro-computed tomography and Illumina sequencing technologies we will combine morphometric, genomic, and metagenomic approaches to evaluate the extent of convergent evolution in the skull of myrmecophagous placentals, in their genomes, and in their associated oral and gut microbiomes. With this ambitious research proposal, we aim at providing answers to longstanding but fundamental evolutionary questions pertaining to the mechanisms of convergent evolution. The ConvergeAnt project will be the first of its kind to apply such an integrative approach to investigate the complex interplay between the mammalian genome and its associated microbiome in a classical case of adaptive convergence driven by a highly specialized diet.

Mots-clés : molecular evolution,morphological evolution,development,convergence,microbiomes
Projet ERC : ONCO-VAX (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : Technical University of Munich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TUM
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499988.0 €

Despite many decades of intensive research, cancer remains a major worldwide health concern and imposes a heavy societal burden, both epidemiologically and financially. Cancer immunotherapy is rapidly transforming the face of medical oncology as an exciting paradigm shift in treating cancer by exploiting the immune system of the patient as the basis for the therapy. Although dramatic results have been achieved in a subset of patients, the responses in most solid tumors have been disappointing. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents a particularly challenging malignancy to treat, due to the inherently immune-suppressive microenvironment in the liver. Oncolytic viruses (OVs) offer an elegant multimodal approach to combat HCC through their ability to cause direct tumor cell lysis, while stimulating immune responses directed against the tumor. Nevertheless, the potential of OVs as monotherapeutics is limited by the innate antiviral immune response, which rapidly restricts virus replication and spread within the tumor mass. Therefore, a successful therapeutic strategy should employ a combination scheme involving a mechanism to improve the intratumoral dissemination of the OV, while exploiting the immune-stimulatory capacity of the virus, in order to achieve far-reaching synergistic responses that can target metastatic disease. The ONCO-VAX approach aims to accomplish just that. A novel chimeric oncolytic virus backbone with an enhanced cell-cell spreading capacity, will be utilized as a platform to express an optimized gene for eradicating the local immune-suppressive microenvironment in the tumor. As an additional layer of therapy, the virus will be combined with a cutting edge dendritic cell vaccine approach to initiate a broad antitumor response for systemic and potentially life-long immunity against the cancer. This multifaceted approach represents an innovative and crucial step forward in the rapidly evolving field of cancer immuno-oncology.

Mots-clés : cancer immunotherapy,oncolytic virus,dendritic cell vaccine,immune checkpoint inhibition,tumor microenvironment
Projet ERC : PEPTOX (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Eindhoven University of Technology — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU/e
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Despite progress in infection treatment in the last decades, the prevalence and mortality of infections still poses a heavy burden over humankind. The development of antimicrobial resistance and the rapid mutagenesis of bacteria that leads to inefficiency of vaccines, play an important role in maintaining infections high level of threat. Even diseases that have plagued us for centuries, such as cholera, still challenge medical professionals and cause a significant social cost. New therapeutic approaches that promise a higher success rate are a pressing need. We recently discovered a high similarity between an ice-binding protein and the RTX adhesin (FrhA) used by the bacteria of cholera to attach to and infect the human intestine. Moreover, we discovered compounds that bind to FrhA and successfully block it, suggesting these could help prevent cholera’s infection. If these can also detach already adhered bacteria, cholera could be effectively removed and cured. In this ERC PoC PEPTOX project, we aim to optimise the synthesis and characterization of the newly discovered compounds and demonstrate blockage of cholera adhesion in an in vitro cellular model.

Mots-clés : cholera,peptides,therapeutics,bacterial infection,bacterial adhesion,rtx adhesin,frha,gram negative bacteria
Projet ERC : RECON (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Münster — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WWU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999375.0 €

Despite the abundance of organic compounds in Nature, only 12 contain fluorine. In contrast, fluorinated organic materials account for over 40% of all pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Closer inspection of the fluorination patterns in these functional molecules reveals striking extremes towards perfluorination (in both 2D and 3D scaffolds) or single site fluorination predominantly in aryl substituents. Consequently, most fluorinated moieties in functional materials lack stereochemical information and are thus achiral. This disparity between the paucity of naturally occurring organofluorine compounds and their venerable history in functional molecule design confirms the enormous potential of fluorinated materials in the discovery of novel properties. That progress has largely been confined to 3 dimensional achiral and 2 dimensional achiral architectures reflects the synthetic challenges associated with preparing stereochemical defined multiply fluorinated systems. A major limitation in the construction of C(sp3)-F units remains the need for substrate pre-functionalisation via oxidation and the competing substitution/elimination scenario that compromises efficiency in the deoxyfluorination. This problem is magnified in the synthesis of optically active fluorides where the deoxyfluorination can compromise the enantiopurity of the starting materials. The principle aim of RECON is to facilitate exploration of 3D, chiral space by providing access to multiply fluorinated, stereochemically complex organofluorine materials from simple feedstock using inexpensive, commercially available fluoride sources. In providing a modular platform to rationally place function on a structural basis, exploration of uncharted chemical space will accelerate the discovery of next generation materials for medicinal and agrochemistry, material sciences and bio-medicine.

Mots-clés : fluorine,stereoelectronic effects,catalysis,organofluorine chemistry,chiral
Projet ERC : F-IMAGE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Université Grenoble Alpes — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UGA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2266090.01 €

Despite the dramatic impact of earthquakes, the physics of their onset and the short-term behavior of fault are still poorly understood. Using existing high quality seismic observations, we propose to develop a novel functional imaging of the brittle crust to clarify not only structural properties but also the dynamics of faults. We will analyze spatio-temporal changes of elastic properties around fault zones to highlight the interplay between changes in the host rocks and fault slip. Imaging the damage structure around faults and its evolution requires new seismological methods. With novel methods to image the highly heterogeneous fault regions, we will provide multi-scale descriptions of fault zones, including their laterally variable thicknesses and depth dependence. In parallel we will image temporal changes of seismic velocities and scattering strength. External natural forcing terms (e.g. tides, seasonal hydrologic loadings) will be modeled to isolate the signals of tectonic origin. This will also allow us to monitor the evolving seismic susceptibility, i.e. a measure of the proximity to a critical state of failure. Improved earthquake detection techniques using ‘deep machine learning’ methods will facilitate tracking the evolution of rock damage. The imaging and monitoring will provide time-lapse images of elastic moduli, susceptibility and seismicity. The observed short-time changes of the materials will be included in slip initiation models coupling the weakening of both the friction and the damaged host rocks. Laboratory experiments will shed light on the transition of behavior from granular (shallow fault core) to cohesive (distant host rock) materials. Our initial data cover two well-studied fault regions of high earthquake probability (Southern California and the Marmara region, Turkey) and an area of induced seismicity (Groningen). The derived results and new versatile imaging and monitoring techniques can have fundamental social and economic impacts.

Mots-clés : seismology,earthquakes,time dependent imaging,faults,earthquake source mechanics