Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ZygoticFate (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : University of Lausanne — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNIL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1702705.0 €

As two gametes fuse, the newly formed zygote immediately represses mating, to prevent polyploid formation, and triggers the developmental program that gives rise to a new individual. My work showed that zygotes of fission yeast and higher eukaryotes bare striking similarities, and here I propose to use this powerful model system to explore the basic mechanisms of gamete-to-zygote transition. Working in fission yeast, where gametes and zygotes are well-defined and accessible to outstanding plethora of experimental approaches, will show how different regulatory mechanisms synergize to execute this key cell fate switch. Our first aim explores zygotic regulation of gene expression and mating blocks. First, to show how zygote-specific signaling propagates, we will identify its targets using biochemical screens. Second, we will analyse how zygotes alter gene expression. High-throughput sequencing will show transcriptional dynamics and genetics approaches will test its regulation and relevance. Third, we will combine microscopy and genetics to reveal the workings of fungal re-fertilization blocks. Our second aim explores roles and regulation of the parent-biased allele expression in fungal zygotes that I recently discovered. While biochemical and sequencing-based screens will identify genes asymmetrically expressed from parental genomes, genetics strategies will test their roles. A structural biology workpackage will show how a simple homeodomain transcription factor drives the bias between parental genomes. Similarities between zygotes of fission yeast and higher eukaryotes hint to the relevance of our work for other developmental systems. By understanding fungal blocks to re-fertilization, which have been previously completely overlooked, we may identify their conserved principles, as increasingly evident for other sexual processes. Finally, exploring the bias in expression of parental alleles in yeast may help explain its recurrence in distant plant and animal lineages.

Mots-clés : cell fate,gamete to zygote transition,re fertilization blocks,parent biased allelic expression,homeodomain transcription factors,micropeptides
Projet ERC : M-PAC (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 161299.57 €

As we push the frontier of particle physics to higher particle energies, conventional accelerator techniques are attaining their limits and new concepts are emerging. The use of an ionized gas —or plasma— circumvents the most significant barrier of conventional techniques by increasing the energy gained per unit length by several orders of magnitude. One class of plasma accelerators, relevant for high energy physics applications, consists in using a particle beam, « the driver », to excite a plasma wave, that is then used to accelerate the main particle beam. Research in this field requires large facilities, due to stringent conditions on the driver. In the M-PAC project, I propose to power plasma accelerators with laser-accelerated electron beams based on 100-TW-class laser systems, so as to miniaturize the so-called “beam-driven plasma accelerators”. The project crosses the boundary of the fields of research of laser acceleration and of beam-driven plasma acceleration. With these innovative miniature versions, the goal of the M-PAC project is then to tackle, through experiments and simulations, the next Grand Challenges facing the field of beam-driven plasma acceleration, bringing plasma accelerator technology to viability for high energy physics collider applications. They include the generation and preservation of the excellent beam quality required for high-energy colliders and next-generation light sources, the demonstration of high drive-to-main-beam energy efficiency and the acceleration of the antimatter counterpart of the electron, the positron. Finally, the miniature beam-driven plasma accelerators open new opportunities to push university-scale plasma-based light sources to the next level, both in terms of brightness and spectral range.
Projet ERC : QUASYModo (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Inria
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1330463.0 €

As years go by, the existence of quantum computers becomes more tangible and the scientific community is already anticipating the enormous consequences of the induced breakthrough in computational power. Cryptology is one of the affected disciplines. Indeed, the current state-of-the-art asymmetric cryptography would become insecure, and we are actively searching for alternatives. Symmetric cryptography, essential for enabling secure communications, seems much less affected at first sight: its biggest known threat is Grover’s algorithm, which allows exhaustive key searches in the square root of the normal complexity. Thus, so far, it is believed that doubling key lengths suffices to maintain an equivalent security in the post-quantum world. The security of symmetric cryptography is completely based on cryptanalysis: we only gain confidence in the security of a symmetric primitive through extensive and continuous scrutiny. It is therefore not possible to determine whether a symmetric primitive might be secure or not in a post-quantum world without first understanding how a quantum adversary could attack it. Correctly evaluating the security of symmetric primitives in the post-quantum world cannot be done without a corresponding cryptanalysis toolbox, which neither exists nor has ever been studied. This is the big gap I have identified and that I plan to fill with this project. Next, doubling the key length is not a trivial task and needs to be carefully studied. My ultimate aim is to propose efficient solutions secure in the post-quantum world with the help of our previously obtained quantum symmetric cryptanalysis toolbox. This will help prevent the chaos that big quantum computers would generate: being ready in advance will definitely save a great amount of time and money, while protecting our current and future communications. The main challenge of QUASYModo is to redesign symmetric cryptography for the post-quantum world.

Mots-clés : symmetric cryptography,cryptanalysis,quantum adversary,toolbox,efficient design,key schedule
Projet ERC : Highland Connections (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
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 : 1499875.0 €

Asian highlands from the Afghan Pamir to Kashmir, Tibet and Northeast India are of great geopolitical concern. Remote, yet thoroughly connected to the outside world, they figure in public debate alternately as sanctuaries for transnational insurgents, as trafficking routes in the global drug and wildlife trade, and as realms of authentic tribal culture. Though making headlines around the globe as independent cases, we lack a conceptual understanding of their entanglements, role and position in a globally connected world. The aim of this project is to lay the conceptual groundwork for a new apprehension of the positionality of remote areas around the globe. It rests on the hypothesis that remoteness and connectivity are not two independent features but constitute each other in particular ways. My objective is to explore the nexus of remoteness and connectivity – a fundamental dynamic that has never been studied from a comparative, transnational perspective. Highland Asia, the chosen study area spanning the mountain regions between Pamir and Eastern Himalaya, transcends the boundaries of nation-states and area studies. It offers a unique vantage point to reveal a bigger picture. The project is timely. 25 years after the end of the Cold War, Highland Asia experiences a rapid increase in transnational exchange. Old trade routes closed for generations are being re-opened and the quest for natural resources and new markets attracts capital and new actors to the highlands. The hotspots of tension at the edge of Asia’s rising powers are becoming junctures of exchange. The project studies this ongoing but little understood transformation in real time. The project will be carried out by an international team of four researchers at LMU Munich. Interdisciplinary in outlook but grounded in anthropology, 52 months of fieldwork will be conducted in 4 transnational settings in Highland Asia. Results will be published in 2 edited collections, 20 papers, and individual monographs.

Mots-clés : remote areas,connectivity,globalisation,asia,mountain societies,circulation,trade,himalaya,pamir,karakoram,tien shan,development,trafficking,resistance,conservation
Projet ERC : RNAloc (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499983.88 €

Asymmetric subcellular mRNA distributions have been observed in a variety of polar cell types and organisms. RNA polarization is instrumental at the beginning of life and determines the morphogen gradients needed for embryo patterning. In highly polar neurons, subcellular transcript localization and translation are thought to enhance cellular efficiency and timely responses to extrinsic cues. However, the functional consequence of mRNA localization has, in most cases, not been elucidated. We have shown that a large fraction of an epithelial transcriptome is localized, yet the role(s) of mRNA localization in adult tissue homeostasis and function are unknown. Moreover, we still do not know how the transcript sorting machinery works, and we lack insights into the molecular composition of the membrane-less compartments that may maintain RNA segregation in the cytoplasm. We will address these gaps by combining RNA microscopy and subcellular proximity proteomics to study the functional contribution of RNA localization in digestive epithelia. Our project will comprehensively map the subcellular space across three adult epithelial tissues – liver, jejunum, and colon. To elucidate the mechanisms that mediate sequence-specific mRNA transport and maintain localization, we will develop a system to tether a construct for proximity proteomics to localized RNAs. We will functionally test the contribution of RNA localization to tissue homeostasis and disease development by disrupting the localizing elements and machinery. Our novel toolkit will enable the spatial mapping of RNA and proteins in parallel, allowing us to annotate the subcellular space and subsequently probe the biological significance of this fundamental process in adult epithelia. This novel technology can be extended to the subcellular study of all epithelia and tissues in general; it will ultimately lead to a more comprehensive understanding of tissue function in homeostasis and disease.

Mots-clés : intracellular mrna localization,epithelial polarity,digestive epithelia,gastrointestinal tract
Projet ERC : ELECTRA (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Bordeaux INP — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IPB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2378948.75 €

Asymmetry is a very common feature of many systems, objects and molecules, that we use in our daily life. Actually, it is in a majority of cases the absolutely crucial ingredient for conferring a useful property to a system, a prominent example being the chiral nature of pharmaceutically active compounds. Chemists have developed various approaches to generate asymmetry, from the molecular to the macroscopic scale, but are still facing major challenges when exploring efficient alternative physico-chemical concepts for symmetry breaking. The global aim of ELECTRA is to propose so far unexplored and versatile strategies, based on the unconventional use of electrochemical phenomena, to generate asymmetry in chemical systems at different length scales. Investigating simultaneously wired and wireless electrochemistry will open up unique possibilities for advancing the topic of asymmetry generation in an original and cross-disciplinary way. We will determine the utility of these strategies in the frame of two major challenges that are: -unconventional detection, separation and synthesis of enantiomers, based on chiral encoded metal phases, very recently pioneered by us; -design and characterization of Janus systems with complex structures and reactivity Carefully designed experiments at the forefront of electrochemical science will first enable us to gain a better understanding of the different mechanisms involved in symmetry breaking. An optimization by exploring new concepts with respect to their efficiency, yield and selectivity is the next step. This will prepare for the choice of the most innovative approaches of symmetry breaking, in view of the numerous highly relevant applications, ranging from analysis to catalysis and energy conversion. Furthermore, due to the interdisciplinary character of asymmetry, the findings of this project will not only have a major impact in various areas of chemistry, but will also be very interesting for physics and biology.

Mots-clés : electrodeposition,electroanalysis,electrosynthesis,chirality,asymmetry,janus particles
Projet ERC : PolSymAGA (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Tel Aviv University — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1514125.0 €

Asymptotic Geometric Analysis is a relatively new field, the young finite dimensional cousin of Banach Space theory, functional analysis and classical convexity. It concerns the {\em geometric} study of high, but finite, dimensional objects, where the disorder of many parameters and many dimensions is ``regularized'' by convexity assumptions. The proposed research is composed of several connected innovative studies in the frontier of Asymptotic Geometric Analysis, pertaining to the deeper understanding of two fundamental notions: Polarity and Central-Symmetry. While the main drive comes from Asymptotic Convex Geometry, the applications extend throughout many mathematical fields from analysis, probability and symplectic geometry to combinatorics and computer science. The project will concern: The polarity map for functions, functional covering numbers, measures of Symmetry, Godbersen's conjecture, Mahler's conjecture, Minkowski billiard dynamics and caustics. My research objectives are twofold. First, to progress towards a solution of the open research questions described in the proposal, which I consider to be pivotal in the field, including Mahler's conjecture, Viterbo's conjecture and Godberesen's conjecture. Some of these questions have already been studied intensively, and the solution is yet to found; progress toward solving them would be of high significance. Secondly, as the studies in this proposal lie at the meeting point of several mathematical fields, and use Asymptotic Geometric Analysis in order to address major questions in other fields, such as Symplectic Geometry and Optimal transport theory, my second goal is to deepen these connections, creating a powerful framework that will lead to a deeper understanding, and the formulation, and resolution, of interesting questions currently unattainable.

Mots-clés : convex geometry,asymptotic geometric analysis,convex billiards,covering numbers,mahler conjecture,asymmetry measures
Projet ERC : COQCOoN (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Sorbonne Université — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Sorbonne U
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1967687.5 €

At different scales, from molecular systems to technological infrastructures, physical systems group in structures which are neither simply regular or random, but can be represented by networks with complex shape. Proteins in metabolic structures and the World Wide Web, for example, share the same kind of statistical distribution of connections of their constituents. In addition, the individual elements of natural samples, like atoms or electrons, are quantum objects. Hence replicating complex networks in a scalable quantum platform is a formidable opportunity to learn more about the intrinsic quantumness of real world and for the efficient exploitation of quantum-complex structures in future technologies. Future trusted large-scale communications and efficient big data handling, in fact, will depend on at least one of the two aspects -quantum or complex- of scalable systems, or on an appropriate combination of the two. In COQCOoN I will tackle both the quantum and the complex structure of physical systems. I will implement large quantum complex networks via multimode quantum systems based on both temporal and frequency modes of parametric processes pumped by pulsed lasers. Quantum correlations between amplitude and phase continuous variables will be arranged in complex topologies and delocalized single and multiple photon excitations will be distributed in the network. I aim at: -Learn from nature: I will reproduce complex topologies in the quantum network to query the quantum properties of natural processes, like energy transport and synchronization, and investigate how nature-inspired efficient strategies can be transferred in quantum technologies. -Control large quantum architectures: I will experiment network topologies that make quantum communication and information protocols resilient against internal failures and environmental changes. I will setup distant multi-party quantum communications and quantum simulation in complex networks.

Mots-clés : complex networks,quantum simulation,quantum communication,continuous variables
Projet ERC : CAPRI (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : University of Manchester — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1615962.5 €

At least 10% of mothers and 5% of fathers have a mental illness. Family, educational and social lives of children and adolescents with parental mental illness (CAPRI) are disrupted by deprivation and repeated hospitalisation. This is an urgent political and public health concern. The Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Europe (CAMHEE) report urges us ‘to acknowledge and attend to the needs of children and families with parental mental health.. ’ recommending better information on CAPRI risks and resilience so interventions can target those at highest risk. This groundbreaking interdisciplinary programme exploits my unique combination of expertise in epidemiology and neuroscience to deliver on CAMHEE objectives for CAPRI. Previous work focuses on these ‘high risk’ children primarily to examine mental illness heritability. In a crucial departure from this, Work Packages (WP) 1 and 2 exploit my collaborations in Sweden and Australia to create unique linkage across 3 population datasets. This will detail CAPRI numbers and a broad range of life outcomes disentangling effects of social adversity over time. But population epidemiology alone cannot reveal how risk creates effects in individuals. To understand ‘how’ to identify ‘who’ we target for costly interventions, WP 3 links the epidemiology with powerful neuroimaging (near infrared spectroscopy NIRS) to discover which at-risk infants of mothers with severe mental illness show abnormal cognitive development at the level of individual brain. This work capitalises on my role at the University of Manchester, one of the leading academic psychiatry and imaging centres in the UK, to create a new Centre in Bioepidemiology. My future aim is that epidemiological profiling combined with NIRS biomarkers of cognition in individuals will identify which high risk children need what intervention. Future work can then evaluate different interventions and fits seamlessly with my research goal to improve the life outcomes of CAPRI.

Mots-clés : children,parents,family,mental health,high risk,resilience,vulnerability,national population database,epidemiology,near infrared spectroscopy
Projet ERC : inSight (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Telethon Foundation — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 42375.0 €

At present therapies for inherited dominant disorders are not available, thus representing an urgent unmet medical and social need. The ERC Grant ALLELECHOKER enabled the PI to discover three modes to generate transcriptional repression by transcription factors (TFs) based on Zinc-finger scaffold: i- synthetic transcription factor (TF; Mussolino et al., EMBO Mol. Med. 2011 Mar;3(3):118-28; Botta S. et al. Elife. 2016 Mar 14;5), ii- synthetic DNA-binding protein (Botta S. et al. Elife. 2016 Mar 14;5) and iii- the ectopic expression of an endogenous TF (Botta S, et al. JCI Insight. 2017 Dec 21;2(24). Thus, the PI demonstrated that transcriptional repression by TFs embodies a novel therapeutically effective mode to treat the toxic effects of gain-of-function mutations causing incurable inherited dominant disorders. In particular, mutations in the RHODOPSIN gene can cause the blindness disorder autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (adRP). The PI demonstrated safety and efficiency of RHODOPSIN gene transcriptional silencing in pre-clinical animal models by a specific synthetic transcriptional repressor (ZF6-DB) delivered to the retina by an adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector (AAV-ZF6-DB). Furthermore, within the ERC Grant ALLELECHOKER the PI showed that a single AAV vector containing two independent expression cassettes (AAV-ZF6-DB-hRHO), enables balanced silencing of RHODOPSIN by ZF6-DB and its simultaneous replacement with a human wild-type copy of the RHODOPSIN gene. The primary objective of the inSight ERC-PoC grant is to support AAV-ZF6-DB-hRHO clinical translation, with the final goal of bringing this therapeutic to patients suffering adRP through market authorization and commercialization.

Mots-clés : adeno associated virus  aav  vector,retina,gene therapy,gain of function,orphan disease