Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Towards a molecular-level understanding of heterogeneous ice nucleation (HETEROICE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1915083.0
EU funding (EUR): 1915083.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Ice formation is one of the most common phase transitions on Earth. It is relevant to an enormous variety of phenomena such as weathering, cloud formation, airline safety, agriculture, and energy. However, despite having been studied since antiquity, our molecular level understanding of ice formation is largely incomplete. In particular, almost all ice formation in nature is aided by impurities or the surfaces of foreign materials, yet how surfaces act to facilitate ice formation (heterogeneous ice nucleation) is unclear. Given the ubiquity of ice nucleation, this is arguably one of the biggest unsolved problems in the physical sciences. Experiment provides insight into crystal nucleation and growth, but most nucleation events happen too quickly and involve too few particles to be rationalised purely by experiment. As a result, computer simulations play an important role and I believe we are now on the verge of using simulation to bring about major breakthroughs in understanding ice formation. Specifically, in this project we aim to perform the first full-on attack on heterogeneous ice nucleation so as to elucidate how the physiochemical properties of materials control their ability to nucleate ice. We will focus on nucleation on solid inorganic substrates and our approach will be to couple systematic studies on model systems with in-depth explorations of more realistic (and experimentally realisable) surfaces. We will improve existing computer simulation methods and develop new ones for accurate large- scale simulations of phase transitions in complex heterogeneous environments. In so doing we will help to make simulations of ice nucleation more routine, enabling us to establish what makes a good ice nucleating agent. The results from this multi-disciplinary project will not only shed light on an important everyday process but may also help to improve climate models and develop improved cloud seeding materials, or inhibitor coatings for industrial purposes.

Keywords: water at surfaces,nucleation,simulations
Discrete Optimization in Computer Vision: Theory and Practice (DOICV)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer Science and Informatics
Countries involved: Austria
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2020-05-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1641585.0
EU funding (EUR): 1641585.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This proposal aims at developing new inference algorithms for graphical models with discrete variables, with a focus on the MAP estimation task. MAP estimation algorithms such as graph cuts have transformed computer vision in the last decade; they are now routinely used and are also utilized in commercial systems. Topics of this project fall into 3 categories. Theoretically-oriented: Graph cut techniques come from combinatorial optimization. They can minimize a certain class of functions, namely submodular functions with unary and pairwise terms. Larger classes of functions can be minimized in polynomial time. A complete characterization of such classes has been established. They include k-submodular functions for an integer k _ 1. I investigate whether such tools from discrete optimization can lead to more efficient inference algorithms for practical problems. I have already found an important application of k-submodular functions for minimizing Potts energy functions that are frequently used in computer vision. The concept of submodularity also recently appeared in the context of the task of computing marginals in graphical models, here discrete optimization tools could be used. Practically-oriented: Modern techniques such as graph cuts and tree-reweighted message passing give excellent results for some graphical models such as with the Potts energies. However, they fail for more complicated models. I aim to develop new tools for tackling such hard energies. This will include exploring tighter convex relaxations of the problem. Applications, sequence tagging problems: Recently, we developed new algorithms for inference in pattern-based Conditional Random Fields (CRFs) on a chain. This model can naturally be applied to sequence tagging problems; it generalizes the popular CRF model by giving it more flexibility. I will investigate (i) applications to specific tasks, such as the protein secondary structure prediction, and (ii) ways to extend the model.
Nanophotonic Nanomechanical Mass Spectrometry for Biology and Health (ENLIGHTENED)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Systems and Communication Engineering
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2020-05-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1999090.0
EU funding (EUR): 1999090.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

« Mass Spectrometry has become a routine analytical tool in modern biological research, and has gained in recent years a foothold in the realm of clinical diagnostic and screening. However, it is still costly, complex and because its principle relies on ionization, it is incapable of analyzing biomolecules with masses greater than a few MDa. Averaging more than 100 million particles per measurement, it is also incapable of characterizing the diversity of such heavy entities. ENLIGHTENED aims at demonstrating a breakthrough concept based on Photonic Nano-Mechanical Mass Spectrometry, able to perform analysis of bioparticles of high biomedical significance, of ultra-high mass, never so far characterized, with single-molecule sensitivity and unprecedented resolution. The long-term vision beyond the current proposal is to provide the biologists with a tool which will be transformative for fundamental knowledge, and to make possible cheap, handheld devices for personalized medicine. ENLIGHTENED proposes to use photons to shed light on unexplored species at the individual level, which is of high biomedical significance and will expand our understanding of simple life forms.”

Keywords: nanoelectromechanical systems nems mass sensing photonics optomechanics noise in resonators mass spectrometry for biology macromolecular complexes
Defining the cellular dynamics leading to tissue expansion (EXPAND)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Cellular and Developmental Biology
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2019-11-30
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2399999.6
EU funding (EUR): 2399999.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Stem cells (SCs) ensure the development of the different tissues during morphogenesis, their physiological turnover during adult life and tissue repair after injuries. . Our lab has recently developed new methods to study by lineage tracing the cellular hierarchy that sustains homeostasis and repair of the epidermis and to identify distinct populations of SCs and progenitors ensuring mammary gland and prostate postnatal development. While quantitative clonal analysis combined with mathematical modeling has been used recently to decipher the cellular basis of tissue homeostasis, such experimental approaches have never been used so far in mammals to investigate the cellular hierarchy acting during tissue expansion such as postnatal development and tissue repair. In this project, we will use a multi-disciplinary approach combining mouse genetic lineage tracing and clonal analysis, mathematical modeling, proliferation kinetics, transcriptional profiling, and functional experiments to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating tissue expansion during epithelial development and tissue repair and how the fate of these cells is controlled during this process. 1. We will define the clonal and proliferation dynamics of tissue expansion in the epidermis, the mammary gland and the prostate during postnatal growth and adult tissue regeneration. 2. We will define the clonal and proliferation dynamics of tissue expansion in the adult epidermis following wounding and mechanical force mediated tissue expansion. 3. We will define the mechanisms that regulate the switch from multipotent to unipotent cell fate during development of glandular epithelia. Defining the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying tissue growth and expansion during development and how these mechanisms differ from tissue regeneration in adult may have important implications for understanding the causes of certain developmental defects and for regenerative medicine.
Pragmatic and epistemic role of factually erroneous cognitions and thoughts (PERFECT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its Complexity
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-10-01
End date: 2019-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1900075.0
EU funding (EUR): 1900075.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The project will investigate pragmatic and epistemic benefits of delusional beliefs, distorted memories and confabulatory explanations in the context of normal and abnormal cognition. The notion of "epistemic innocence" will be developed to capture an unexplored phenomenon, the existence of cognitions whose overall epistemic benefits, in terms of enabling the acquisition or preservation of knowledge, outweigh their epistemic faults.
Individual Robustness in Development and Cancer (IR-DC)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2020-05-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1996812.0
EU funding (EUR): 1996812.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Biological systems are robust to perturbations, with many genetic, stochastic and environmental challenges having no or little phenotypic consequence. However, the extent of this robustness varies across individuals, for example the same mutation or treatment may only affect a subset of individuals. The overall objective of this project is to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that confer this robustness and why it varies across individuals. We will address three specific questions: 1. Why do inherited mutations have different outcomes in different individuals, even when they are genetically identical and share a common environment? 2. What are the mechanisms during development that confer robustness to mechanical deformation? 3. How can the loss of robustness be exploited to specifically kill cancer cells? To address the first two questions, we will use live imaging procedures that we have developed that make the C. elegans embryo a unique animal system to link early inter-individual variation in gene expression and cellular behaviour to later variation in phenotypes. To address the third question, we will apply our understanding of genetic robustness and genetic interaction networks in model organisms to the comprehensive analysis of cancer genome datasets. The predictions from these hypothesis-driven computational analyses will then be evaluated using wet-lab experiments. Understanding and predicting variation in robustness is both a fundamental challenge for biology and one that is central to the development of personalised and predictive medicine. A patient does not want to know the typical outcome of a mutation or treatment; they want to know what will actually happen to them. The work outlined here will contribute to our basic understanding of robustness and its variation among individuals, and it will also directly tackle the problem of predicting and targeting variation in robustness as a strategy to kill tumour cells.

Keywords: phenotypic predictions,robustness,cancer
The Evolution of Cognitive Performance (EVOCOGN)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Evolutionary, Population and Environmental Biology
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2019-10-31
Duration (months): 68.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1450000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1450000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

I aim to determine how cognitive abilities evolve under natural selection; one of the most important, yet poorly understood issues in modern biology. Comparative studies inform us how species differ, and hence, one can infer selective pressures. However, studies of how heritable inter-individual cognitive differences determine fitness in the face of natural selection are absent. I will use methods and paradigms developed in comparative psychology, cognitive science and behavioural ecology, applying them to free-living animals, and so determine how cognition evolves. Pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) present an ideal system. Large numbers (100s) of individuals can be reared under controlled conditions and then exposed to natural selection pressures. Precocial chicks can be reared without differences in parental care. During rearing, chicks will complete a suite of automated cognitive training and testing, and their performance will be recorded. Conditions before and during rearing will be manipulated including maternal investment in eggs and diet complexity during rearing. Crucially, these captive reared birds will be released and exposed to natural selection. Surviving birds will be recaptured and bred from, producing large broods so that heritability can be studied. Empirical work will describe how individuals vary in their performance across a suite of cognitive domains; how such performance links to their natural behaviours; how their performance contributes to their fitness; how variation in performance is inherited; and how variation in performance is influenced by early life maternal or environmental factors. These are all significant steps in themselves, but the real strength of this project is addressing them in synchrony in a single, free-living study system. This provides a robust framework to tackle the broad question of how cognitive performance evolves that can be applied across a wider suite of conditions and taxa, including humans.

Keywords: cognition,pheasants
The organisation of functional microcircuits in visual cortex (NEUROVISION)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Neurosciences and Neural Disorders
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-05-01
End date: 2019-07-31
Duration (months): 63.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1983289.2
EU funding (EUR): 1983289.2
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Determining how the organisation of neural circuitry gives rise to its function has been a major challenge for understanding the neural basis of perception and behaviour. In order to uncover how different regions of the neocortex process sensory information, it is necessary to understand how the pattern and properties of synaptic connections in a specific sensory circuit determine the computations it performs. I propose to establish the relationship between synaptic connectivity and neuronal function in primary visual cortex (V1) with the aim of revealing circuit-level mechanisms of sensory processing. To this end, my laboratory has developed a new method, by which visual response properties of neurons are first characterised with two-photon calcium imaging in vivo, and then synaptic connections between a subset of these neurons are assayed with multiple whole-cell recordings in slices of the same tissue. We will use this method to determine how connectivity, synaptic and intrinsic properties of different excitatory and inhibitory cell types relate to the emergence of their visual receptive fields (RFs). Specifically, we will test the dependence of connections on RF position, structure and other visual response properties, the specificity of connections between simple and complex cells, and the relative contribution of feedforward and recurrent excitation and inhibition towards shaping RFs. Morphological, physiological, connectional and functional data will be used to develop a biophysically realistic network model of this V1 circuit to examine the contribution of different circuit components to single-neuron and network function.

Keywords: visual cortex,mouse,two-photon imaging,receptive fields,whole-cell recordings,synaptic connectivity,microcircuits,modelling
Engineering Discoidal Polymeric Nanoconstructs for the Multi-Physics Treatment of Brain Tumors (POTENT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and Processes Engineering
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-07-01
End date: 2020-06-30
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2390000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2390000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Despite significant advances in chemotherapy, the effective treatment of malignant masses via systemically injectable agents are still limited by insufficient accumulation at the biological target (<< 10% injected dose per gram tumor) and non-specific sequestration by the reticulo-endothelial system (tumor/liver < 0.1). The goal of this proposal is to engineer Discoidal Polymeric Nanoconstructs (DPNs) to preferentially target the malignant neovasculature for the delivery of imaging agents, controlled release of therapeutic molecules and thermal energy. The central hypothesis is that the size, shape, surface properties and stiffness (4S parameters) of the DPNs can be controlled during synthesis, and that therapeutic molecules (Temozolomide), Gd(DOTA) complexes and ultra-small Super-Paramagnetic Iron Oxide nanoparticles (USPIOs) can be efficiently incorporated within the DPN polymeric matrix. This will be achieved by pursuing 3 specific aims: i) synthesis and physico-chemical characterization of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)/poly(ethylene glycol) DPNs with multiple 4S combinations; ii) in-silico and in vitro rational selection of DPN configurations with preferential tumor deposition, low macrophage uptake and high loading; and iii) in-vivo testing of the DPN imaging and therapeutic performance in mice bearing Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). The innovation stays in i) using synergistically three different targeting strategies (rational selection of the 4S parameters; magnetic guidance via external magnets acting on the USPIOs; specific ligand-receptor recognition of the tumor neovasculature); ii) combining therapeutic and imaging molecules within the same nanoconstruct; and iii) employing synergistically different therapeutic approaches (molecular and thermal ablation therapies). This would allow us to support minimally invasive screening via clinical imaging and enhance therapeutic efficacy in GBM patients.

Keywords: nanoparticles,drug delivery,mr imaging,brain cancer,computational modeling
Understanding contemporary interest group politics: mobilization and strategies in multi-layered systems (IBIAS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Institutions, Values, Beliefs and behaviour
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (ERC-2013-CoG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-09-01
End date: 2020-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1655263.0
EU funding (EUR): 1655263.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This ERC program addresses an unsettled political science problem, namely how does the shifting of policymaking competencies to higher levels of government affect the opportunities of societal interests to seek representation. On this issue two completely different theoretical expectations exist. One the one hand, the Madisonian view entails that shifting competencies upwards is a healthy antidote to the powers of specific interests that may dominate smaller polities. Multi-levelness may also provide political opportunities as it enables actors to make strategic venue shifts when they are unable to attract the necessary attention at one venue. On the other hand, shifting policymaking upwards may seriously restrict the opportunities for diffuse interests, undermine encompassing forms of interest representation, and increase the barriers for local groups to gain attention. Instead of creating opportunities for all, multi-layered systems may decrease opportunities and reproduce or reinforce representational bias. One of the reasons why the implications of multi-layeredness are so poorly understood is the fact that political science has not developed a proper understanding of what representational bias means; some scholars see bias in terms of mobilization, while others conceive it in terms of the strategic interactions between organized interests and policymakers. This ERC program will integrate theoretically, methodologically and empirically these different aspects of group politics, by taking explicitly into account the nature of multi-layered systems. The innovative character of it lies in the theoretical combination of mapping interest group community dynamics, with a more nuanced characterization of organizational form and an in-depth investigation of bias in terms of strategies.

Keywords: multi-governance,interest representation