Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : G-WIN-TEM (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Manchester — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

This project aims to revolutionize in-situ gas cell transmission electron microscopy (TEM) by scaling up the novel in-situ cells that have been pioneered in the EvoluTEM Starting grant. Traditional commercially available gas cells limit TEM imaging resolution and spectroscopy due to significant electron scattering. The EvoluTEM project has demonstrated a proof of principle cell design which reduces the electron scattering and hence provides opportunities for TEM experiments with greatly improved imaging of atomic structure and spectral analysis of local changes in oxidation state or elemental distribution. This research project will scale up the gas cell fabrication process, validating its performance in key applications and ensuring its compatibility with commercial TEM in-situ holder systems. The overall aim of this project is to provide the wider scientific and industrial TEM community with environmental cells that provide a step change in the performance of their existing in-situ technology. This will be vital for improved understanding of nanomaterials and catalysts under relevant environmental conditions, thereby accelerating the development of improved materials for applications such as sustainable energy generation, healthcare and new communication technologies.

Mots-clés : transmission electron microscopy,gas cell,in situ
Projet ERC : SonoMYC (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : CERCA Institution — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CERCA;I-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Brain tumours and brain metastases pose a significant therapeutic challenge due to limited treatment options, fatally linked to high morbidity and mortality. Treatment of these cancers is hindered by the presence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB), that restricts the free passage of molecules larger than 400 daltons, reducing the effectiveness of therapeutically impermeable compounds. While deregulation of the MYC oncogene is a main feature of these cancers, to date, effective and clinically-viable, BBB-permeable MYC inhibitors are lacking. This project proposes to combine Omomyc (OMO-103), developed in our laboratory and the best characterized, direct MYC inhibitor, with Carthera's SonoCloud technology, which temporarily disrupts the BBB using ultrasound. Omomyc is currently under clinical evaluation for other systemic aggressive cancers, under the sponsorship of Peptomyc, a spin-off from our lab, focusing on clinical application of our inhibitors. This new investigation will establish the feasibility and viability of its commercial development into a disruptive novel treatment for primary and metastatic brain tumours. This combination aims to enhance OMO-103 delivery to the brain, to improve its therapeutic efficacy and reducing any potential systemic side effects. The synergy between these technologies has the potential to generate new intellectual properties, facilitate technology transfers, and address a growing market for brain tumour therapies. By overcoming the BBB challenge and directly targeting MYC, this approach could significantly impact brain cancer treatment and create new commercial opportunities.
Projet ERC : InterictalSleepDetct (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Tel Aviv — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Interictal epileptic discharges (IEDs) are pathological brain activities involving sharp spikes in electrical field potentials that occur preferentially during sleep. In epilepsy, IEDs occur between seizures, and often in deep brain regions such as the medial temporal lobe (MTL).IEDs during sleep disrupt memory and are associated with cognitive impairments. Importantly, MTL IEDs occur not only in epilepsy but also in multiple neuropsychiatric conditions including Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Autism, ADHD, and following traumatic brain injury (TBI). A major unmet need is to automatically detect sleep IEDs non-invasively when they occur in deep regions such as the MTL, a task that was believed to be nearly impossible until now. We recently developed a novel machine learning-based tool to reliably detect a subset of MTL IEDs non-invasively with high precision. For the first time, IEDs originating in the MTL can be detected even when gold-standard visual inspection by clinical neurologists is impossible. We will first conduct research to optimize and validate IED detection in epilepsy patients, and in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD patients. We will then work to commercialize the tool so that it can be widely used to improve diagnosis, prognosis, drug titration, and risk-stratification not only in epilepsy and dementia, but in diverse neurological conditions including TBI, ADHD, Autism, and psychiatric disorders. Together with the technology transfer office of TAU and with business partners already on board we will work to consolidate and extend the system’s patent family and bring our detection tool to the market.
Projet ERC : HICARE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University Medical Center Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UMC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Hybrid Imaging in the Catheterization Room In the previously-completed ERC CoG, we have developed a patented c-arm scanner (called IXSI) which can accomplish real-time hybrid image guidance in dynamic environments such as the intervention and the catheterization room. Thus far, we have evaluated IXSI for oncological purposes. But more recently, we have identified a new potential application in the field of interventional cardiology, in which hybrid imaging may help for determining the culprit vessel during the interventional procedure or directly evaluating the outcome of a treatment. In this ERC Proof of Concept, we will explore whether the new proposed application of IXSI is worth pursuing further. We will perform four tasks: i) we will investigate for which groups of cardiology patients or treatments IXSI may provide the greatest benefit and assess their market share, ii) we will evaluate the performance of IXSI for cardiology by developing custom-made testing devices, iii) we will investigate whether IXSI can be made more cost-effective for cardiology by making hardware modifications, and iv) by combining the information from the previous activities, we will develop a business case of IXSI specifically for cardiac interventions. Should it be demonstrated that IXSI can aid cardiac interventions, then we expect that our developed technology will be much quicker implemented in the clinic seeing that the proposed application field is massive and the incentive for commercialization would be greater (close to 1 million PCI procedures are performed per year in the US alone).
Projet ERC : PalmitoMet (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institut de recherche en biomédecine — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IRB
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Despite recent breakthroughs in immunotherapy and cancer research, metastasis continues to be responsible for 90% of cancer related deaths. While surgical resection and adjuvant therapy can cure localized tumors, once tumor cells metastasize, cancer remains largely incurable. Increasing evidence indicates that lipids play a crucial role in the metastatic process by providing energy and membrane components required for cell migration and outgrowth, and also by triggering specific signaling cascades that prime cancer cells into a metastatic program (Martin-Perez et al., Cell Metabolism 2022). Importantly, we have found that palmitic acid, but not other fatty acids, promotes metastasis in a large number of tumors, and that metastatic initiating cells require a lipid metabolism reprogramming driven by an epigenetic remodeling (Pascual et al. Nature 2017; Pascual et al. Nature 2021). We have solid evidence that fatty acids not only promote metastasis by providing energy to metastatic cells (Delauney et al. Nature 2022), but also by specifically modulating protein lipidation. Thus, targeting this particular lipid signaling machinery may represent an unexplored solution to combat metastasis. PalmitoMET aims to identify novel molecules capable of inhibiting specific protein lipidation to treat metastasis in preclinical models, with the aim to bring them closer to the clinic. Inhibitors found during this project have the potential to become first-in-class drugs, making this project a high risk but high gain project, considering the very large and growing market we are addressing
Projet ERC : AntiVirFish (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université norvégienne pour les sciences de la vie — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : NMBU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 6000.0 €

In the last decades aquaculture seems to be the only real alternative for global fish food supply. At present, the aquaculture world production has reached 82.1 million tons worldwide representing the fastest growing animal production sector in the world. Among aquaculture species, salmonid aquaculture, trout and salmon species, are the highest-value species for global and European aquaculture. The biggest global constraint to aquaculture production is disease with an estimate of a 10% of all cultured aquatic animals lost because of infectious diseases, amounting to >10 billion USD in losses annually on a global scale. Among infectious diseases, viral outbreaks are a serious concern, since they are an impediment to the development, productivity, and profitability of fish farms. Intensive fish farming amplifies diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, and parasites, resulting in severe losses. Few vaccines are available for viral diseases in aquaculture and they are not completely effective. Moreover, up to date there are not antiviral therapeutic treatments to mitigate the outbreaks in unvaccinated fish or to diminish the percentage of losses do not covered by prophylactics vaccines. During my ERC Starting Grant our group identified a number of antiviral proteins in rainbow trout nucleated red blood cells (RBCs) implicated in halting viral infections. The OBJECTIVE of this project is to perform a Proof of Concept of the antiviral molecules previosuly identified. We will evaluate the new business opportunity of introducing a new antiviral therapeutic that decreases viral infection and related economic loss in aquaculture.
Projet ERC : MucOncoBots (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : CERCA Institution — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CERCA;I-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 22500.0 €

Mucus is a defensive barrier that protects the underlying cells from pathogens and toxic compounds, although it also hinders the delivery of drugs whenever they are administered locally. There are different types of mucus-secreting tumours, such as pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP), that could benefit from more efficient transmucosal delivery of anti-cancer drugs. PMP is a rare disease and the most mucinous tumour type, thus it will be used as a proof of concept for this project. In fact, it is characterised by the production of abundant mucus in the peritoneal cavity and is treated with cytoreductive surgery combined with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, usually Mitomycin C. This approach has extended patient survival, but there is a significant proportion of recurrence, most probably due to the shielding effect of mucus. Therefore, there is an urgent need to offer new therapeutic strategies to PMP patients. Recently, Dr. Palmer’s lab has established a collection of PMP patient-derived organoids and xenografts and has shown that some PMP patients present oncogenic BRAFV600E mutations, introducing a new druggable targeted mutation. In this proposal, Dr. Sánchez’s lab (IBEC), in collaboration with Dr. Palmer’s research group (VHIO), aims to use nanobots able to overcome the mucus barrier that will be loaded with Mitomycin C or Encorafenib (BRAF inhibitor) to treat PMP. A comparative study will be performed to assess the treatment’s efficacy compared to the standard of care, and medical advice will be received from Dr. Élez (VHUH) to ensure the translation of the results to the clinic. We believe that using this all-in-one system will certainly enhance the delivery and efficacy of the active therapeutic compound, thus potentially improving current treatments.
Projet ERC : PEROTUNE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Institut de micro-électronique et composants — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IMEC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The availability of a tunable laser source in the visible and near-infrared (NIR) range is crucial for a variety of high-impact applications, such as frequency-modulated continuous wave LiDAR, optical coherence tomography, quantum photonics, and molecular spectroscopy. Despite the demand, current solutions for tunable lasers in these wavelength ranges remain limited, both in terms of availability and performance. Metal halide perovskite thin films are emerging as highly promising materials for such applications due to their exceptional optical properties, ease of processing, and compatibility with a wide range of substrates and photonic platforms. In PEROTUNE, we aim to demonstrate a mode-hop free (MHF) tunable laser by leveraging the unique properties of perovskite materials combined with innovative design strategies to enable continuous tuning without mode hopping. This approach capitalizes on the tunability and high optical gain of perovskites in the visible/NIR spectrum, addressing current limitations in laser source technology. By adopting advanced integration techniques, the proposed design will deliver compact, efficient, and versatile laser sources suitable for a wide range of applications. In particular, this breakthrough innovation has the potential to impact fields ranging from medical diagnostics and environmental monitoring to advanced manufacturing and telecommunications, opening new doors for next generation photonic devices
Projet ERC : REALTIMESEA (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ENS Paris-Saclay
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 61875.0 €

The ERC Advanced Grant HIGHWAVE is a current project that studies the physical mechanisms underlying the emergence of destructive breaking waves on the ocean’s surface. The recent months have shown the multiplication of abnormal atmospheric disturbances generating extreme winds and waves that surprised forecasters. It is therefore essential to be able to extract useful information from real-time measurements of winds and waves. In planning to address this problem from a science perspective, we discovered a critical gap in all current approaches to ocean wave measurements and maritime communications. There is no existing technology that provides air and water information (wave amplitude and direction, wind speed and direction, current speed and direction) of any given sea state in real time. The lack of any technique providing instant access to a sea state makes it extremely difficult to adapt to a changing sea state and to act fast. REALTIMESEA will fill this gap, using wireless wave sensor technology deployed on a connected buoy to measure and transmit instantaneously to a fully equipped mobile station the raw data of the sea state (air and water) at a given location at a very low communication cost. Considering that our idea can be extended to a linked network of connected buoys, thus adding a spatial component to the real-time measurements, one can say that the ability to track sea states in real time and space will represent a revolution in wave forecasting, with expected commercial applications for multiple “end users”.  Taking the real-time measurement of waves to Proof of Concept is made possible because of the recent development of maritime wireless networks, that enables Wi-Fi data coverage over large areas of water within a 12 km radius from a shore station. A 1-year campaign off Inishmaan, Ireland, will allow the optimisation of the measurement system, the development of the required analysis software and of the manual for the buoy/mobile station kit.
Projet ERC : MONOBREAST (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Twente — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

Although breast cancer screening and improvements in treatment have reduced breast cancer mortality by 30%, this disease still kills over 600,000 women yearly worldwide. To further reduce its morbidity and mortality, new and improved imaging modalities that improve the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer are needed. Over the last two decades, changes in x-ray detector technology have revolutionized x-ray-based breast imaging. Among other developments, new digital detectors made feasible the ERC Consolidator project BREAST4D during which a new imaging modality, dynamic contrast enhanced dedicated breast computed tomography (4D DCE-BCT) is being developed to personalize treatment of breast cancer. However, x-ray source technology has remained essentially unchanged for the last 100 years. The continued use of the x-ray tube as the source of x rays restricts the reduction in dose and the quantitative accuracy achievable with advances in the rest of the system. Very recently, however, a new monochromatic x-ray source has been developed that provides the necessary flux, x-ray energy, field of view, and portability, to be used in x-ray breast imaging devices. In MONOBREAST, the capabilities, applicability, and innovativeness of BREAST4D will be extended by introducing these monochromatic x-ray sources to breast CT imaging and combining them with the advanced image reconstruction method developed during BREAST4D. Resulting in a dose reduction of at least two thirds, such a monochromatic breast CT system will be applicable to every stage in the breast cancer chain, from screening with non-contrast BCT at doses equivalent to those of current screening with digital mammography and digital breast tomosynthesis, to static CE-BCT for diagnosis and the originally planned 4D DCE-BCT for treatment personalization. In addition, these new sources will not only result in substantially lower doses, but also in substantially higher accuracy with lower algorithmic complexity.
Projet ERC : CREATIVE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Lorraine — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 80000.0 €

Aiming to contribute to a substantial increase in the sustainability of thermal power plants, heat pumps, and climatization systems, the ERC-StG-REACHER is introducing new working fluids for the thermodynamic cycle underlying these systems. These new fluids are mixtures of dimers “A2” and monomers “A” undergoing a reversible dimerization reaction, A2 ⇄ 2 A, evolving instantaneously and spontaneously in the unit operations of the machine. REACHER has introduced about 200 of these reactive fluids. Among them, the family of carboxylic acids (e.g., formic, acetic, propionic acid) seems very promising as working fluids for residential heat pumps: other than owing excellent environmental properties, their use promises an outstanding 17-43% relative efficiency improvement compared to state-of-the-art heat pumps. In this context, the main objective of the ERC-PoC-CREATIVE is to perform the first step towards the realisation of a residential heat pump prototype operating with formic acid, enabling the validation of the -theoretically observed- positive chemical reaction effects. This step consists of preliminary verifying the feasible compression of formic acid with a finely controlled series of available compression technologies, using air as working fluid in the sub-atmospheric pressure conditions characterising operation with formic acid. Within CREATIVE, these results will further allow the design of a pilot operating with formic acid to test, in a future PoC, the compressors preliminarily selected and pre-tested with air, in CREATIVE. The realisation and design of the experimental setups for the formic acid compression feasibility assessment are supported by thermodynamic calculations carried out in CREATIVE, using tools developed in REACHER. This PoC is supported by the expertise of two industrial partners, and involves the Host Institution’s Technology Transfer Office which will handle IP management and explore valorisation pathways for the key exploitable results.

Mots-clés : reactive working fluid carboxylic acids heat pump high efficiency compressor test
Projet ERC : SYNTACT (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Université de Tel Aviv — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Bugs in software systems pose a huge and growing cost on society, not only in economic terms but also in direct risk to human lives. Reactive synthesis is a new technology to automatically generate correct-by-construction software. Unlike testing and formal verification, which require advance investment in an implementation, reactive synthesis generates a correct implementation directly from its formal specification.  Despite its potential to reduce software development costs and at the same time increase the confidence one may have in the correctness of software, to date, no application of reactive synthesis has been examined outside academic labs. The SYNTACT PoC will put reactive synthesis technologies to test in industrial beta-sites and will thus generate and disseminate knowhow on the use of reactive synthesis in practice, identify and address product and process obstacles, build a community of parties that are interested in the promotion and transfer of reactive synthesis technologies from academia to industry, and lay a foundation to guide future research, standardization, collaboration, and industry investment in reactive synthesis technologies.  We expect the SYNTACT PoC to advance the state-of-the-practice in reactive synthesis and thus start paving the way for its adoption in industry. Its expected outcomes include several industrial systems that were developed using synthesis, case-study reports describing the beta-sites projects, training materials, new set of real benchmark specifications, estimations of the potential return on investment in deploying reactive synthesis, and draft standardization documents. As more and more aspects of modern life depend on the correctness of software, the SYNTACT PoC will directly introduce the reactive synthesis correct-by-construction new perspective and tools to the industrial settings, as a timely step towards its broad future adoption.