Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : NORIA (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
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 : 1996720.0 €

Optimal Transport (OT) theory provides a powerful framework to manipulate probability distributions using simple and intuitive geometric principles. OT distances compare favorably to all other alternatives, notably Euclidean metrics or information divergences, whose outputs are particularly sensitive to changes in quantization and are not suitable to compare point clouds. Because of these and many more favorable properties, OT should be a standard tool in imaging sciences where probability distributions are routinely used. However, at this time, OT is but a confidential tool restricted to niche applications. OT is barely used because it is complex mathematically, which hinders its dissemination in more applied fields, and because it consumes substantial computational resources when used naively. NORIA will address these two bottlenecks and develop the next generation of theoretical, numerical and algorithmic advances to enable large-scale optimal transport computations in imag- ing sciences. The algorithms developed by NORIA will rely on several mathematical breakthroughs: highly parallelizable entropic regularization schemes, Bregman stochastic optimization and gradient flows for metric spaces. They will be implemented using fast optimization codes that will be interfaced through a high-level, easy to use, scripting language. These algorithms will have far reaching applications in imaging sciences and data science in a broad sense. In particular, they will be used in three flagship applications: color and material processing in computer graphics, texture analysis and synthesis in computer vision, and exploration of the visual cortex in neuroimaging. NORIA’s members are key players in the European mathematical school of optimal transport, which is very strong. NORIA is the unique opportunity to give a computational and practical embodiment to this wealth of theoretical knowledge.

Mots-clés : imaging sciences,optimal transport,histograms,neuroimaging,convex optimization
Projet ERC : INFRADOT (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Institute of Photonic Sciences — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ICFO;ICFO-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2864562.0 €

Optoelectronics – sensing and light emission – in the mid and long-wave infrared (MWIR/LWIR) carry a very large informational dataset of our environment and has created a huge impact on safety and security, quality control, environmental monitoring, imaging, just to name a few sectors. To date, the available optoelectronic materials and technologies developed to serve this very important part of spectrum have been based on high cost and fragmented solutions, curtailing their introduction to a broad market use and unleash of their potential. INFRADOT will address this challenge by developing groundbreaking, lowcost, highly efficient material and device platforms operating in this so far under-exploited part of spectrum. In order to overcome the fundamental constraints arising from the bandgap of available materials, INFRADOT will lead to a paradigm shift in colloidal quantum dot (CQD) technology, by making a leap from - the so far used - interband transitions to intraband transitions. In order to make efficient use of intraband transitions in CQDs, INFRADOT will address several fundamental challenges. It will: i) Make significant advances towards robust heavy doping schemes in CQDs, ii) Explore and control the intraband relaxation pathways by surface and quantum-dot structure engineering at the atomic scale, iii) Shed new insights on charge transport in heavily-doped, electronically coupled CQD films. Capitalizing on these advances and engineering the energetic potential landscape at the nanoscale in heterogeneous CQD and CQD-in-perovskite solids, INFRADOT will create new optoelectronic device architectures to harness efficiently intraband transitions for highly performant, low-cost photodetectors, light emitters and bolometers. The advances made in this project will lead to a new disruptive technology for the MWIR/LWIR, as well as provide extremely important directions in other fields that utilize hot carriers, for catalysis and energy harvesting applications.

Mots-clés : colloidal quantum dots,infrared,photodetectors,light emitters,optoelectronics
Projet ERC : Rethyming (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1347082.67 €

Organ transplantation has revolutionized medicine as it became possible to replace an irreversibly diseased organ. However, the immune suppressive therapy to avoid rejection is associated to life-threatening complications. Finding a way to selectively induce tolerance to donor antigens, while maintaining immunity to pathogens and cancer antigens would represent a major breakthrough in medicine with the achievement of immunosuppression-free organ transplantation. During development and early life immune T cell competence and central tolerance are specified in the thymus; thus I aim to dissect the complexity of this organ by rebuilding it in a controlled fashion ex vivo. In a first step, a natural scaffold will be prepared from fresh human and animal thymi by perfusion decellularization; subsequently cultivated human thymic epithelial cells (TECs) will be used for re-epithelialization of the a-cellular scaffolds. Finally, immature lymphocytes from an HLA-mismatched donor will be delivered to the thymus-scaffolds through the preserved vascular extracellular matrix structures and cultured in a customized bioreactor in optimized conditions for T cell differentiation and tolerance induction. Detailed phenotypic and functional analyses will be performed to identify the frequency of mature T cell subsets, including Tregs, and assess the level of tolerance to the HLA antigens expressed by TECs. Finally, the possibility of re-epithelializing scaffolds with pig TECs will allow testing its interaction in vivo in the context of organ transplantation, providing the very first proof of principle that it may be possible to achieve antigen-specific tolerance and avoid rejection without the need for generic immunosuppressive therapy. Overall, this project takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of tolerance by combining stem cell biology, bioengineering technologies, a deep knowledge of immunity and tolerance mechanisms in transplantation for a rapid clinical translation.

Mots-clés : bioengineering
Projet ERC : VIBCONTROL (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of Cambridge — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : U. Cambridge
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 6289.79 €

Organic electronics (OE) is an expanding research field that exploits the electronic functionalities of organic molecules to make them robust and cost-efficient building blocks for future electronic devices. Due to the ‘soft’ character of organic materials, their electronic properties are defined by vibronic coupling (VC) phenomena which are a result of the interaction between electron and nuclear dynamics of the molecule. This research program aims to unlock a new direction of experimental studies investigating and exploiting VC in OE devices by using optical control of nuclear motion. The growing awareness that VC underlies diverse phenomena from physics to biology stimulates a broad interdisciplinary effort to address this issue. However, in the field of OE, the lack of synergy between device and optical studies holds the potential functionality offered by VC effects from being attained. In 2012, I proposed a direct route to control the performance of OE devices by optically switching the vibronic states of the molecules. Though this work came specifically in connection with organic photovoltaics, it provides the starting point for a more fundamental and broad reaching of VC phenomena. The proposed research program will use this opportunity. I will apply state-of-the-art developments in infrared light shaping to create a well-defined coherent superposition of molecular vibrational motions inside devices and study their influence on electron dynamics with device-specific spectroscopic techniques. This approach combines recent advances in ultrafast spectroscopy and OE to extend our fundamental understanding of molecular charge transport. Our methodology will become a tool for elucidating current pathways in organic nanodevices and offer access to non-equilibrium phenomena down to the level of molecular junctions. This research will lead to the development of new design rules for OE materials serving future advances in molecular electronics, computing and sensing.

Mots-clés : ultrafast spectroscopy,molecular junctions,bio electronics,ir spectoscopy,organic photovoltaics,charge transport,vibronic coupling
Projet ERC : CYCLODE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative Biology: from Genes and Genomes to Systems
Entité participante : Friedrich Miescher Institute — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FMI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2358625.0 €

Organismal development requires proper timing of events such as cell fate choices, but the mechanisms that control temporal patterning remain poorly understood. In particular, we know little of the cyclical timers, or ‘clocks’, that control recurring events such as vertebrate segmentation or nematode molting. Furthermore, it is unknown how cyclical timers are coordinated with the global, or linear, timing of development, e.g. to ensure an appropriate number of cyclical repeats. We propose to elucidate the components, wiring, and properties of a prototypic developmental clock by studying developmental timing in the roundworm C. elegans. We build on our recent discovery that nearly 20% of the worm’s transcriptome oscillates during larval development – an apparent manifestation of a clock that times the various recurring events that encompass each larval stage. Our aims are i) to identify components of this clock using genetic screens, ii) to gain insight into the system’s architecture and properties by employing specific perturbations such as food deprivation, and iii) to understand the coupling of this cyclic clock to the linear heterochronic timer through genetic manipulations. To achieve our ambitious goals, we will develop tools for mRNA sequencing of individual worms and and for their developmental tracking and microchamber-based imaging. These important advances will increase temporal resolution, enhance signal-to-noise ratio, and achieve live tracking of oscillations in vivo. Our combination of genetic, genomic, imaging, and computational approaches will provide a detailed understanding of this clock, and biological timing mechanisms in general. As heterochronic genes and rhythmic gene expression are also important for controlling stem cell fates, we foresee that the results gained will additionally reveal regulatory mechanisms of stem cells, thus advancing our fundamental understanding of animal development and future applications in regenerative medicine.

Mots-clés : developmental timing,postembryonic development,model organism
Projet ERC : TranslationRegCode (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative Biology: from Genes and Genomes to Systems
Entité participante : Technion – Israel Institute of Technology — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1587500.0 €

Organisms across all kingdoms share several systems that are essential to life, one of the most central being protein synthesis. Living in a continuously changing environment, cells need to constantly respond to various environmental cues and change their protein landscape. In extreme cases, cells globally shut down protein synthesis and upregulate stress-protective proteins. Mechanisms of translational repression or selective enhancement of stress-induced proteins have been characterized, but their effects were demonstrated on an individual mRNA basis. Which target mRNAs are translationally regulated in response to different environmental cues, and what are the cis-regulatory elements involved, largely remain as open questions. Using ribosome footprint profiling, I recently discovered a novel mode of translational control in stress, underscoring the potential of new technologies to uncover novel regulatory mechanisms. But while transcription cis-regulatory elements have been thoroughly mapped in the past decade, and splicing regulatory elements are accumulating, the identification of translation cis-regulatory elements is lagging behind. Here I propose to crack the mammalian translation regulatory code, and close this long-standing gap. I present a novel interdisciplinary framework to comprehensively identify translation cis-regulatory elements, and map their mRNAs targets in a variety of cellular perturbations. Importantly, we plan to explore mechanisms underlying novel cis-regulatory elements, and create the first genome-wide functionally annotated translation regulatory code. The translation regulatory code will map targets of existing mechanisms and shed light on newly identified pathways that play a role in stress-induced translational control. The proposed project is an imperative stepping stone to understanding translational regulation by cis-regulatory elements, opening new avenues in the functional genomics research of translational control.

Mots-clés : translation,translational regulation,regulation,cis regulatory elements
Projet ERC : LIFETimeS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : University of Pisa — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UniPi
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2400000.0 €

Organisms of all domains of life are capable of sensing, using and responding to light. The molecular mechanisms used are diverse, but most commonly the starting event is an electronic excitation localized on a chromophoric unit bound to a protein matrix. The initial excitation rapidly “travels” across space to be converted in other forms of energy and finally used to complete the biological function. The whole machinery spans many different space and time scales: from the ultrafast electronic process localized at the subnanoscale of the chromophoric units, through conformational processes which involve large parts of the protein and are completed within micro- to milli-seconds, up to the activation of new protein-protein interactions requiring seconds or more. Theoretically addressing this cascade of processes calls for new models and computational strategies able to reproduce the dynamics across multiple space and time scales. Such a goal is formidably challenging as the interactions and the dynamics involved at each scale follow completely different laws, from those of the quantum world to those of classical particles. Only a strategy based upon the integration of quantum chemistry, classical atomistic and coarse-grained models up to continuum approximations, can achieve the required completeness of description. This project aims at developing such integration and transforming it into high-performance computing codes. The completeness and accuracy reached by the simulations will represent a breakthrough in our understanding of the mechanisms, which govern the light-driven bioactivity. Through this novel point of observation of the action from the “inside”, it will be possible not only to reveal the ‘design principles’ used by Nature but also to give a “practical” instrument to test “in silico” new techniques for the control of cellular processes by manipulating protein functions through light.

Mots-clés : photoprotection,photosensing,quantum chemistry,hybrid qm,classical models,nonadiabatic dynamics,classical molecular dynamics,molecular docking,continuum solvation models
Projet ERC : QUCUBE (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Synergy grants)
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 : 3010143.75 €

Originally conceived to describe the microscopic world of atoms and elementary particles, the theory of quantum mechanics has eventually served to predict macroscopic phenomena, e.g. the electrical and optical properties of semiconductors, resulting a wide range of technological applications that have changed our way of living. Foundational properties like quantum superposition and entanglement, however, have remained essentially unexploited. Their use may allow achieving computational powers inaccessible to classical digital computers, opening unprecedented opportunities. In a quantum computer, the elementary bits of information are encoded onto two-level quantum systems called qubits. Since qubits interact with the uncontrolled degrees of freedom of their environment, the evolution of their quantum states can become quickly unpredictable, leading to a reduced qubit fidelity. In topological quantum computing schemes, e.g. the surface code, the reduced fidelity is compensated by using decoherence-free logical qubits consisting of a large number (~103) of entangled physical qubits. As a result, a useful quantum processor should host at least millions of qubits. Although dauntingly large, this number is still small as compared to the number of transistors in a modern silicon microprocessors. QuCube leverages industrial-level silicon technology to realize a quantum processor containing hundreds of spin qubits confined to a two-dimensional array of electrostatically defined silicon quantum dots. To face the challenge of addressing the qubits individually, we use a three-dimensional architecture purposely designed to accommodate, on separated planes, the charge sensing devices necessary for qubit readout, and the metal gate lines for the electrical control and measurement. The gate lines are operated according to a multiplexing principle, enabling a scalable wiring layout. We shall implement fault-tolerant logical qubits and quantum simulations of complex Hamiltonians

Mots-clés : nanoelectronics,quantum computing,scalability,silicon,cmos devices  complementary metal oxide semiconductors devices
Projet ERC : JointPrinting (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Trinity College Dublin — Pays : Irlande — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TCD
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999700.0 €

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a serious disease of the joints affecting nearly 10% of the population worldwide. Realising an efficacious therapeutic solution for treating OA remains one of the greatest challenges in the field of orthopaedic medicine. This proposal envisions a future where 3D bioprinting systems located in hospitals will provide ‘off-the-shelf’, patient-specific biological implants to treat diseases such as OA. To realise this vision, this project will use 3D bioprinting to generate anatomically accurate, biomimetic constructs that can be used to regenerate both the cartilage and bone in a diseased joint. The first aim of this proposal is to print a mesenchymal stem cell laden biomaterial that is both immediately load bearing and can facilitate the regeneration of articular cartilage in vivo, such that the bioprinted construct will not require in vitro maturation prior to implantation. Mechanical function will be realised by integrating an interpenetrating network hydrogel into a 3D printed polymeric scaffold, while chondro-inductivity will be enhanced by the spatially-defined incorporation of cartilage extracellular matrix components and chondrogenic growth factors into the bioprinted construct. The second aim of the proposal is to use 3D bioprinting to create a cell-free, composite construct to facilitate regeneration of the bony region of a large osteochondral defect, where vascularization will be accelerated by immobilizing spatial gradients of vascular endothelial growth factor into the implant. The third aim of the proposal is to scale-up the proposed 3D bioprinted construct to enable whole joint regeneration. Finite element modelling will be used determine the optimal structural characteristics of the scaled-up implant for it to fulfil its required mechanical function. If successful, such an implant would form the basis of a truly transformative therapy for treating degenerative joint disease.

Mots-clés : tissue engineering,articular cartilage,mesenchymal stem cells
Projet ERC : OAlipotherapy (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Weizmann Institute of Science — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most widespread joint disease, affecting millions and imposing a huge individual and socio-economic burden. The creation of liposomes functionalised with novel (IP-protected) molecules that greatly extend (by almost an order of magnitude) their half-life in joints following IA injection, relative to existing approaches, and the alleviation of OA that may arise through exploiting this longer retention, is the basis of this proof of concept project. The main innovation step is functionalizing liposomes with our novel molecules to provide much longer retention drug-delivery vehicles, which therefore provide greater benefits in therapy relative to existing approaches, and so should be preferred by patients. Its practical implementation, to advance and investigate the potential for long-retention IA drug-delivery and other uses, will be carried out both through validation on animals (proof-of-concept), through suitable pre-commercialisation studies, networking and identifying potential partners, and developing a business plan. Hence, we propose to validate the concept of creating new products that will be available commercially for IA delivery, implementing the long-retention in the joints which greatly enhances their usefulness and which is the basis of the present innovation step.

Mots-clés : liposomic drug delivery vehicles,intra articular injection,retention time