Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : DISKtoHALO (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : University of Cambridge — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. Cambridge
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2489918.0 €

It is firmly established that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have a profound influence on the evolution of galaxies and galaxy groups/clusters. Yet, almost 20 years after this realization, fundamental questions remain. What determines the efficiency with which an active galactic nucleus (AGN) couples to its surroundings? Why does AGN feedback appear to be ineffective in low-mass galaxies? In maintenance-mode feedback, how does the AGN regulate to closely balance cooling? How does the nature of AGN feedback change as we consider higher redshifts and push back to the epoch of the first galaxies? AGN feedback is a truly multi-scale phenomenon. Observations show that AGN have an energetic impact on galactic-, group-, and cluster-halo scales. Yet the efficiency with which an accreting SMBH releases energy, and the partitioning of that energy into radiation, winds, and relativistic jets, is dictated by complex processes in the accretion disk on AU scales, 10^10 times smaller than the halo. Furthermore, especially in massive systems where feedback proceeds via the heating of a hot circumgalactic or intracluster medium (CGM/ICM), the relevant microphysics of the hot baryons is unclear, requiring an understanding of plasma instabilities on 10^-9pc scales. We propose a set of projects that explore the multiscale physics of AGN feedback. Magnetohydrodynamic models of accretion disks will be constructed to study the AGN radiation/winds/jets and calibrate observable proxies of SMBH mass and accretion rate. We will use the machinery of plasma physics to characterize the CGM/ICM microphysics relevant to the thermalization of AGN-injected energy. Finally, we will produce new galaxy-, group- and cluster-scale models incorporating the new microphysical prescriptions and AGN models. Our new theoretical understanding of AGN feedback as a function of halo mass, environment, and cosmic time is essential for interpreting the torrent of data from current and future observatories

Mots-clés : black hole astrophysics,accretion disk theory,active galactic nuclei,plasma physics,agn feedback,hydrodynamics,magnetohydrodynamics
Projet ERC : MaGic (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, 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 : 2486720.0 €

It is now possible to make an enormous spectrum of different, novel nanoporous materials simply by changing the building blocks in the synthesis of Metal Organic Frameworks (MOF) or related materials. This unique chemical tunability allows us to tailor-make materials that are optimal for a given application. The promise of finding just the right material seems remote however: because of practical limitations we can only ever synthesize, characterize, and test a tiny fraction of all possible materials. To take full advantage of this development, therefore, we need to develop alternative techniques, collectively referred to as Materials Genomics, to rapidly screen large numbers of materials and obtain fundamental insights into the chemical nature of the ideal material for a given application. The PI will tackle the challenge and promise posed by this unprecedented chemical tunability through the development of a multi-scale computational approach, which aims to reliably predict the performance of novel materials before synthesis. We will develop methodologies to generate libraries of representative sets of synthesizable hypothetical materials and perform large-scale screening of these libraries. These studies should give us fundamental insights into the common molecular features of the top-performing materials. The methods developed will be combined into an open access infrastructure in which our hypothetical materials are publicly accessible for data mining and big-data analysis. The project is organized in three Work Packages, each centered around finding better materials for carbon capture: (1) screen materials for gas separations and develop the tools to predict the best materials for carbon capture; (2) gain insights into and develop a computational methodology for screening the mechanical properties of nanoporous materials; (3) achieve an understanding of the amine-CO2 chemistry in diamine-appended MOFs and use this to predict their performance.

Mots-clés : carbon capture,materials genome,molecular simulaiton
Projet ERC : Neurogenesis (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : Karolinska Institutet — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

It is now well established that new neurons are added to certain regions of the adult brain. There is today considerable interest in the development of regenerative therapies based on modulating endogenous neurogenesis, but it is necessary to better understand these events to assess whether this is rational and realistic. This application takes its initiation in two recent discoveries that we have made: that astrocytes in the mouse striatum give rise to new neurons after stroke or inhibition of Notch signaling (Magnusson et al., Science, 2014) and that neurogenesis is a continuous process in the human striatum throughout adulthood (Ernst et al., Cell, 2014). We propose to characterize the molecular regulation of neurogenesis from striatal astrocytes in detail, and compare these astrocytes with those in other regions to understand why striatal astrocytes are uniquely neurogenic and whether astrocytes in other parts of the brain can be induced to give rise to new neurons. We will, moreover, assess the role of integration of new neurons in the striatal circuitry by inducing neurogenesis in the striatum in adult mice by blocking Notch signaling or by inducing stroke and modulate the activity of the new neurons by optogenetics and chemogenetics. We will, furthermore, study whether striatal neurogenesis is altered in human neurological diseases by retrospective birth dating by measuring the integration of 14C from nuclear bomb tests. We will assess whether inducing striatal neurogenesis in corresponding mouse models of neurological diseases has therapeutic potential. This project will elucidate the molecular regulation of neurogenesis from astrocytes and the neurogenic potential of astrocytes in different parts of the brain, reveal the role of new neurons in the striatum, answer whether striatal neurogenesis is altered in common neurological conditions in humans and reveal whether inducing striatal neurogenesis may have therapeutic potential.

Mots-clés : adult neurogenesis,striatum,astrocyte
Projet ERC : ProMiDis (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : Alexander Fleming Biomedical Sciences Research Center — Pays : Grèce — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 877327.86 €

It is now widely recognized that a variety of major diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, systemic amyloidosis, cystic fibrosis, type 2 diabetes etc., are characterized by a common molecular origin: the misfolding of specific proteins. These disorders have been termed protein misfolding diseases (PMDs) and the vast majority of them remain incurable. Here, I propose the development of a unified approach for the discovery of potential therapeutics against PMDs. I will generate engineered bacterial cells that function as a broadly applicable discovery platform for compounds that rescue the misfolding of PMD-associated proteins (MisPs). These compounds will be selected from libraries of drug-like molecules biosynthesized in engineered bacteria using a technology that allows the facile production of billions of different test molecules. These libraries will then be screened in the same bacterial cells that produce them and the rare molecules that rescue MisP misfolding effectively will be selected using an ultrahigh-throughput genetic screen. The effect of the selected compounds on MisP folding will then be evaluated by biochemical and biophysical methods, while their ability to inhibit MisP-induced pathogenicity will be tested in appropriate mammalian cell assays and in established animal models of the associated PMD. The molecules that rescue the misfolding of the target MisPs and antagonize their associated pathogenicity both in vitro and in vivo, will become drug candidates against the corresponding diseases. This procedure will be applied for different MisPs to identify potential therapeutics for four major PMDs: Huntington’s disease, cardiotoxic light chain amyloidosis, dialysis-related amyloidosis and retinitis pigmentosa. Successful realization of ProMiDis will provide invaluable therapeutic leads against major diseases and a unified framework for anti-PMD drug discovery.

Mots-clés : protein misfolding,protein aggregation,protein misfolding disease,synthetic biology,drug discovery,escherichia coli,cyclic peptides,huntington s disease,amyloidosis,retinitis pigmentosa
Projet ERC : STC (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Aarhus University — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : AU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

It is shown that long-term potentiation (LTP) is the cellular basis of memory formation. However, since all but small fraction of memories are forgotten, LTP has been further divided into early LTP (e-LTP), the mechanism by which short-term memories are formed, and a more stable late LTP (L-LTP), by which long-term memories are formed. Remarkably, it has been shown that an e-LTP can be stabilized if it is preceded or followed by heterosynaptic L-LTP. According to Synaptic Tagging and Capture (STC) hypothesis, e-LTP is stabilized by capturing proteins that are made by L-LTP induction. The model proposes that this mechanism underlies the formation of late associative memory, where the stability of a memory is not only defined by the stimuli that induce the change but also by events happening before and after these stimuli. As such, the model explicitly predicts that a short-term memory can be stabilized by inducing heterosynaptic L-LTP. In this grant, I will put this hypothesis into test. Specifically, I will test two explicit predictions of STC model: 1) A naturally formed short-term memory can be stabilized by induction of heterosynaptic L-LTP. 2) This stabilization is caused by the protein synthesis feature of L-LTP. To do this, using optogenetics, I will engineer a short-term memory in auditory fear circuit, in which an animal transiently associates a foot shock to a tone. Subsequently, I will examine if optogenetic delivery of L-LTP to the visual inputs converging on the same population of neurons in the amygdala will stabilize the short-term tone fear memory. To be able to engineer natural memory by manipulating synaptic plasticity I will develop two systems: 1) A two-color optical activation system which permits selective manipulation of distinct neuronal populations with precise temporal and spatial resolution; 2) An inducible and activity-dependent expression system by which those neurons that are activated by a natural stimulus will be optically tagged.

Mots-clés : synaptic tagging and capture,memory formation,cellular consolidation,synaptic plasticity
Projet ERC : INFANT EARTH (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : University of Cologne — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499735.0 €

It is still an open question how Earth became the rocky habitable planet as we know it today. This is because there is a significant time gap of several 100 million years between Earth’s oldest rock archives (ca. 4 billion years old) and most extraterrestrial samples like meteorites that archive the birth of our solar system ca. 4.5 billion years ago. Within this time gap, three key processes that shaped our planet took place, i.e., Earth’s growth via asteroidal collisions, formation of the metal core and a first solid crust, and the delivery of volatiles such as water. Because rock samples are lacking, these fundamental processes have to be traced indirectly, by using highly sophisticated geochemical tools like isotope or trace element compositions of younger rocks or meteorites. With this proposal, I plan to better unravel Earth’s earliest history and better identify its building blocks, by combining the geochemical record locked in Earth`s oldest rocks and extraterrestrial samples. The ground breaking nature of this work is the development of new geochemical techniques that are way beyond the current state of art, and many of them will be applied at an unprecedented level of sensitivity and precision. I will cover three linked approaches, namely high precision analyses of (i) nucleosynthetic isotope anomalies, (ii) radiogenic isotopes and (iii) trace elements. To better constrain the history of volatile delivery to the nascent Earth, a focus will be on comparing the geochemical record provided by refractory and volatile elements. In their synergy, the results will provide a major advance in unravelling Earth’s earliest history. INFANTEARTH builds on high profile research strengths of our group, where a unique pool of collaborating scientists and analytical equipment are available. We have also acquired a nearly unique collection of Earth’s oldest rock samples and of extraterrestrial samples supplied from institutions such as NASA or collaborating museums.

Mots-clés : cosmochemistry,mass spectrometry,early earth,archean,meteorites,moon
Projet ERC : SIRFUNCT (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Copenhagen — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UCPH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1758742.0 €

It was recently realized that lysine acetylation affects a wide variety of cellular processes in addition to the initially recognized histone related gene regulation. Together with recent groundbreaking results, revealing the presence of additional acyllysine modifications, the basis for a paradigm shift in this area was formed. Examples of enzymes formerly thought to be lysine deacetylases, have been shown to cleave these new types of lysine modification and members of the sirtuin class of enzymes play a central role. Development of new tools to investigate the importance of these new modifications as well as the sirtuins that cleave them is required. We therefore propose to adopt an interdisciplinary approach by developing selective inhibitors and so-called activity-based probes (ABPs) and applying these to the investigation of proteins recognizing novel post-translational acylations of lysine residues in cells. Such ABPs will be powerful tools for providing insight regarding this rapidly evolving area of biochemistry; however, the current state-of-the-art in ABP design is endowed with severe limitations because the modifications are inherently cleaved by various hydrolases in human cells. Thus, in the present project, I propose that novel designs accommodating non-cleavable modifications are warranted to maintain structural integrity during experiments. Furthermore, I propose to apply similar mechanism-based designs to develop potent and isoform-selective sirtuin inhibitors, which will serve as chemical probes to investigate links between cancer and metabolism, and may ultimately serve as lead compounds for pre-clinical pharmaceutical development. AIM-I. (a) Development and (b) application of collections of chemical probes for activity-based investigation of enzymes that interact with post-translationally acylated proteins. AIM-II. Utilization of structural and mechanistic insight to design potent and selective inhibitors of sirtuin enzymes.

Mots-clés : enzymology,enzyme inhibitors,activity based probes,sirtuins,post translational modifications,peptides
Projet ERC : JANET (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Istanbul Medeniyet University — Pays : Turquie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 208730.0 €

JaNet investigates the economic and sociopolitical role of the Janissaries in the 18th and early 19th centuries through their examination as a complex of interconnected networks in the ‘extended Mediterranean’ (including major Black Sea and Danubian ports). By studying the Janissary corps, the project brings forward a radically new historical analysis concerning, on the one hand, the role of Muslims in the Ottoman and wider Mediterranean commercial economy – a role largely ignored by the bibliography – and, on the other, the processes that led to the creation of diasporas and the dissemination of people and ideas among various Muslim communities in the area. According to our thesis, in the period under examination, the Janissary corps became one of the main channels for the participation of various Muslim social strata of the Ottoman periphery in the Empire’s developing credit market and commercial life, as well as a gateway for their involvement in local and imperial politics. Moreover, it became a platform for the exchange of people, goods, and ideas between different localities covering a vast geographical area. When examined from a Mediterranean perspective, this view allows us to look beyond the information provided by Europe-centered sources and to drastically redefine the sociopolitical and financial role of Muslims in the area, an approach which historical analysis sorely lacks. The project uses a comparative approach to examine a large number of port-cities in North Africa, Egypt, the Aegean, the Adriatic, the Danube, and the Black Sea. The research team – composed of the PI, three senior researchers, five post-doctoral fellows, and two PhD candidates – will study a variety of unpublished sources in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Russian, French, and English. The team will produce a main monograph, a collective volume, several articles, two PhD dissertations, four workshops, one international conference, and a website.

Mots-clés : history of the ottoman empire,history of the early modern mediterranean,muslim networks,political and economic history
Projet ERC : JANET (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas — Pays : Grèce — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FORTH;ΙΤΕ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1078947.75 €

JaNet investigates the economic and sociopolitical role of the Janissaries in the 18th and early 19th centuries through their examination as a complex of interconnected networks in the ‘extended Mediterranean’ (including major Black Sea and Danubian ports). By studying the Janissary corps, the project brings forward a radically new historical analysis concerning, on the one hand, the role of Muslims in the Ottoman and wider Mediterranean commercial economy – a role largely ignored by the bibliography – and, on the other, the processes that led to the creation of diasporas and the dissemination of people and ideas among various Muslim communities in the area. According to our thesis, in the period under examination, the Janissary corps became one of the main channels for the participation of various Muslim social strata of the Ottoman periphery in the Empire’s developing credit market and commercial life, as well as a gateway for their involvement in local and imperial politics. Moreover, it became a platform for the exchange of people, goods, and ideas between different localities covering a vast geographical area. When examined from a Mediterranean perspective, this view allows us to look beyond the information provided by Europe-centered sources and to drastically redefine the sociopolitical and financial role of Muslims in the area, an approach which historical analysis sorely lacks. The project uses a comparative approach to examine a large number of port-cities in North Africa, Egypt, the Aegean, the Adriatic, the Danube, and the Black Sea. The research team – composed of the PI, three senior researchers, five post-doctoral fellows, and two PhD candidates – will study a variety of unpublished sources in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Russian, French, and English. The team will produce a main monograph, a collective volume, several articles, two PhD dissertations, four workshops, one international conference, and a website.

Mots-clés : history of the ottoman empire,history of the early modern mediterranean,muslim networks,political and economic history
Projet ERC : ZeroR (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Aalto University — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Joule heating due to electrical resistance associated with current spreading in semiconductors is a significant loss mechanism in modern state-of-the-art high power light emitting diodes (LEDs) and high concentration solar cells. These losses can account for up to 10-30 % of the device power consumption under high power conditions, and thereby dramatically reduce the efficiency of solar energy harvesting and general lighting, whose efficiencies – apart from the resistive losses – are gradually closing in on their theoretical limits. In ZeroR we make use of a conceptually simple but functionally dramatic modification to the previous buried active region (AR) devices, like LEDs, lasers and solar cells, by relocating the AR to outside the pn-junction, allowing e.g. locating the AR on the device surface – or locating all the contact structures fully on one side of the active region, eventually enabling a fully scalable and essentially resistance free structures. We analyze the commercial prospects of the technology and show that it provides new freedom for high power semiconductor device design. The main goal of ZeroR is to facilitate further commercial development of the concept and to demonstrate the elimination of resistive losses in industrially relevant LED and solar cell prototypes using gallium nitride and gallium arsenide based compound semiconductor material systems. If successful, this approach can substantially increase the device efficiency at selected high power operating conditions and substantially expedite the ongoing solid state lighting revolution and market penetration, also providing more efficient new solutions for solar energy harvesting and selected other applications.

Mots-clés : semiconductor fabrication,efficient light emitters,photovoltaics,energy efficiency