Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Targeting metabolic regulation in metastasis formation (MetaTarGet)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Belgium
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2019-07-18
End date: 2021-07-17
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 166320.0
EU funding (EUR): 166320.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Distant metastases, i.e. secondary tumors, are the leading cause of cancer deaths. Many patients (especially with breast cancer) are diagnosed when cancer cells have already disseminated to distant organs. Thus, it is of profound importance to prevent the metastatic outgrowth of these disseminated cancer cells into secondary tumors. The ability to remodel the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the metastatic niche is essential for disseminated breast cancer cells to promote their own metastatic outgrowth. This process is to date believed to be transcriptionally regulated. However, the Fendt laboratory has discovered that the nutrient pyruvate metabolically drives ECM remodeling by breast cancer cells. In my project, I will build on this discovery and explore how to target ECM remodeling in metastatic outgrowth. First, I will determine the interaction between the discovered metabolic and the known transcriptional regulation of ECM remodeling. Secondly, I will translate this novel finding into therapeutic potential by defining how to selectively target it, thereby impairing metastatic outgrowth in the lung environment. Thirdly, I will define how the metastatic site and the cancer cell origin affect the discovered metabolic regulation of ECM remodeling, and thus metastatic outgrowth. To address these aims, I will use metabolomics, 13C tracer analysis, genetic engineering and nanotechnology-based drug-delivery in breast cancer 3D cultures and mouse models. With MetaTarGet, I will deliver (i) a mechanistic understanding of pyruvate metabolism as a regulator of ECM remodeling, and (ii) a novel therapeutic strategy to target metastatic outgrowth. This project will allow me to bridge my nanotechnology-based drug-delivery knowledge with the expertise of the Fendt laboratory in metastasis metabolism. Consequently, I will strengthen my research competences and enhance my personal research profile.

Keywords: extracellular matrix remodeling,collagen hydroxylation,metabolic regulation,microenvironment,pyruvate metabolism,metastatic growth,metastatic,niche,nanoparticles,targeted drug delivery
Target identification and elucidation of the molecular mechanism of action of saponin vaccine adjuvants QS-21 (QS21Mech) (QS21-Mech)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Chemistry
Countries involved: Spain
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-03-01
End date: 2022-05-23
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 172932.48
EU funding (EUR): 172932.48
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Adjuvants are vital components of modern molecular vaccines that increase the low immunogenicity of subunit peptide and/ or polysaccharide antigens and potentiate the immune response. Despite their key role, the mechanisms of action of many adjuvants, including the clinically-relevant saponin QS-21, are poorly understood, which hampers the rational design of new, improved vaccine adjuvants. To address this gap and shed light into this fundamental biological mystery, the main goal of this proposal (QS21-Mech) is to develop new chemical probes to investigate the molecular mechanism of saponin adjuvants, one of the most potent and promising class of adjuvants. Using a multidisciplinary approach at the chemistry-biology interface, synthetic saponin-based photoaffinity probes will be chemically synthesized, followed by immunological evaluation for adjuvant activity in mice. The active saponin probes will then be utilized in biological/mechanistic studies to discover the putative molecular receptor of these adjuvants using a chemical proteomics approach. The photoreactive group will be used to cross-link the saponin molecule to the putative interacting partner, while the reporter group will serve as a tag for affinity-purification of the cross-linked adducts. Finally, the identity of the putative receptor will be resolved using MS-based proteomics analysis. The identification of the molecular target of the saponin adjuvants will provide unprecedented mechanistic understanding, facilitating the elucidation of their molecular mechanisms of action, which is of fundamental interest in immunology. This knowledge will enable the rational development of improved saponin adjuvants and optimal adjuvant-antigen combinations for vaccines against a broad range of diseases.

Keywords: chemical immunology,saponin vaccine adjuvants,chemical proteomics,photoaffinity probes,photo crosslinking
Origins of cell diversity in multicellular tissues (ORGANIZE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-11-01
End date: 2023-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 191149.44
EU funding (EUR): 191149.44
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Multicellular tissues, and ultimately complex organisms, are composed of multiple distinct cell types that differ in functional attributes. Such diversity in cell composition (i.e. phenotypic diversity) arises during development and regeneration, where progenitor cells differentiate along multiple cell fate lineages to form a heterogeneous population. While the molecular signals (i.e. cell states) that specify individual cell fates are widely studied, less is known about how multiple cell types can simultaneously emerge from a seemingly homogeneous population and which molecular mechanisms coordinate this process on a tissue-wide scale. Increasing evidence suggests that stochastic events, as opposed to hard-wired deterministic processes, are critical for emergence of heterogeneity. However, the molecular mechanisms that drive stochasticity and diversity in a mammalian tissue remain unknown, mainly due to a scarcity of tools to measure stochastic events in large numbers of single cells and to perturb cell-to-cell heterogeneity on a tissue level. Here I propose to use quantitative single-cell imaging, transcriptomic approaches, and optogenetic control of tissue heterogeneity to identify the molecular mechanisms driving phenotypic diversity. I will apply these techniques to mouse intestinal organoids, a multicellular system that recapitulates the intestinal epithelium. I hypothesize that variability in cell state (at the single-cell level) drives cell phenotypic diversity (at the tissue level). Different combinations of dynamic molecular signals within single cells may thereby pattern populations within a tissue to adopt specific fate outcomes. Gaining insight into the mechanisms of phenotypic diversity will answer fundamental questions in developmental and synthetic biology on the origins of cell diversity in multicellular tissues, how stochastic processes can ensure developmental robustness, and the maintenance of phenotypic equilibrium in homeostasis and disease.

Keywords: optogenetics,heterogeneity,organoids,tissue organization,dynamics,single cell analysis,transcriptomics,quantitative imaging,stochasticity,modeling,light sheet microscopy
Conversational Cloud-based AI-driven and Language-agnostic Customer Support Assistant (CCOALA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Portugal
Call: European SME innovation Associate - pilot (H2020-INNOSUP-2020-02, 2020)
Start date: 2020-11-02
End date: 2022-03-01
Duration (months): 16.0
Total project cost (EUR): 183928.57
EU funding (EUR): 128750.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Cleverly, through the COALA project, is building a Cloud Based, AI Driven Customer Support Assistant that takes advantage of historical customer service data to build an assistant that helps customers reply to emails and non-conversational queries from customers. By leveraging its proprietary Knowledge Powered Recommendation Technology, Cleverly is in a privileged position to tackle these issues and use the COALA technology not only for email but also to conversational interactions (chat), applying a 20% increase in employees efficiency and productivity.

Keywords: artificial intelligence,machine learning,natural language processing,chat,conversational ai,customer service
Transactional investigations of learning in view of sustainability transitions (LESTRA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Social World and Its Diversity
Panel description: Sociology, social psychology, social anthropology, education sciences, communication studies
Countries involved: Belgium
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2020-STG, 2020)
Start date: 2021-10-01
End date: 2026-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1483000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1483000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This project's key question is how can learning fruitfully contribute to Sustainability Transitions (ST). Its objectives are 1) to develop a new analytical and conceptual framework for investigating the connections between learning processes, the transformation of habits and customs, and (potential) STs; 2) to identify the key conditions for learning to contribute to STs; and 3) to develop a roadmap for future research in diverse settings and contexts. Achieving a breakthrough requires us to successfully connect the process and outcomes of micro learning processes to the emergence of macro societal transitions. Transactional pragmatism provides valuable inspiration to investigate the learning that takes shape in response to sustainability problems that are increasingly disturbing our habitual way of acting. It will be used to develop a novel analytical and conceptual framework by building on earlier work in environmental and sustainability education research, didactics and sustainability transition studies (WP1). The newly developed analytical toolbox will be applied to empirical data collected in three case studies: a sustainable food system in Ghent, sustainable mobility in Wetteren and a sustainable way of handling plastics in Flanders (WP2). The analyses focus on identifying key patterns of how learning through engagement with sustainability problems results in the consolidation, enrichment or (trans)formation of habits and customs (WP3), assessing and categorising the outcomes of learning episodes in terms of their potential to contribute to STs (WP4), and analysing (changes in) the socio-technical systems in the three cases in order to identify and describe potential STs in-the-making (WP5). Synthesis should result in succesfully tracing the connections between the learning process, outcomes of learning and (potential) STs (WP6). Finally, we will develop hypothesis and a research agenda as a roadmap for future research (WP7)

Keywords: environmental and sustainability education,didactics,pragmatism,transaction,practical epistemology analysis,sustainable development,sustainability transitions,multi level perspective
Few-Cycle Electric Field Waveforms for Advanced Science and Technology (FEWFAST)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: ERC-Proof of Concept (ERC-2017-PoC, 2017)
Start date: 2017-09-01
End date: 2019-02-28
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 137155.0
EU funding (EUR): 137155.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aim is the development of a user friendly high power few cycle, phase stable, light source in the 1500-2000 nm wavelength range. This builds on technical feasibility demonstrated during the ASTEX Advanced Grant. To fully exploit the potential of this light source it is necessary now to optimize the following characteristics: peak power, the ultimate pulse duration, stability and convenience of use. We hope to do this by building on the work carried out in the ASTEX project, that demonstrated the principle of the generation and application of few cycle waveform stable 1800 nm pulses, by optimising the generation, power and convenience of use to enable many potential applications. It is the aim of this project therefore to develop this light source as a user friendly, stand-alone, optical device that can be located after a variety of commercial ultrafast OPA (Optical Parametric Amplifier) systems and so deliver few cycle 1500-2000 nm high power pulses directly to many and varied applications in technology and science. The applications are expected to have industrial/societal impact in Defence, Security, Analytical and Measurement Technology sectors. The hoped for outcome is a fully characterized prototype that can be developed into a commercial product. First steps in the latter direction will be taken during the project by linking with a suitable commercial partner after preparatory legal and IP protection actions are completed. The aim is a product that can be added on to a standard commercial OPA laser system to deliver state-of-the-art attosecond technology in an easy to use package.

Keywords: lasers,ultrafast,optical technology
AUTOMATIC REGULATION OF COMBUSTION PROCESS FOR WOOD STOVES AND FIREPLACES (FLORIAN)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Secure, clean and efficient energy
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Slovenia
Call: Stimulating the innovation potential of SMEs for a low carbon and efficient energy system (H2020-SMEINST-1-2016-2017, 2016)
Start date: 2017-02-01
End date: 2017-05-31
Duration (months): 4.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aesthetic appeal of wood burning stoves, able to enhance the home environment offering a gathering point for family and friends while now be providing additional heat. Following increased needs for more efficient combustion conditions (i.e. reduced fuel consumption (i.e. cost efficiency) and particle emissions); safe installations and minimum user intervention (i.e. reduced refueling time), FLORIAN is the latest innovation from ATech that solves these issues. Draft control through manually controlled mechanical vents and fans are one of established solutions offered by the industry to increase the efficiency of wood log stoves. Nevertheless, manual solutions require constant user intervention to ensure sufficient utilization of the firewood and efficient combustion conditions, and their speed and effectiveness is far away and incomparable to a fully automatic solution. With FLORIAN we offer an innovative device differentiated from traditional solutions due to its intelligent (embedded algorithm) and fully automated nature which combines both mechanical (flap, fan) and electronic parts (regulation, sensors, automatic controller). Our company, ATech has more than 25 years of experience as a contract manufacturer of electronic components. Since 2008, we focused on R&D of biomass combustion control electronics. FLORIAN is the best price and technologically robust solution that will generate optimal combustion conditions in wood stoves and ovens. FLORIAN offers a reduced 20% fuel consumption and emissions combining it with the maximum user comfort which will allow us to be established as a key player in (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) HVAC market. According to our initial estimations, through the commercialisation of FLORIAN we expect to reach €45 million revenues five years after its commercialization boosting the expansion of our international network, increasing our staff, and achieve a Cumulative Return of Investment of 5.63 in 2024.

Keywords: smart draft control system,efficient woodstoves,hvac systems
Resilient Europe and Societies by Innovating Local Communities (RESILOC)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Secure societies - protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens
Theme: Increase Europe's resilience to crises and disasters
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Italy,Italy,Italy,Italy,Germany,Bulgaria,Greece,Norway,Greece,Slovenia,United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call: Human factors, and social, societal, and organisational aspects for disaster-resilient societies (H2020-SU-SEC-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2019-06-01
End date: 2022-11-30
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5281562.5
EU funding (EUR): 5281562.5
Participants: 17
Project status: CLOSED

Resilience is defined by the United Nations as “the ability to resist, absorb and accommodate to the effects of a hazard, in a timely and efficient manner”. Thus, resilient communities are those in which their citizens, environment, businesses, and infrastructures have the capacity to withstand, adapt, and recover in a timely manner from any kind of hazards they face, either planned or unplanned. In recent years efforts have been spent to tackle resilience and there is, still, a long path forward in defining an EU valid and sound approach to the problem. RESILOC aims at studying and implementing a holistic framework of studies, methods and software instruments that combines the physical with the less tangible aspects associated with human behaviour. The study-oriented section of the framework will move from a thorough collection and analysis of literature and stories from the many approaches to resilience adopted all over the World. The results of the studies will lead to the definition of a set of new methods and strategies where the assessment of the resilience indicators of a community will be performed together with simulations on the “what-if” certain measures are taken. These studies and methods will serve for designing and implementing two software instruments: 1. the RESILOC inventory, a comprehensive, live, structure for collecting, classifying and using information on cities and local communities, implemented as a Software as a Service (SaaS). 2. The RESILOC Cloud-based platform for assessing and calculating the resilience indicators of a city or a community, for developing localised strategies and verifying their impacts on the resilience of the community. The Cloud platform, a combination of SaaS and PaaS, includes the inventory as its repository. The project will make use of built solutions in four field trials and includes a high-profile communication plan, heavily based on Social Media platforms.

Keywords: resilient europe,resilience,resilient population,new strategies,preparedness,resilience indicator
Development of hybrid artificial skin substitute for chronic diabetic wounds (SKIN SUBSTITUTE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Ireland
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2018-08-01
End date: 2020-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 187866.0
EU funding (EUR): 187866.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

It is estimated that the incidence of diabetes in Europe will affect 43 million people by 2030. 15% of diabetic patients develop a diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) with 14-24% of these patients requiring amputation. Mortality following amputation of 50–68% is comparable or worse than for most malignancies. My strategy will develop for the first time a skin substitute which combines a biopolymer and a functionalized synthetic FDA approved polymer incorporating bioactive components and AgO and ZnO nanoparticles as antibacterial agents. The cellular compatibility of the hybrid skin substitute will be assessed on fibroblast, keratinocyte and hMSC in a 3D cell culture model. The antimicrobial efficacy will be assessed in vitro and in vivo. The optimised scaffold will be assessed in an alloxan-induced diabetic rabbit ulcer model with gold standards Integra® and Alloderm® skin grafts acting as commercial controls to validate the commercial potential of the technology. Progress to completion will be reviewed by a Research and Professional Development Plan which will provide both discipline-specific and complementary technical training (molecular biology, diabetic wound healing in vivo models, and histological and stereological techniques) and generic and complementary transferable skills training (e.g. intellectual property, leadership skills, motivation skills, communication skills, leveraging non-exchequer funding, regulatory affairs, clinical trial design, reimbursement strategies, medical device evaluation and regulatory affairs). I will benefit from Prof Pandit’s and Prof Dulce Papy-Garcia (secondment) international collaborative network in the field of diabetic wound healing. This training will facilitate me to achieve my future career goals of achieving a position of professional maturity, diversity and independence by establishing my own research group at a leading European institution and enabling me to translate innovative therapeutic interventions to the clinic setting.

Keywords: functionalised biomaterials,tissue engineering,biomedical engineering,scaffolds