Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : PANEDA (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1036052.76 €

Improved data availability in Economics provides access to richer datasets with increased complexity. There is regularly a network aspect to the data, whenever outcomes are observed for matches of different economic units (e.g. households, individuals, firms, products, markets). Such observations include, e.g., wages for workers in firms, academic achievement for students taught by teachers in schools, and purchasing decisions for consumers in stores. The underlying network structure is often sparse, because we only observe a small subset of all possible matches, say between workers and firms. In addition, we aim to estimate models with many parameters, for example to control for and to estimate unobserved heterogeneity of economic units by including (e.g. worker and firm specific) fixed effects. The combination of sparsity of the underlying network structure and a large number of parameters in the model creates challenging Econometric problems. In particular, there is a serious gap between empirical practice, where applied researchers regularly use such sparse network datasets, and the theoretical justifications for those inference methods that are based on classic data structures (cross-sectional, time-series, and panel data) that do not account for the sparsity aspect of the data. The goal of this research project is to develop robust inference methods for such sparse panel and network datasets. This requires to establish a mathematical representation of the network that allows to formalize asymptotic inference results for sequences of growing networks. Subsequently, new bias correction and robust standard error estimation methods will be developed that account for the sparsity structure of the data. I will also advance more parsimonious modeling and estimation approaches (e.g. grouped heterogeneity or empirical Bayes) for situations where the data are otherwise uninformative for the parameters of interest.

Mots-clés : panel data,social networks,graph theory
Projet ERC : CrispSCNAs (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : German Cancer Research Center — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : DKFZ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 100000.0 €

In 1914 Theodor Boveri described abnormal chromosome counts in cancer cells and speculated that these alterations are the driving force of cancer. Almost 100 years later it became clear that somatic copy number alterations (SCNAs) are one of the most striking characteristics of cancer genomes. SCNAs comprise deletions and amplifications of whole chromosome arms and therefore alter the expression patterns of several hundred genes simultaneously. These alterations show defined patterns suggesting selective pressure, and thus likely contain multiple driver genes, which can shape several tumorigenic properties. Therefore, studying how these events contribute to tumor development will be fundamental to understand cancer biology and develop targeted cancer therapies. However, whereas the function of recurrently mutated driver genes can be readily assessed, studying SCNAs remains challenging so far. This project will overcome these limitations by combining our unique ability to model liver cancer in vivo and in vitro with innovative CRISPR-based genomic engineering technologies. First, we will generate large chromosomal deletions in murine livers and human-derived liver organoids by CRISPR technologies and assess their functional role in cancer development. Furthermore, synthetic lethal interactions generated by these deletions will be evaluated on their therapeutic potential. Additionally, driver genes and driver gene-combinations of amplified chromosomal regions will be investigated using a novel CRISPR/Cas9-based mouse model for endogenous gene activation and chromosome engineering. Finally, we will exploit a novel concept for targeting cancer cells with specific amplifications. Our unique approach will for the first time systematically investigate the functional role of SCNAs in tumor pathobiology, identify new therapeutic strategies specifically tailored for individual SCNAs, and will therefore have high impact for future efforts to understand and combat cancer.

Mots-clés : liver cancer,mouse models,somatic copy number alterations,pathology,crispr,cas9,functional genomics
Projet ERC : BrainDrain (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : University of Helsinki — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2420429.0 €

In 2010, 800 billion Euros was spent on brain diseases in Europe and the cost is expected to increase due to the aging population. – Here I propose to exploit our new discovery for research to alleviate this disease burden. In work selected by Nature Medicine among the top 10 ”Notable Advances” and by Science as one of the 10 ”Breakthroughs of the year” 2015, we discovered a meningeal lymphatic vascular system that serves brain homeostasis. We want to reassess current concepts about cerebrovascular dynamics, fluid drainage and cellular trafficking in physiological conditions, in Alzheimer’s disease mouse models and in human postmortem tissues. First, we will study the development and properties of meningeal lymphatics and how they are sustained during aging. We then want to analyse the clearance of macromolecules and protein aggregates in Alzheimer’s disease in mice that lack the newly discovered meningeal lymphatic drainage system. We will study if growth factor-mediated expansion of lymphatic vessels alleviates the parenchymal accumulation of neurotoxic amyloid beta and pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and brain damage after traumatic brain injury. We will further analyse the role of lymphangiogenic growth factors and lymphatic vessels in brain solute clearance, immune cell trafficking and in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. The meningeal lymphatics could be involved in a number of neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases of considerable human and socioeconomic burden. Several of our previous concepts have already been translated to clinical development and we aim to develop proof-of-principle therapeutic concepts in this project. I feel that we are just now in a unique position to advance frontline European translational biomedical research in this suddenly emerging field, which has received great attention worldwide.

Mots-clés : vascular biology,lymphatic vasculature
Projet ERC : GirlsInScience (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Leiden University — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999342.0 €

In 2012, the European Commission launched the campaign Science: It’s a girl thing!, aimed at encouraging women to choose research careers, as they are sorely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Given that gender disparities in aptitude for specific fields are generally very small, highly gendered skewness in educational choices suggest pathways dictated by stereotypes rather than abilities, leaving valuable STEM talents unused. Many European countries have invested in boosting girls’ participation in STEM through workshops with girl-oriented science topics, contact with female role models, and information packages. However, the vast majority of these initiatives have not been scientifically evaluated. Further, most programs leave untouched one of the key underlying processes keeping girls from STEM that emerge from the research literature, namely daily socialization reinforcing gender stereotypes in the school and family context. I aim to fill this gap by developing a video-feedback intervention aimed at reducing teachers’ (largely unconscious) gendered classroom interactions in primary and secondary schools, testing its effectiveness in reducing gender disparities in STEM in a randomized control trial (RCT), and longitudinally investigating salient family processes from infancy to late adolescence to inform parent education programs. This approach is innovative because it is the first to apply and rigorously test a video-feedback intervention aimed at reducing gendered interactions in schools. Further, the comprehensive scope of the study design is unique because it includes children and adolescents across development in both the school and the family context. The insights from this study will provide new avenues for both research and practice regarding gender socialization. The project fits seamlessly with my expertise in gender socialization, and experience with longitudinal and RCT projects in schools and families.

Mots-clés : family,childhood,adolescence,school
Projet ERC : PARFORM (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Infas Institut für Angewandte Sozialwissenschaft (Germany) — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : infas
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 912512.75 €

In 2015-16 Germany received large numbers of young unmarried male refugees arriving from culturally distant countries and settling in largely non-existent co-ethnic communities. This situation is likely to complicate the process of refugees’ partnership formation. Against this background the project seeks to answer three research questions: 1. To what extent is the partnership formation of newly arrived refugees in Germany determined by the demographic situation, and how does the process compare to patterns observed among the established German population (both majority and minority ethnic groups)? 2. How do social media and online dating affect partnership formation among recent refugee immigrants? 3. How do established members of German society react to refugees’ mating attempts, and how is this reflected in immigrants’ partnership patterns? Whereas the first research question is largely descriptive, the others seek to advance the field’s theoretical and analytic frameworks by extending our understanding of opportunity structures in the age of the internet and social media, and conceptualizing partnership formation as a genuinely two-sided interactive process. PARFORM will (1) collect novel three-wave panel data on male refugee migrants from Syria and Afghanistan and (2) administer specially tailored instruments to two established representative panel studies (GESIS panel and CILS4EU-DE) to collect data on the established German population. Multi-actor, multi-time and multi-level data will be analysed using advanced methods of network, panel and hierarchical data analyses. Through a combination of theoretical innovations, methodological rigour and analytic depth, PARFORM will contribute to scholarly debates on immigrants’ partnership formation in the multidisciplinary fields of the sociology of migration, demography and network studies. Its findings will have policy implications for the social integration of refugees in Germany and Europe as a whole.

Mots-clés : refugee migrants,partnership formation,social integration
Projet ERC : NaCRe (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
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 : 3375000.0 €

In 2070, 10^12 Kg of plastics (polymers) could be produced yearly in a world inhabited by 11 billion people. Hence, we have ~50 years to address this sustainability challenge. The sourcing and disposing of such quantities without a significant environmental impact will not be possible, even if everything is bio-sourced and bio-degraded. Yet, on earth, there are >10^12 Kg of proteins (one of Nature’s polymers). They are sustainable because they are recycled in a circular way. If we exemplify their metabolism, proteins are decomposed by living organisms into their monomeric constituents (the amino acids, AAs); the cell machinery uses such AAs to synthesize new proteins that have little in common with the original ones. This is only possible because a protein is a specific sequence of AAs bound together by cleavable peptide bonds, i.e. proteins are sequence-defined polymers, SDPs. Nature reuses and does not degrade AAs, thus assuring protein sustainability. This project aims at showing that such a circular approach to recycle SDPs is possible for technologically-relevant polymers using engineering-sound laboratory processes. One aim is to show that b-Lactoglobulin, a milk protein used as a component for water filtration membranes, can be digested into its AAs, that, in turn, can be used to form Fibroin, a silk protein used in resistive switching memory devices. Fibroin will be converted into Keratin, a wool protein, that will be converted back into b-Lactoglobulin. Another aim is to perform the whole process within an automated and scalable robotic platform. The final aim is to expand this concept from natural proteins to DNA and non-natural SDPs. There would be a paradigm shift in plastic recycling, if a random mixture of any polymers could be used to produce any other polymer on earth, without taxing the planet with degradation products. Scope of this project is to show that such a vision in the circular use of polymers is scientifically and technologically possible.
Projet ERC : BIORECAR (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Istituti di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : IRCCS
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 125000.0 €

In BIORECAR I will develop a new breakthrough multifunctional biomaterial-based platform for myocardial regeneration after myocardial infarction, provided with biochemical cues able to enhance the direct reprogramming of human cardiac fibroblasts into functional cardiomyocytes. My expertise in bioartificial materials and biomimetic scaffolds and the versatile chemistry of polyurethanes will be the key elements to achieve a significant knowledge and technological advancement in cell reprogramming therapy, opening the way to the future translation of the therapy into the clinics. I will implement this advanced approach through the design of a novel 3D in vitro tissue-engineered model of human cardiac fibrotic tissue, as a tool for testing and validation, to maximise research efforts and reduce animal tests. I will adapt novel nanomedicine approaches I have recently developed for drug release to design innovative cell-friendly and efficient polyurethane nanoparticles for targeted reprogramming of cardiac fibroblasts. I will design an injectable bioartificial hydrogel based on a blend of a thermosensitive polyurethane and a natural component selected among a novel cell-secreted natural polymer mixture (“biomatrix”) recapitulating the complexity of cardiac extracellular matrix or one of its main protein constituents. Such multifunctional hydrogel will deliver in situ agents stimulating recruitment of cardiac fibroblasts together with the nanoparticles loaded with reprogramming therapeutics, and will provide biochemical signalling to stimulate efficient conversion of fibroblasts into mature cardiomyocytes. First-in-field biomaterials-based innovations introduced by BIORECAR will enable more effective regeneration of functional myocardial tissue respect to state-of-the art approaches. BIORECAR innovation is multidisciplinary in nature and will be accelerated towards future clinical translation through my clinical, scientific and industrial collaborations.

Mots-clés : bioartificial materials,biomimetic scaffolds,cell direct reprogramming,hydrogels,nanoparticles for targeted release
Projet ERC : DYNAFLUORS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Edinburgh — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1986650.0 €

In DYNAFLUORS I will develop the first chemical toolbox for imaging in real time the activity of immune cells in tumours. Although the management of cancer has improved over the years, the cure rates for patients with metastasis and advanced tumours remain low due to lack of appropriate therapies. Recent studies suggest that drugs empowering host immune cells (i.e. immunotherapies) are promising approaches for intractable tumours. However, there are no tools to visualise and understand how host immune cells stop cancer progression in vivo. This important unmet challenge drives the ambitious targets of this proposal. Over the past 10 years, I have pioneered the development of chemical fluorophores that allow unparalleled analysis of biological systems. In this project, I will implement an innovative approach to unify cutting-edge methodologies in chemistry and biology and develop Dynamic Activatable Fluorophores (DYNAFLUORS) as a chemical toolbox with enhanced imaging capabilities over current technologies. The cross-disciplinary and ambitious nature of this project will open multiple avenues for broad impact in many areas of chemistry as well as in basic biology, imaging and medicine. DYNAFLUORS will allow us to image, from the molecular level to human tissue, the activity of immune cells in tumours and the response to therapy in real time. This ground-breaking chemical platform will represent a step forward in the forefront of chemical imaging and will create new opportunities in the personalised management of cancer. In the long term, DYNAFLUORS will become a transformative toolbox for monitoring disease in humans. The integration of functional fluorophores into imaging technologies to perform ‘optical biopsies’ in vivo and to create patient-specific drug-response assays has the potential to revolutionise the diagnosis, stratification and personalised treatment of disease.

Mots-clés : fluorescent probes,optical imaging,peptide chemistry,cancer immunology
Projet ERC : EpiScope (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative Biology: from Genes and Genomes to Systems
Entité participante : Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Inserm
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 291005.0 €

In Eukaryotes, cellular identity and tissue-specific functions are linked to the epigenetic landscape and the multi-scale architecture of the genome. The packing of DNA into nucleosomes at the ~100 bp scale and the organization of whole chromosomes into functional territories within the nucleus are well documented. At an intermediate scale, chromosomes are organised in megabase to sub-megabase structures called Topologically Associating Domains (TADs). Critically, TADs are highly correlated to patterns of epigenetic marks determining the transcriptional state of the genes they encompass. Until now, the lack of efficient technologies to map chromosome architecture and epigenetic marks at the single-cell level have limited our understanding of the molecular actors and mechanisms implicated in the establishment and maintenance of the multi-scale architecture of chromosomes and epigenetic states, and the interplay between this architecture and other nuclear functions such as transcription. The overall aim of EpiScope is to unveil the functional, multi-scale, 3D architecture of chromatin at the single-cell level while preserving cellular context, with a toolbox of groundbreaking high-performance microscopies (Hi-M). Hi-M will use unique combinations of multi-focus and single-molecule localization microscopies with novel DNA labeling methods and microfluidics. Hi-M will enable the study of structure-function relationships within TADs of different chromatin types and correlate single-cell variations in epigenomic patterns to 3D conformations with genomic specificity and at the nanoscale. Finally, Hi-M will be used to develop a novel high-throughput, high-content method to unveil the full pairwise distance distribution between thousands of genomic loci at the single cell level and at multiple length-scales. Our findings and technologies will shed new light into the mechanisms responsible for cellular memory, identity and differentiation.

Mots-clés : nuclear architecture,epigenomics,super resolution microscopy,fluorescence in situ hybridization,single cell,topologically associating domains,development,high throughput microscopy
Projet ERC : Feel your Reach (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Graz University of Technology — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1994161.0 €

In Europe estimated 300.000 people are suffering from a spinal cord injury (SCI) with 11.000 new injuries per year. The consequences of spinal cord injury are tremendous for these individuals. The loss of motor functions especially of the arm and grasping function – 40% are tetraplegics – leads to a life-long dependency on care givers and therefore to a dramatic decrease in quality of life in these often young individuals. With the help of neuroprostheses, grasp and elbow function can be substantially improved. However, remaining body movements often do not provide enough degrees of freedom to control the neuroprosthesis. The ideal solution for voluntary control of an upper extremity neuroprosthesis would be to directly record motor commands from the corresponding cortical areas and convert them into control signals. This would realize a technical bypass around the interrupted nerve fiber tracts in the spinal cord. A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) transform mentally induced changes of brain signals into control signals and serve as an alternative human-machine interface. We showed first results in EEG-based control of a neuroprosthesis in several persons with SCI in the last decade, however, the control is still unnatural and cumbersome. The objective of FEEL YOUR REACH is to develop a novel control framework that incorporates goal directed movement intention, movement decoding, error processing, processing of sensory feedback to allow a more natural control of a neuroprosthesis. To achieve this aim a goal directed movement decoder will be realized, and continuous error potential decoding will be included. Both will be finally joined together with an artificial kinesthetic sensory feedback display attached to the user. We hypothesize that with these mechanisms a user will be able to naturally control an neuroprosthesis with his/ her mind only.

Mots-clés : electroencephalography,movement decoding,error potential,sensory feedback,brain computer interfacing,spinal cord injury,neuroprosthesis