Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : FLETRAD (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université nouvelle de Lisbonne — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNL
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Ionizing radiation presents a known health risk, but if used controllably it can be the basis of relevant applications spanning from healthcare to civil security. Either for proper control of the dose received by patients in medical treatments or workers in radiation hazardous environments, or for high resolution imagers, proper quantification of the radiation doses is demanded. The x-ray detectors market represented 2.5 Bn$ in 2020, and flexible/wearable X-ray detectors are seen as breakthrough innovations for next-gen devices. But to date, there is not a detection technology offering a combination of conformability, portability, large active area, small interference with the radiation received, potential for high resolution and low cost/complexity. By using the patented idea of oxide transistors as direct ionization radiation detectors coupled to the knowledge derived from ERC Starting Grant TREND in miniaturized oxide electronics using sustainable materials and processes, FLETRAD proposes a platform tackling all those requirements and going beyond them. It creates the breakthrough market opportunity of having a fully flexible and transparent radiation sensing platform, using seamlessly integrated oxide transistors both for sensors and electronics. The action intends to identify the most significant market opportunities/applications for the innovative platform, fabricate/validate a prototype attractive to stakeholders, develop an IP strategy and a business plan, including the detailed analysis of the identified business opportunities. The work will be done at CENIMAT|I3N (NOVA), in a group pioneering oxide electronics, with full support of the Innovation Research and Impact Strategy (IRIS) office at NOVA. FLETRAD has the support of key-players in ionizing radiation/flexible electronics, contributing to take our ideas into impactful market and societal needs.
Projet ERC : BLASTOID-DISCOVERY (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institut für Molekulare Biotechnologie — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IMBA
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The first weeks of human pregnancy are crucial as early abnormalities or insults result in infertility. Therapeutics acting at the onset of embryonic development would offer huge opportunities to improve public health through effective family planning and to reduce an ongoing global fertility decrease with profound economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical consequences. Unfortunately, a drug development program on human embryos is unfeasible due to the inaccessibility and scarcity of embryos, and to ethical issues associated with them. As a result, the attrition rate of drugs for reproductive health is high for all major In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and pharmaceutical companies.  Recently, an alternative approach arose from stem cells self-organizing into structures closely resembling pre-implantation embryos (blastocysts), which we termed blastoids. Because stem cells can be largely multiplied, this embryo model provides a scalable and ethical alternative amenable to drug screens, thus opening numerous possibilities for therapeutic breakthroughs. Here, I propose to use human blastoids to discover molecules for women’s reproductive health.  Blastoids offer a unique opportunity to establish a drug discovery program for early pregnancy and an alternative to the use of animal and human embryos. As such, this path has the potential to decrease the cost of drug development and to increase the rate of approved drugs for reproductive health. The aim of BLASTOID-DISCOVERY is to investigate the commercial feasibility of using blastoids as a new and highly cost-effective tool in the discovery of therapeutics for reproductive health.
Projet ERC : AI CUrES (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : École polytechnique de Turin — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Cancer metastasis is the leading cause of death within tumor disease and is currently an unmet clinical need. This dramatic clinical evidence requires immediate action in terms of early diagnosis and then pre-emptive therapies, not only for the primary tumor, but especially at the first stages of metastasis formation. Metastasis is the result of a complex mechanism, still under study, which involves the trafficking of biological materials, in particular extracellular vesicles (EVs), from the primary tumor site towards other tissues. The project AI CUrES aims to propose novel methodologies for early diagnosis of metastasis, by gaining new knowledge at the early stage of their formation with a real-time and predictive approach. This work has the future vision of predicting possible patient’s outcomes and helping to set timely pre-emptive therapies. I believe that this is possible by exploiting the EVs specifically produced by the primary tumor, here by colorectal cancer (CRC). In AI CUrES, such EVs will be tagged by specific nanosized-contrast agents and their trafficking in biological media reported by an innovative multi-modal bioimaging technology having high resolution, deep tissue penetration, real-time and molecular characteristics. The collected images of EVs trafficking towards recipient cells or tissues will be refined and further elaborated by artificial intelligence algorithms, with the aim to predict the possible metastasis development from a starting CRC tumor mass. AI CuRES will prove the efficacy of this approach by enabling, as expected outcomes, deep scientific knowledge on metastasis formation mechanisms and demonstrating a breakthrough innovation in bioimaging technologies and digital tools for health monitoring and diagnosis of oncological patients. The results can be also useful in other tumors leading to metastasis and to empower Europe towards digital tools for predictive diagnosis.
Projet ERC : HumanINK (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Aveiro — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Bioprinting techniques, which integrate 3D printing with tissue engineering by using living cells encapsulated in natural or synthetic biomaterials as bioinks, are paving the way toward devising many innovating solutions for key biomedical and healthcare challenges and heralds' new frontiers in medicine, pharmaceutical, and food industries.  HumanINK aims to validate human based-bioinks to produce robust humanized 3D environments with unprecedented biofunctionality for cell culture that fully recapitulate the native microenvironment of a variety of human tissues and organs. Under this project human-protein derivative precursors that can be cured upon light exposure to form soft hydrogels with tunable mechanical properties will be tested and validated as bioinks for 3D bioprinting. Such materials provide functional support for cell growth and interact with cells to control their function, guiding the process of tissue morphogenesis. This platform is the first to offer complete human-based material for bioprinting and an easy-to-use solution to create physiologically relevant 3D in vitro cell cultures, accelerate drug discovery or clinical purposes. The HumanINK will allow to optimize the printability, robustness, reproducibility and scalability of the human-based bioinks. The biological response of multiple human cell types will be investigated and the bioinks will be benchmarked with the main competitors in the market.  Our proposed technology will increase the probability of successful drug development while simultaneously reducing the cost and time of development and supporting animal welfare, reducing animal experimentation. Based on the unique properties of our products, HumanINK represents a unique opportunity to develop materials for tissue engineering and accurate disease models for bridging the gap between fundamental research and drug validation, with a high and broad market potential in pharma companies, clinical institutions, or research groups.
Projet ERC : TCOtronics (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : École polytechnique de Turin — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 77000.0 €

TCOtronics project aims at developing and bridging to the market a revolutionary concept of a low-cost solution process to fabricate transparent conductive oxide-based films optimized for optical, electronic and optoelectronic applications. We will fabricate multilayer photonic structures, for filters and mirrors, and transparent electrodes for visible solar cells and transparent electronic circuits. We will employ only Earth-abundant elements. We will scale-up the fabrication process developing and optimizing nanocrystal inks for printers. Transparent conducting films (TCFs) are very important for many different applications including touch screens, portable and flexible electronics, optics, multifunctional windows or solar cells. The TCF market is anticipated to reach USD 10.2 Billion by 2028 with a CAGR growth of 9.8% in terms of value from 2020 to 2028. It is dominated by transparent conducting oxide (TCOs) thin films for many decades now, as TCOs carefully balance electrical conductivity controlled by doping with other elements and optical transmittance. Nevertheless, the ceramic nature of TCO films make them often brittle and fragile, and also their deposition conditions are not compatible with the printing of electronic components on flexible substrates. This will ultimately affect the flexible and portable electronics sector and hence alternative fabrication protocols are desired. Also the optical properties of thin film oxides are important. In particular the near and mid infrared wavelength range is becoming increasingly important for wireless communication, biophotonics, sensing, or heat shielding. Hence, novel more cost-effective processing techniques are required that replace the current deposition methods of oxides in general and TCOs in particular and that result in similar optical and electric quality as the industrially well-established deposition techniques finding application as transparent electrodes and photonic structures.
Projet ERC : 3DBAG (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : 3dgi — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 60000.0 €

In the ERC project Urban Modelling in higher dimensions (UMnD) we developed a solution for detailed 3D Building models Automatically Generated for very large areas (3DBAG). This prototype was applied to generate detailed 3D models for all 10 million buildings in The Netherlands. Such a digital twin of built objects provides a valuable data source and simulation basis for professionals working in planning, design, construction, energy, real estate, as well as for environmental impact studies on noise, floodings, wind flows, air quality and urban heat islands. 3D models are already used in specific domains, but it takes a lot of effort to generate suitable 3D building models for a given application due to the required manual editing. Therefore, detailed 3D models are rarely available for large areas (regions or nations). The solution lies in the unique method we developed, which enables to generate high-quality, easy-to-use 3D building models fully automatically at national scale to be used without any technical or legal restriction. This will be a breakthrough for the use of 3D data in current and new applications. With the beta-release of the Dutch 3DBAG and the subsequent wide adoption and application of it by industry and government, the effectiveness of 3DBAG has been demonstrated. This PoC aims to further advance 3DBAG from the current TRL6 to TRL9. Firstly, we will make 3DBAG technically sustainable by addressing issues to achieve even higher adoption, supporting more height data sources as available in other countries and to prepare for the maintainability and performance of our method in an operational setting. Secondly, we will explore how to best ensure the economical sustainability of 3DBAG by clarifying the IPR and licencing strategy and assessing the market potentials (extending our current relations), the users’ interest to pay for value added services and possible international expansions.
Projet ERC : HyFiPhotometry (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Heidelberg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Fiber photometry allows the activity of molecularly defined neuronal populations to be measured in freely behaving animals. The method is based on an implanted optical fiber through which fluorescent genetically encoded indicators of cellular activity, metabolites or signaling molecules can be monitored and is widely used in neuroscience research. However, conventional photometry systems are not flexible and typically limited to a fixed configuration of one or two readout channels. We will develop a new product based on a radically redesigned concept of fiber photometry called Fused Fiber Photometry (FFP). This new design is highly flexible and allows the fiber photometry setup to be easily reconfigured to a large number of spectral configurations at low cost. Furthermore, by combining spectral detection with spectral control of the fluorescence excitation signal, we will realize hyperspectral fiber photometry. Fused fiber photometry and hyperspectral photometry have the potential to gain large attraction in the academic research, industrial R&D and manufacturing processes, and in medical diagnosis. The technique has therefore high commercialization potential and a competitive advantage over existing commercial systems. It allows companies to offer a simple, out-of-the-box, turnkey system that can be easily modified and upgraded to meet user requirements. Our goal is to develop a commercializable hyperspectral fiber photometry system based on FFP. We will work hand in hand with established industrial partners to bring the system to market. By realizing HyFiPhotometry in this PoC project, want to exploit the full potential of hyperspectral photometry and demonstrate the feasibility of the basic idea. In the long term, we aim it to drive inventiveness in the fields of biomedical research, medicine and beyond. In this way, we expect to move our product from the niche of neuroscience to a wide range of applications that are highly relevant to society.

Mots-clés : fiber photometry,fused fiber,neuroscience,
Projet ERC : SPEARS (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
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 : 150000.0 €

In any learning situation, be it math education, language learning or sport training, different learners have different abilities, motivations and capacities at any given time. Thus, an optimal learning can only be achieved with personalized training solutions, dynamically adapted to each learner’s cognitive and/or physical states. The scientific literature showed that such states could be estimated from Cardiac Signals (CS). In ERC PoC SPEARS, we thus propose to redefine consumer training apps, by enabling them to propose personalized and adaptive training plans according to an estimation of their users’ cognitive and/or physical states from their CS measured with consumer grade sensors, e.g., smartwatches. The outcome of ERC project BrainConquest should enable us to tackle this challenge. Indeed, in BrainConquest we explored such a personalized training approach for users of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI). In doing so, we developed Machine Learning (ML) and Signal Processing (SP) algorithms to estimate users’ mental states and predict their upcoming performances from their brain and physiological signals, including CS. In SPEARS, we thus aim at adapting, improving and assessing BrainConquest ML & SP algorithms, initially designed for BCI performance prediction from research grade brain and CS sensors in the lab, to predict cognitive and physical performance from consumer grade CS sensors in the wild. Such algorithms could be used for adaptive training apps in education, cognitive training for healthy aging or sport training. We will then explore a commercial application of this technology for sport training in particular, in collaboration with the startup Flit Sport, which sells an app for providing personalized training exercises for endurance sport athletes, based on their past performances and ML. By integrating our CS-based prediction into Flit Sport training app, we should design optimally personalized training solutions for millions of runners worldwide.
Projet ERC : DLift (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
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 : 150000.0 €

Building on the outcome of the ERC Starting Grant D3 (ERC-2016-STG 714221), the objective of DLift is to demonstrate how our technology for reconstructing drawings in 3D can streamline the Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) workflow, and to take the first steps in industrializing this technology. Drawing is a fundamental tool of product design. However, while 2D drawings are easily understood by humans, they are currently not interpretable by computers. To confront their ideas with physical reality, designers have to separately create 3D models that form the necessary input for digital engineering tools. Skilled 3D modelers often need several hours to convert a drawing into a 3D model, at an hourly rate of 50 euros on average, making 3D modeling a major bottleneck that hinders rapid iterations between ideation and prototyping.  The ERC Starting Grant D3 aimed at bridging design exploration and design engineering by offering the first algorithm capable of automatically lifting 2D design drawings to 3D. The objective of DLift is to optimize our algorithm to integrate it within leading CAD software. This objective will be achieved through three iterative steps: 1. Feature development. Based on preliminary discussions with CAD users and software editors, we have identified a set of key features to unleash the potential of our technology. 2. User testing. We will hire professional designers and 3D modelers to stress test our tool, first to make it robust to the diversity and complexity of real-world design drawings, but also to assemble a portfolio of artworks that will illustrate diverse ways in which our technology can be used in practice. 3. Transfer. Within each iteration of feature development and testing, we will work hand-in-hand with software companies interested in our technology to assess how it addresses their specific needs. We aim at licensing our technology to one or several of these companies such that it can be integrated in their own solutions.
Projet ERC : NOVA (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Leyde — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

In the NOVA ERC PoC project, we present a novel class of semi-synthetic polymyxins as an innovative solution to address the inherent toxicity of the polymyxins family of antibiotics. We here disclose the first candidate compounds of this novel family of antibiotics with potential for use as front-line treatment for multi-drug-resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections.  Due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a resurgence in the use of polymyxin antibiotics has occurred over the last decade, despite the well characterised and dose-limiting nephrotoxicity associated with these compounds. Though designated as last-resort antibiotics due to these side effects, the ongoing rise of AMR is forcing clinicians to rely on unsafe antibiotics such as the polymyxins. Increased polymyxin use results in risks for patients and pressure on healthcare systems.  Our novel semi-synthetic polymyxins have best-in-class potential given their significantly improved safety profile and offer a superior alternative to current last-resort anti-Gram-negative antibiotics. Succinctly, the next generation polymyxins we have developed offer key advantages over current last-resort antibiotics: (i) reduced nephrotoxic side effects, (ii) effectiveness against multi-resistant strains with negligible resistance induction, and (iii) ability to be produced at low cost. Moreover, our robust semisynthetic approach will allow us to generate additional analogues in the future.  In NOVA, we will explore the technical and commercial potential of our next generation polymyxins. Specifically, we will validate the first candidate compounds and perform preliminary preclinical toxicity studies in vivo. In parallel, we will evaluate the commercial feasibility of the next generation polymyxins. This entails analysing the market and (existing and emerging) competitors, as well as the IP position and strategy. By the end of the project, we will consolidate the project outcomes in an investor-ready business plan.
Projet ERC : MYSTIC (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Leyde — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

MYSTIC aims to revolutionize cancer treatment by advancing HeloMYC, a novel cell-penetrating protein therapeutic that targets the oncogenic transcription factor MYC. Developed using our innovative reCHEMbinant platform, HeloMYC represents a breakthrough in addressing an "undruggable" intracellular target, combining the specificity of protein therapeutics with enhanced cell penetration and stability. MYC, implicated in over 50% of human cancers, has long been considered an elusive target due to its complex protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions and lack of druggable pockets. HeloMYC is a protein based MYC inhibitor that overcomes these challenges and through strategic chemical modifications achieves potent intracellular activity against MYC-driven transcription in cancer cells in preliminary studies. This 18 months project will focus on three key objectives: advancing HeloMYC's preclinical development; expanding and fortifying our IP portfolio to secure a strong market position; and developing a comprehensive commercialization strategy, evaluating spin-off and licensing pathways. The MYSTIC project has the potential to not only provide a powerful new tool against MYC-driven cancers but also to validate a novel approach to developing protein therapeutics against intracellular targets. Success could open new avenues for treating a wide range of diseases with previously undruggable targets, representing a paradigm shift in drug development. By bridging the gap between academic innovation and clinical application, MYSTIC aims to bring hope to millions of cancer patients worldwide and establish a new frontier in precision medicine.