Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : nEU-Med (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : University of Siena — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNISI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

Medieval archaeology over the past thirty years has challenged the canonic history of the rise of Western Europe. First, the collapse of the Roman world in Italy by the 7th century was more profound than had been previously envisaged by historians, leaving rural society, in particular, maintaining comparatively primitive conditions. Secondly, in complete contrast, north-west Europe by stages between the 7th and 9th centuries developed an integrated economic union. Central to this was agricultural intensification coupled with strategic deployment of a silver currency. Thirdly, between the 9th and 12th centuries certain regions of Italy, drawing simultaneously upon connections to the north as well as the Mediterranean, became the economic and political motor of the new Medieval Europe, paving the way for the Renaissance. This project aims to make a paradigmatic shift in understanding the archaeology of resource management and commerce in the revival of the Medieval Mediterranean. The investigation will define how an inter-connected micro-territorial system occupying a classic riverine corridor in an area of Tuscany, first entered the west European post-Roman economic arena, and then, by steps over time, how these contributed to the emergence of major urban communes such as Pisa in 12th-century Tuscany. Drawing upon twenty-five years of multi-disciplinary research by different teams from the University of Siena, the new project, based in Siena, supported by a group of expert researchers, post-doc and PhD students, aims to examine these questions by undertaking a co-ordinated programme of research based upon survey archaeology, science-based archaeology, new archival research and environmental science. These data will provide a model for the integration of this region into the wider European economic union and the micro- and macro-political strategies involved.
Projet ERC : FoodTransforms (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1016625.0 €

Mediterranean cuisine has long been perceived as a timeless constant, already linking the different societies around the sea by the 2nd mill. BC. The geographic frame was considered to be essential, whereas intercultural entanglements as transformative factors were neglected. By integrating archaeological, textual and scientific research, we will shed new light on the transformative power of cultural encounters arising from the intense connectivity between local communities in the Eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age and the simultaneous introduction of food of South and East Asian origin (e.g. pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon). We intend to achieve this goal by analysing human remains and pottery vessels from selected sites between the Aegean and Egypt from the 15th to the 12th cent. BC to trace spatial and temporal dynamics. Organic residue analyses of the pottery will shed light on the preparation and consumption of food (e.g. oils, wine, spices). We will include vessels with their contents labelled on them and then link so-far hardly understood Egyptian textual evidence to the contents, which enables a new understanding of these texts for the study of food. We combine the results from residue analyses with a cutting-edge approach to the study of human dental calculus, the potential of which has just been recognized for the understanding of human nutrition: we will analyse DNA from food traces and bacteria as well as proteins, lipids and microremains in dental calculus. This will give unique insight into individual consumption of different oils (olive, sesame etc.), kinds of milk (cow, sheep, goat) and related products (cheese, kefir) and of plants (spices, cereals), which goes far beyond what has been achieved to date. The linkage of food residues in vessels and calculus will allow us to trace processes of homogenization and diversification as consequences of early globalization and better understand food circulation in present and future globalization processes.

Mots-clés : late bronze age,eastern mediterranean,globalization,food history,organic residue analysis,analysis of human dental calculus  adna,lipids,proteins,microremains
Projet ERC : SiNERGY (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IMDEA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Meeting European energy storage in transport, stationary and emerging sectors requires annual cell capacity of at least 200 GWh in the next 5 years, calling for urgent development of new materials for LIBs that increase energy/power density at lower costs. Silicon, an abundant material with 10-fold higher capacity than graphite, has shown promise as anode material when appropriately nanostructured. The challenge is in producing nanostructured Si networks using simple and scalable processes leading to thick electrodes that are ultimately economically feasible. SiNERGY addresses this challenge by proposing a new simple method for continuous production of nanoengineered self-supported electrodes for high energy density and durable LIBs, with potential performance nearly an order of magnitude above commercial anodes.

Mots-clés : silicon,nanowire,fabric,synthesis,anode,battery,energy,electrode
Projet ERC : LUSH SPIKE (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : Leibniz Association — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Meeting the forecasted world demand for food remains a crucial challenge for plant scientists in this century. One promising avenue for improving grain yield of cereal crops, including wheat and barley, involves reducing spikelet mortality. Spikelets, the grain-bearing units of cereal spikes, usually form in excess and subsequently abort during development; increased spikelet survival is linked to increased numbers of grains per spike. Therefore, reducing spikelet mortality is an intriguing approach to improve grain yield. In barley, the number of spikelets per spike at the awn primordium (AP) stage represents the maximum yield potential per spike. After the AP stage, significant spikelet mortality results in fewer grains per spike. Our previous results clearly indicated that spikelet survival in barley is highly genetically controlled (broad-sense heritability >0.80) and that the period from AP to tipping represents the most critical pre-anthesis phase related to spikelet reduction and grain yield per spike. However, the underlying genetic and molecular determinants of spikelet survival remain to be discovered. I therefore propose this ambitious research program with an emphasis on using available genetic resources. Our specific aims during the LUSH SPIKE project are to: (i) discover quantitative trait loci (QTL) for spikelet survival and grain number per spike and validate these QTL in bi-parental doubled-haploid mapping populations, (ii) isolate and functionally characterize Mendelized QTL using a map-based approach, (iii) reveal gene regulatory networks determining spikelet survival during the critical spike growth period from AP to heading, and (iv) elucidate spatio-temporal patterns of metabolite and phytohormone distributions in spike and spikelet sections during the critical growth period, using mass spectrometric imaging. The results we obtain will advance our understanding of how to improve yields of cereal crops.

Mots-clés : crop yield potential,barley,wheat,fertility
Projet ERC : VIVAVE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GBF;HZI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149858.0 €

Melanoma and lymphoma are tumors that strike millions of people worldwide and require aggressive and expensive therapies. Numerous therapies are already being used or in the pipeline, yet all of them focus on the rapid elimination of the active neoplastic process. They do not provide options for long-term surveillance and deterrence of minimal residual disease, that is, of cancer relapse arising from the few tumor cells that survive the aggressive bout of therapy. Therefore, even patients considered cancer-free upon successful therapy are monitored over decades for potential relapses and condemned to a life of uncertainty. I propose to develop a novel class of versatile tumor vaccines for long-term surveillance of tumors based on a modified virus vector. Our modified viral vector combines an exceedingly safe profile with robust and long-lasting immunity. Several developers have focused on human virus vaccine vectors that grow poorly in tissue culture, and as human pathogens, present iatrogenic concerns. Our modified viral vector system grows faster in animal cells than human counterparts, but cannot replicate in human cells. Therefore, our vector system is generally considered innocuous for humans. The replication in human cells is aborted at the early stage of infection, but immediate-early genes are expressed at robust levels, and thus may stimulate immune responses. Our modified viral vector system establishes latency and is maintained for life in the nuclei of infected cells, where they release low levels of antigen for the life of the host. Thus, it provides a depot of antigen that is slowly released over time and promotes the uniquely strong and sustained immunity. Our approach is unique in its design to provide long-term immune surveillance of tumor cells, and thus in blocking relapses. Hence, we propose to develop a unique product that fills an important clinical need.

Mots-clés : vaccine vector,cytomegalovirus,tumor vaccine,minimal residual disease,melanoma
Projet ERC : MMUVR (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : University of Manchester — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2171622.89 €

Melanoma incidence continues to increase across Europe and compared to other cancers, it disproportionately affects young people, causing a significant loss in life-years in those affected. Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is the only environmental risk factor in melanoma, but the underlying genetic constitution of the individual also plays an important role. However, our knowledge of the gene-gene and gene-environment interactions in melanomagenesis is still very limited and here we will use various cutting-edge technologies to investigate the role of UVR in melanoma initiation and progression. We have developed mouse models of UVR-driven melanoma that closely mimic UVR-driven melanoma in humans and these provide an unprecedented opportunity to dissect how different wavelengths and patterns of UVR exposure affect melanomagenesis. We propose a multidisciplinary programme of work to examine how host genetic susceptibility factors and responses such as DNA damage repair and inflammation affect melanoma development and progression following UVR exposure. We will integrate knowledge from our animal experiments with epidemiological, histopathological, clinical, and genetic features of human tumours to improve stratification of human melanoma and thereby assist clinical management of this deadly disease. Our overarching aim is to develop a validated stratification approach to melanoma patients that will assist in the development of effective public health campaigns for individuals at risk across Europe.

Mots-clés : melanoma,host susceptibility,dna damage,infammation
Projet ERC : COMbAT (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Weizmann Institute of Science — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Melanoma tumours develop in the pigment cells located in the skin. It is the most aggressive and treatment-resistant type of skin cancer as well as the leading cause of death among skin diseases. Moreover, melanoma’s alarming increase in incidence, especially in the young population, in combination with its propensity for lethal metastasis, illustrates an urgent need for new treatment strategies. In this PoC project, we propose developing an innovative tool, called COMbAT, for designing highly personalized therapies for melanoma patients. Each therapy will be based on existing, already designed drugs and will specifically target the driver mutations present in a patient’s melanoma genome. COMbAT involves the use of novel unique preclinical models designed to express patient-derived mutated genes in melanoma cells in a physiological manner. These models will undergo systematic combinatorial drug screens aiming to target the exact driver mutations present in patients. Such personalized targeting of the patient’s melanoma genetic landscape is key to a significantly improved mortality. Specifically, COMbAT can serve as a unique preclinical tool in the delivery of healthcare, from redefining clinical trials to targeted treatments of melanoma patients to start and a wide range of other cancer types later. Importantly, as COMbAT will allow the increased use of specific targeting of molecular drug targets, it will help to significantly lower the patient’s economic and psychological burden caused by unnecessary chemotherapy. COMbAT also holds the promise of realizing value from enormous past investments in drug candidates that were eliminated due to person-specific toxicities or lack of efficacy. We thus believe that COMbAT will enable the creation of new business models for the pharmaceutical industry which is suffering from patent expirations, threats from biotech companies, regulatory pressures, costly drug development timelines, and backlash from adverse drug reactions.

Mots-clés : melanoma,somatic mutation,gene knockin,gene knockout,drug screen,targeted therapy
Projet ERC : SYSMET (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative Biology: from Genes and Genomes to Systems
Entité participante : Telethon Foundation — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2241250.0 €

Membrane trafficking is fundamental for homeostasis of the internal membrane system and transport to and from the extracellular medium. Although we have gained detailed knowledge on the molecular organization of membrane trafficking machineries a global view of its function and regulation is lacking. To date membrane trafficking is often regarded as a constitutive process with a high degree of functional redundancy. However, the fact that mutations of single trafficking genes with ubiquitous expression give rise to tissue-specific human diseases and discrete sets of trafficking genes have differential effects on tissue development challenge this view. Here, using a combination of state-of the-art technologies, we will apply a systems biology approach in specialized cell types to establish a physiological and functional spatiotemporal map of membrane trafficking genes and proteins (membrane trafficking modules; MTMs). To this end we have curated a list of 1,187 genes representing ER, Golgi, Endosomes and Lysosomes (EGEL) around which we develop independent but interconnected approaches: (i) RNA-seq and antibody microarrays to identify co-regulated MTMs; (ii) high-content siRNA screening to define functional MTMs; (iii) epistatic functional analysis between EGEL genes and five membrane trafficking disease genes (TRAPPC2 in chondrocytes, Sec23A in osteoblasts, OCRL and CLCN5 in proximal tubular epithelial kidney cells, and VAPB in neuronal cells); and (iv) studies of protein-protein interactions to generate functional and physical networks centered on the disease genes. SYSMET will generate a unique resource by defining the impact and interplay of the different regulatory layers of the entire membrane trafficking system with important implications for human health.

Mots-clés : mendelian disorders of membrane trafficking
Projet ERC : NEUTRAMENTH (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Vienna — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Univie
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149996.0 €

Menthol is an organic compound which ranks as the world's most popular flavour due to its uniquely fresh taste. It is present in a myriad of everyday products, from shower gel to toothpaste to cooling ointment. It is most widely produced industrially from Citronellal in a sequence of metal-promoted cyclisation followed by precious metal-catalysed hydrogenation. The use of metals in synthesis presents issues associated with cost, environmental friendliness and product contamination. In the ERC CoG project VINCAT, the group of Prof. Maulide has made groundbreaking discoveries in redox-neutral transformations and has uncovered a carbon-carbon bond forming reaction that allows the production of Menthol from Citronellal in a single step and without the need for any metal-catalyzed event. The goal of this PoC project is to optimize the metal-free conversion of Citronellal to Menthol in a single step, to demonstrate technical feasibility and implementation on large scale and to implement the relevant market analysis and IPR strategy.

Mots-clés : organic chemistry,synthesis,metal free
Projet ERC : BIO-ORIGAMI (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Delft University of Technology — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Delft
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499600.0 €

Meta-materials, best known for their extraordinary properties (e.g. negative stiffness), are halfway from both materials and structures: their unusual properties are direct results of their complex 3D structures. This project introduces a new class of meta-materials called meta-biomaterials. Meta-biomaterials go beyond meta-materials by adding an extra dimension to the complex 3D structure, i.e. complex and precisely controlled surface nano-patterns. The 3D structure gives rise to unprecedented or rare combination of mechanical (e.g. stiffness), mass transport (e.g. permeability, diffusivity), and biological (e.g. tissue regeneration rate) properties. Those properties optimize the distribution of mechanical loads and the transport of nutrients and oxygen while providing geometrical shapes preferable for tissue regeneration (e.g. higher curvatures). Surface nano-patterns communicate with (stem) cells, control their differentiation behavior, and enhance tissue regeneration. There is one important problem: meta-biomaterials cannot be manufactured with current technology. 3D printing can create complex shapes while nanolithography creates complex surface nano-patterns down to a few nanometers but only on flat surfaces. There is, however, no way of combining complex shapes with complex surface nano-patterns. The groundbreaking nature of this project is in solving that deadlock using the Origami concept (the ancient Japanese art of paper folding). In this approach, I first decorate flat 3D-printed sheets with nano-patterns. Then, I apply Origami techniques to fold the decorated flat sheet and create complex 3D shapes. The sheet knows how to self-fold to the desired structure when subjected to compression, owing to pre-designed joints, crease patterns, and thickness/material distributions that control its mechanical instability. I will demonstrate the added value of meta-biomaterials in improving bone tissue regeneration using in vitro cell culture assays and animal models
Projet ERC : ProFatMRI (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
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 : 1499565.64 €

Metabolic syndrome and osteoporosis are the two metabolic diseases with the highest and most rapidly growing prevalence, transforming them into a major global health and socioeconomic concern. Metabolic syndrome can be diagnosed with established biomarkers, but the selection of optimal prevention strategies for each individual patient is still problematic. Osteoporosis can be treated, but its current early diagnosis remains insufficient. The two diseases have been linked through the role of fat. Fat is central to their incidence and progression, and the probing of fat cellular properties can provide groundbreaking solutions for overcoming the existing challenges in the diseases early diagnosis and prevention. In metabolic syndrome, there is evidence supporting a role of brown fat in preventing the disease. Brown fat has different microstructure than white fat. However, there is no established non-invasive biomarker to measure brown fat. In osteoporosis, there is evidence supporting a role of marrow fat, in combination with bone mineral density, for monitoring fracture risk. However, there is no non-invasive biomarker to measure marrow fat cellular changes in osteoporosis. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the ideal modality for non-invasively measuring fat throughout the body. In order to differentiate brown from white fat and characterize the relationship between bone mineral and marrow fat cells, the employed MR methodology needs a technical breakthrough, shifting from the state-of-the-art water-centered paradigm to a fat-centered microstructural MRI paradigm. ProFatMRI describes an innovative research program that aims to develop and ex vivo validate diffusion and susceptibility MRI biomarkers of fat microstructure, and in vivo apply them at clinical MRI systems. The resulting technologies will provide novel ways for selecting optimal individualized prevention strategies in metabolic syndrome and for achieving reliable risk fracture prediction in osteoporosis.

Mots-clés : magnetic resonance imaging,quantitative imaging biomarkers,metabolic diseases,metabolic syndrome,osteoporosis,brown fat,bone marrow