Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : LocalAdaptation (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : University of Cambridge — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. Cambridge
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999839.0 €

Local adaptation, whereby individuals of a population exhibit higher fitness in their local environment compared to that experienced by other populations, has the potential to shape the distribution of genetic diversity and influence speciation. However, detecting and quantifying the extent of local adaptation is challenging, since neutral demographic processes can leave signatures which are hard to distinguish from those of local selection. In this project, I propose to quantify the extent of local adaptation in Anatomically Modern Humans by using climate-informed spatial genetic models (CISGeM) to reconstruct past population sizes, local movements, and range expansions, and thus provide a null model against which the signature of geographically-localised selection can be detected. In CISGeM, demography is affected by local resource availability, which in turn is defined by paleoclimate and paleovegetation reconstructions. By using these additional lines of evidence, it is possible to generate accurate demographic reconstructions for any number of populations, as well as integrating information from both modern and ancient genomes. Such spatially-explicit reconstructions are key for defining the expected neutral patterns due to complex demography, and thus allow us to isolate the signals of selection from this noisy background with high fidelity. The availability of paleoclimate reconstructions also enables formally testing hypotheses about the drivers of selection, integrating the changes in the strength of selection through space and time. While this project will be focused on Anatomically Modern Humans, the framework that I will develop will be applicable to the investigation of local adaptation from genomic data in any species. Such tools are very timely, given the ever-increasing availability of large genetic datasets thanks to the decreasing cost of genotyping and sequencing in both model and non-model organisms.
Projet ERC : GPSorganoids (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MDC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2799375.0 €

Locomotion results from the interaction between muscles and the nervous system. Dysfunction of such cells results in deadly diseases such as spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). These diseases often show regional selectivity but the underlying reasons remain obscure due to the lack of a suitable model system. In previous work of my laboratory, we established a 3D neuromuscular organoid (NMO) model that allows the simultaneous generation of spinal cord neurons and skeletal muscle cells from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) through a bipotent neuromesodermal progenitor (NMP). NMPs, located in the posterior part of the embryo, are driving axial elongation and coordinated growth of the trunk neuromuscular system. We coaxed hPSC derived NMPs to develop into neuromuscular organoids that form functional neuromuscular junctions supported by the presence of terminal Schwann cells and central pattern generator-like circuits. Thus, we are in the unique position to study in an organoid model the regulatory mechanisms involved in the formation and maintenance of the human neuromuscular system, and the disruption of these mechanisms in diseases. We will (i) identify the molecular requirements for the Generation of Position Specific (GPS) organoids representing distinct spinal cord segments, (ii) use NMOs to model and study ALS and SMA including the establishment of a drug screening platform and (iii) assemble hPSC-derived cerebral organoids and NMOs to include in the model human corticospinal tracts. In the long term, the information gained will have important implications for understanding and eventually treating neuromuscular diseases.

Mots-clés : neuromuscular organoids,nmos,neuromuscular system development,hox genes,neuromuscular diseases,neuromuscular junction,spinal cord organoids
Projet ERC : CRITISUP2 (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
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 : 2188628.5 €

Low temperature matter exhibits a spectacular variety of highly ordered states that occur through phase transitions. In quantum systems, phase transitions and associated critical phenomena constitute a central issue of modern physics. Wilson’s theory of renormalization showed that very different physical systems could be unified under the same universality class characterized by critical exponents. The high degree of control offered by ultracold atom experiments sets them as an ideal platform for the investigation of phase transitions and critical phenomena. CRITISUP2 aims at exploring criticality in superfluid spin ½ Fermi gases where the interplay between temperature spin polarization and interactions is at the origin of a rich phase diagram and a variety of phase transitions. We will measure the corresponding static and dynamic critical exponents, and search for the long-sought Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase predicted over 50 years ago. We will also study the phase diagram and critical counterflow of dual Bose-Fermi superfluids which have emerged as a new paradigm of quantum matter. Cutting-edge Bold Diagrammatic Monte Carlo and new resummation methods, developed in-house, will be confronted to the experiments on the one hand, and provide answers to debated questions on the other. The expected outcomes of CRITISUP2 will constitute a major leap forward relevant for several fields of modern physics, ranging from condensed-matter to astrophysics, nuclear physics, and high energy physics.

Mots-clés : superfluidity,bose einstein condensation
Projet ERC : HYPOXIMMUNO (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Maastricht University — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UM
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2402499.0 €

Lung cancer is the most common cause of death from cancer worldwide with 1.59 million deaths annually and it places the highest economic burden of all cancers on the EU at €18.8billion. These figures call for a major transformation of the therapeutic management of lung cancer. The recent developments in immunotherapy give new hope. At present a significant minority of patients benefit from immune therapy, which remains not curative when delivered alone. It is thus clear that improving the efficacy of immune therapy is needed as well as the identification of predictive biomarkers. Combining immunotherapy with radiotherapy improves effectiveness, but resistance is still common, most probably because of hypoxia. In HYPOXIMMUNO, we will open up a new paradigm in treating metastatic NSCLC. I will provide for the first time (pre)clinical proof of concept of (i) highly innovative CT-based radiomics and PET-hypoxia imaging patient stratification tools and (ii) a tri-modal curative hypoxia-targeting treatment strategy that complements current immunotherapy and radiotherapy approaches. This tri-modal curative treatment strategy is based on (1) high precision Stereotactic Radiotherapy (SABR) to kill cancer cells and trigger the immune system, combined with (2) a hypoxia-activated prodrug to target the hypoxic tumour cells resistant to immunotherapy and (3) a promising and innovative tumour specific antibody (Ab)-based immunotherapy (immunocytokine L19-IL2 to “push the accelerator” with or without a checkpoint inhibitor to “release the break”) to form a powerful synergistic immuno-oncology strategy. In HYPOXIMMUNO, I envision to lay the foundation for the next breakthrough in oncology, by improving patient selection and developing highly innovative cancer therapies that target hypoxia, to improve the quality of life and prolong survival of cancer patients, in particular patients with metastatic NSCLC (watch the animation summarising the project: https://youtu.be/oP9Gp4a0b_Q).

Mots-clés : hypoxia,radiation,immunotherapy,lung cancer,metastatic disease,stereotactic ablative radiotherapy,hypoxia activated prodrug,biomarker,patient stratification,radiomics,immunocytokines
Projet ERC : MEMOIRS (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : University of Coimbra — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1982475.0 €

MEMOIRS focuses on the intergenerational memories of the children and grandchildren of those involved in the decolonization processes of colonies held by France, Portugal and Belgium. Through interviews of this second and third generation, and a comparative analysis of the cultures influenced by the postmemory of the colonial wars and the end of empire, Europe's postcolonial heritage will be reinterrogated, and a new understanding of the contemporary continent will be developed. At the heart of the project is a desire to comprehend the effects of Europe's postimperial diversity through postmemories of colonial praxis. The project is interdisciplinary, bringing together specialists from literary and cultural studies, arts, history, sociology and migration studies. MEMOIRS aims to maximize the impact of its findings through broad web, open-access publications and an itinerant artistic exhibit that captures multiple aspects of the representations of postmemory, and fosters a meaningful North-South dialogue.

Mots-clés : understanding postcolonial europe,intergenerational memories,postmemories,representations,identities,north south dialogue
Projet ERC : MISFIRES (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
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 : 1923780.0 €

MISFIRES opens up new theoretical and empirical horizons for analysing and innovating ‘concerned markets’, where multiple actors’ interests, values and concerns clash. It asks how actors can engage with a market’s failures to challenge its organisation and make it more collaborative, more open to civic values and to social or political concerns. Concerned markets are contested by diverse actors with equally diverse perspectives and value measures. Evaluating such a market’s efficiency is as much of an illusion as redesigning its inner workings on a blackboard. We need new conceptual frameworks to understand how to innovate concerned markets from the inside to make them ‘better’ (as defined by concerned actors), and we urgently need empirical insights into how collaborative action in markets with such social and political stakes may translate into market change. MISFIRES relies on science and technology studies, pragmatic sociology and critical market studies to shift thinking around market organisation from failure and design to collaboration and experimentation. I devise an ethnographic and participatory inquiry to explore how a market’s failures can lead us to markets that are more attentive to and accommodating of the concerns they create. I choose three exemplary contested markets in healthcare (licensing of antiretroviral drugs, Hepatitis C pricing, and the sale of DNA information) and two emergent controversies to investigate the activities concerned actors undertake, and the instruments and devices they experiment with, to re-organise that market. MISFIRES will comprehensively map, engage in, and conceptualise this collaborative turn in organising markets. With this, MISFIRES will guide new academic and policy thinking by establishing how: 1) concerned actors voice and mobilise around the notion that a market has ‘failed’ them; 2) concerned actors seek to negotiate and address market failures; 3) this process may lead to ‘better’ markets.

Mots-clés : sociology of markets
Projet ERC : MONACAT (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Institut national des sciences appliquées de Toulouse — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : INSA de Toulouse
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 146368.77 €

MONACAT proposes a novel approach to address the challenge of intermittent energy storage. Specifically, the purpose is to conceive and synthesize novel complex nano-objects displaying both physical and chemical properties that enable catalytic transformations with a fast and optimum energy conversion. It follows over 20 years of research on “organometallic nanoparticles”, an approach of nanoparticles (NPs) synthesis where the first goal is to control the surface of the particles as in molecular organometallic species. Two families of NPs will be studied: 1) magnetic NPs that can be heated by excitation with an alternating magnetic field and 2) plasmonic NPs that absorb visible light and transform it into heat. In all cases, deposition of additional materials as islands or thin layers will improve the NPs catalytic activity. Iron carbides NPs have recently been shown to heat efficiently upon magnetic excitation and to catalyse CO hydrogenation into hydrocarbons. In order to transform this observation into a viable process, MONACAT will address the following challenges: determination and control of surface temperature using fluorophores or quantum dots, optimization of heating capacity (size, anisotropy of the material, crystallinity, phases: FeCo, FeNi, chemical order), optimization of catalytic properties (islands vs core-shell structures; Ru, Ni for methane, Cu/Zn for methanol), stability and optimization of energy efficiency. A similar approach will be used for direct light conversion using as first proofs of concept Au or Ag NPs coated with Ru. Catalytic tests will be performed on two heterogeneous reactions after deposition of the NPs onto a support: CO2 hydrogenation into methane and methanol synthesis. In addition, the potential of catalysis making use of self-heated and magnetically recoverable NPs will be studied in solution (reduction of arenes or oxygenated functions, hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis of biomass platform molecules, Fischer-Tropsch).

Mots-clés : organometallic chemistry
Projet ERC : MONACAT (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
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 : 2277828.77 €

MONACAT proposes a novel approach to address the challenge of intermittent energy storage. Specifically, the purpose is to conceive and synthesize novel complex nano-objects displaying both physical and chemical properties that enable catalytic transformations with a fast and optimum energy conversion. It follows over 20 years of research on “organometallic nanoparticles”, an approach of nanoparticles (NPs) synthesis where the first goal is to control the surface of the particles as in molecular organometallic species. Two families of NPs will be studied: 1) magnetic NPs that can be heated by excitation with an alternating magnetic field and 2) plasmonic NPs that absorb visible light and transform it into heat. In all cases, deposition of additional materials as islands or thin layers will improve the NPs catalytic activity. Iron carbides NPs have recently been shown to heat efficiently upon magnetic excitation and to catalyse CO hydrogenation into hydrocarbons. In order to transform this observation into a viable process, MONACAT will address the following challenges: determination and control of surface temperature using fluorophores or quantum dots, optimization of heating capacity (size, anisotropy of the material, crystallinity, phases: FeCo, FeNi, chemical order), optimization of catalytic properties (islands vs core-shell structures; Ru, Ni for methane, Cu/Zn for methanol), stability and optimization of energy efficiency. A similar approach will be used for direct light conversion using as first proofs of concept Au or Ag NPs coated with Ru. Catalytic tests will be performed on two heterogeneous reactions after deposition of the NPs onto a support: CO2 hydrogenation into methane and methanol synthesis. In addition, the potential of catalysis making use of self-heated and magnetically recoverable NPs will be studied in solution (reduction of arenes or oxygenated functions, hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis of biomass platform molecules, Fischer-Tropsch).

Mots-clés : organometallic chemistry
Projet ERC : MUTE (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Panteion University — Pays : Grèce — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 34550.0 €

MUTE’s main objective is to investigate for the first time empirically and theoretically the use of music and sound in situations of confinement and displacement from the Cold War to contemporary times. It explores their weaponization in light of transnational developments in technologies of terror. At the same time, it carefully attends to how music/sound can become a tool of survival, even in the same setting in which they are weaponized. Also explored are ethical challenges of such research, and of music programmes for prisoners and refugees, highlighting their shortcomings and providing alternative models. MUTE innovates through a theoretical framework that investigates the interlocking of politics, ethics, and aesthetics, focusing on the ethics of sound and ethics of witnessing. Its comparative approach extends to (post)colonial Cyprus, Greece, Serbia, Germany, Soviet Union and contemporary Russia, Iraq, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. MUTE will critically analyse this complex phenomenon across the disciplines of (ethno)musicology, social anthropology, history, critical theory, human rights law and sound art, since it cannot be fully grasped through the methods of any one alone. The PI’s extensive immersion into all disciplinary components over the last decade, evident in her novel approach, ensures the successful implementation of research objectives. MUTE’s findings and results will transform scientific discourse, changing current perceptions about music’s social function. This historical recovery is important in revisiting and assessing detention-related policies and current definitions of torture. Given recent mass asylum seeking in Europe and the growing number of music research projects with refugees, it will offer the needed ethical, methodological and theoretical foundations for present and future research, ensuring the well-being of participants and researchers, research excellence, and critically nuanced scholarship.

Mots-clés : musicology,ethnomusicology,trauma studies,sound studies,social anthropology,ethics,witnessing,trauma memory,detention,displacement,acoustic violence,torture,aesthetics,research based art
Projet ERC : ScaleML (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Institute of Science and Technology Austria — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ISTA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1494121.0 €

Machine learning and data science are areas of tremendous progress over the last decade, leading to exciting research developments, and significant practical impact. Broadly, progress in this area has been enabled by the rapidly increasing availability of data, by better algorithms, and by large-scale platforms enabling efficient computation on immense datasets. While it is reasonable to expect that the first two trends will continue for the foreseeable future, the same cannot be said of the third trend, of continually increasing computational performance. Increasing computational demands place immense pressure on algorithms and systems to scale, while the performance limits of traditional computing paradigms are becoming increasingly apparent. Thus, the question of building algorithms and systems for scalable machine learning is extremely pressing. The project will take a decisive step to answer this challenge, developing new abstractions, algorithms and system support for scalable machine learning. In a nutshell, the line of approach is elastic coordination: allowing machine learning algorithms to approximate and/or randomize their synchronization and communication semantics, in a structured, controlled fashion, to achieve scalability. The project exploits the insight that many such algorithms are inherently stochastic, and hence robust to inconsistencies. My thesis is that elastic coordination can lead to significant, consistent performance improvements across a wide range of applications, while guaranteeing provably correct answers. ScaleML will apply elastic coordination to two specific relevant scenarios: scalability inside a single multi-threaded machine, and scalability across networks of machines. Conceptually, the project’s impact is in providing a set of new design principles and algorithms for scalable computation. It will develop these insights into a set of tools and working examples for scalable distributed machine learning.

Mots-clés : machine learning,distributed systems,distributed algorithms