Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
ROtational Motions: a new observable for seismologY (ROMY)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Earth system science
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2020-02-29
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2488907.0
EU funding (EUR): 2488907.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

When the ground shakes from earthquakes, the oceans, or the atmosphere, it not only translates (up-down, sideways), but also undergoes rotational motions. To fully characterize seismic sources and wave fields theoreticians have insisted for decades that these motions should also be measured. However, this was hampered by the substantial technical difficulties in observing rotational motions with the necessary sensitivity. This implies that the observation of the complete ground motion is still an unsolved problem. Based on promising pilot studies in the past years, we aim at breaking new ground with an innovative instrumentation strategy that would allow solving this outstanding problem. If the strategy is successful the new observable is expected to have an impact in a wide range of fields making it a classical high-risk high-gain situation. We aim at the establishment of the first-of-its-kind six-component seismic observatory based on ring-laser technology, the field deployment of portable fibre-optic based rotation sensors, the integration of the new observations with the global seismological data infrastructure, and the reporting of discoveries in a variety of fields based on the new observable. At the end of the project we expect to have substantially pushed forward the emerging field field of rotational seismology with new standards, and recommendations for the use of rotation sensors in Earth sciences and engineering. We expect advances in understanding 1) the dynamics of volcano’s interior, 2) the origin of the Earth’s ocean generated noise field, 3) and seismic inverse problems for structure and source using the new rotational observables. This will impact several pressing problems of societal relevance in particular in association with natural hazards such as volcanic eruptions and earthquake strong ground motion as well as geophysical exploration.

Keywords: seismic instrumentation,rotational motions,seismic tomography,ocean generated noise,correlation techniques,volcanology,seismic arrays,earthquake engineering
Genetic links between development and evolution of the human cerebral cortex (GENDEVOCORTEX)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Neurosciences and neural disorders
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-08-01
End date: 2020-07-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2473937.0
EU funding (EUR): 2473937.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The mechanisms underlying the evolution of the human brain constitute one of the most fascinating unresolved questions of biology. The cerebral cortex has evolved rapidly in size and complexity in the hominid lineage, which is likely linked to quantitative and qualitative divergence in patterns of cortical development. On the other hand, comparative genomics has revealed recently the existence of a number of "hominid-specific" genes, which constitute attractive candidates to underlie critical aspects of human brain evolution, but their function remains essentially unexplored, mostly because of the lack of appropriate experimental systems. Here we propose to test a simple and radical hypothesis: that key species-specific features of the development of the human cerebral cortex, in particular the generation and differentiation of pyramidal neurons, are linked functionally to the emergence of hominid-specific (HS) genes controlling corticogenesis. To achieve this high risk / high gain goal, we will first determine which HS genes are expressed in the human developing cortex in vivo, using a combination of genome-wide and in situ gene detection analyses, in order to select those most likely to impact corticogenesis. The function of candidate HS genes will be determined using innovative models of human corticogenesis based on pluripotent stem cells, developed recently in our laboratory, as well as ex vivo cultures of human fetal cortex. In addition, the developmental and evolutionary impact of HS genes will be examined in a non-hominid context, the mouse embryonic cortex. By identifying the function of hominid-specific genes in cortical developpment, we will uncover specific genetic mechanisms linking functionally the development and evolution of the human brain, with broad implications in neurobiology, developmental and evolutionary biology.

Keywords: brain evolution,cerebral cortex,pyramidal neurons,neurogenesis,neuronal specification,neuronal migration,axon guidance,pluripotent stem cells
Next generation of complex metallic materials with intelligent hybrid structures (INTELHYB)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2020-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499920.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499920.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

In a modern society, metallic materials are crucially important (e.g. energy, safety, infrastructure, transportation, health, medicine, life sciences, IT). Contemporary examples with inherent challenges to be overcome are the design of ultrahigh specific strength materials. There is a critical need for successful developments in this area in particular for reduced energy consumption, reduction of pollutant emissions and passenger safety. Alternative approaches include improved thermal stability and creep resistance of high-temperature alloys for energy conversion, which are generally used in power plants and turbine engines, high temperature process technology, and fossil-fuel driven engines. The ageing European society makes biomedical materials for implant and stent design also crucially important. A drawback of nearly all current high strength metallic materials is that they lack ductility (i.e. are brittle and hard to form)- or on the opposite side, they may be highly ductile but lack strength. The key concept behind INTELHYB is to define new routes for creation of tailored metallic materials based on scale-bridging intelligent hybrid structures enabling property as well as function optimization. The novelty of this proposal as compared to conventional ideas is that they apply to monolithic amorphous materials or bulk microcrystalline. The basis will be founded on innovative strategies for the design, synthesis and characterization of intrinsic length-scale modulation and phase transformation under highly non-equilibrium conditions. This will include the incorporation of dispersed phases which are close to or beyond their thermodynamic and mechanical stability limit thus forming a hierarchically structured hybrid and ductile/tough alloys. Alternatively, the material itself will be designed in a manner such that it is at the verge of its thermodynamic/mechanical stability.

Keywords: hierarchical modulated structures,amorphous alloys,short range order,medium range order,properties,instabilities
Ploidy change as a rapid mechanism of adaptation (RAPLODAPT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
Countries involved: Israel,United States
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2019-12-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2365000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2365000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Fungi are particularly challenging pathogens; because they and their human hosts are eukaryotes. We will study how new traits such as drugR arise rapidly using Candida albicans, the most prevalent fungal pathogen of humans. The work explores the ground-breaking concept that alterations in genome ploidy are prevalent in drugR isolates because these genome states promote persistence and drug resistance. We recently found that C. albicans, thought to be an “obligate diploid”, can form haploids. This represents a major paradigm shift both technologically and conceptually. We are poised to exploit this unique opportunity to reinvent genomic approaches for C. albicans by leveraging next generation sequencing, high throughput analyses and more traditional genetics. Because haploids are much less fit than heterozygous diploids, our working hypothesis is that changes in ploidy, including whole genome ploidy and aneuploidy, occur frequently under drug stress and that they make major contributions to the rapid appearance of genotypic and phenotypic diversity, in part by promoting persistence. The objectives of this proposal are to develop next-generation technologies that leverage haploids; to characterize the conditions and genes that promote ploidy transitions, especially in the presence of drug, in vitro and in vivo and to analyze their fitness consequences. This multi-disciplinary research program will integrate = approaches at the genetic, genomic, molecular, cellular and population levels and includes computational approaches to model evolutionary processes. The project will lead to unparalleled advances in tools for the research community, and important insights concerning how diversity arises rapidly. It will assist in efforts to design diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for preventing and treating fungal diseases, prividing insights into the rapid appearance of drug resistance in eukaryotic pathogens, and chemotherapy resistance in cancer cells.

Keywords: fungal biology,aneuploidy,persistence,drug resistance,rapid evolution
Vision and Hearing in Action (VHIA)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2497296.0
EU funding (EUR): 2497296.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The objective of VHIA is to elaborate a holistic computational paradigm of perception and of perception-action loops. We plan to develop a completely novel twofold approach: (i) learn from mappings between auditory/visual inputs and structured outputs, and from sensorimotor contingencies, and (ii) execute perception-action interaction cycles in the real world with a humanoid robot. VHIA will achieve a unique fine coupling between methodological findings and proof-of-concept implementations using the consumer humanoid NAO manufactured in Europe. The proposed multimodal approach is in strong contrast with current computational paradigms influenced by unimodal biological theories. These theories have hypothesized a modular view, postulating quasi-independent and parallel perceptual pathways in the brain. VHIA will also take a radically different view than today's audiovisual fusion models that rely on clean-speech signals and on accurate frontal-images of faces; These models assume that videos and sounds are recorded with hand-held or head-mounted sensors, and hence there is a human in the loop who intentionally supervises perception and interaction. Our approach deeply contradicts the belief that complex and expensive humanoids (often manufactured in Japan) are required to implement research ideas. VHIA's methodological program addresses extremely difficult issues: how to build a joint audiovisual space from heterogeneous, noisy, ambiguous and physically different visual and auditory stimuli, how to model seamless interaction, how to deal with high-dimensional input data, and how to achieve robust and efficient human-humanoid communication tasks through a well-thought tradeoff between offline training and online execution. VHIA bets on the high-risk idea that in the next decades, social robots will have a considerable economical impact, and there will be millions of humanoids, in our homes, schools and offices, which will be able to naturally communicate with us.

Keywords: multisensory fusion,audiovisual perception,binocular vision,binaural hearing,robot vision,robot hearing,human-robot interaction
A genome editing-based approach to study the stem cell hierarchy of human colorectal cancers (EDITCRC)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physiology, Pathophysiology and Endocrinology
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499405.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499405.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

A hallmark of cancer is tumor cell heterogeneity, which results from combinations of multiple genetic and epigenetic alterations within an individual tumor. In contrast, we have recently discovered that most human colorectal cancers (CRCs) are composed of mixtures of phenotypically distinct tumor cells organized into a stem cell hierarchy that displays a striking resemblance to the healthy colonic epithelium. We showed that long-term regeneration potential of tumor cells is largely influenced by the position that they occupy within the tumor's hierarchy. To analyze the organization of CRCs without the constraints imposed by tumor cell transplantation experiments, we have developed a method that allows for the first time tracking and manipulating the fate of specific cell populations in whole human tumors. This technology is based on editing the genomes of primary human CRCs cultured in the form of tumor organoids using Zinc-Finger Nucleases to knock-in either lineage tracing or cell ablation alleles in genes that define colorectal cancer stem cells (CRC-SCs) or differentiated-like tumor cells. Edited tumor organoids generate CRCs in mice that reproduce the tumor of origin while carrying the desired genetic modifications. This technological advance opens the gate to perform classical genetic and developmental analysis in human tumors. We will exploit this advantage to address fundamental questions about the cell heterogeneity and organization of human CRCs that cannot be tackled through currently existing experimental approaches such as: Are CRC-SCs the only tumor cell population with long term regenerating potential? Can we cure CRC with anti-CRC-SC specific therapies? Will tumor cell plasticity contribute to the regeneration of the CRC-SC pool after therapy? Do quiescent-SCs regenerate CRC tumors after standard chemotherapy? Can we identify these cells? How do common genetic alterations in CRC influence the CRC hierarchy? Do they affect the stem cell phenotype?

Keywords: cancer stem cells,quiescent stem cells,metastasis,tumour hierachy
Three-dimensional molecular resolution mapping of soft matter-liquid interfaces (3DNANOMECH)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical sciences
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-07-31
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499928.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499928.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Optical, electron and probe microscopes are enabling tools for discoveries and knowledge generation in nanoscale sicence and technology. High resolution –nanoscale or molecular-, noninvasive and label-free imaging of three-dimensional soft matter-liquid interfaces has not been achieved by any microscopy method. Force microscopy (AFM) is considered the second most relevant advance in materials science since 1960. Despite its impressive range of applications, the technique has some key limitations. Force microscopy has not three dimensional depth. What lies above or in the subsurface is not readily characterized. 3DNanoMech proposes to design, build and operate a high speed force-based method for the three-dimensional characterization soft matter-liquid interfaces (3D AFM). The microscope will combine a detection method based on force perturbations, adaptive algorithms, high speed piezo actuators and quantitative-oriented multifrequency approaches. The development of the microscope cannot be separated from its applications: imaging the error-free DNA repair and to understand the relationship existing between the nanomechanical properties and the malignancy of cancer cells. Those problems encompass the different spatial –molecular-nano-mesoscopic- and time –milli to seconds- scales of the instrument. In short, 3DNanoMech aims to image, map and measure with picoNewton, millisecond and angstrom resolution soft matter surfaces and interfaces in liquid. The long-term vision of 3DNanoMech is to replace models or computer animations of bimolecular-liquid interfaces by real time, molecular resolution maps of properties and processes.

Keywords: force microscopy,nanomechanics,atomic and molecular 3d imaging
Individualized early risk assessment for heart diseases (INDIVUHEART)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Diagnostic tools, therapies and public health
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2019-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2494728.0
EU funding (EUR): 2494728.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Heart failure (HF) is the common end-stage of different medical conditions. It is the only growing cardiovascular disease and its prognosis remains worse than that of many malignancies. The lack of evidence-based treatment for patients with diastolic HF (HFpEF) exemplifies that the current “one for all” therapy has to be advanced by an individualized approach. Inherited cardiomyopathies can serve as paradigmatic examples of different HF pathogenesis. Both gain- and loss-of-function mutations of the same gene cause disease, calling for disease-specific agonism or antagonism of this gene´s function. However, mutations alone do not predict the severity of cardiomyopathies nor therapy, because their impact on cardiac myocyte function is modified by numerous factors, including the genetic context. Today, patient-specific cardiac myocytes can be evaluated by the induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) technology. Yet, unfolding the true potential of this technology requires robust, quantitative, high content assays. Our recently developed method to generate 3D-engineered heart tissue (EHT) from hiPSC provide an automated, high content analysis of heart muscle function and the response to stressors in the dish. The aim of this project is to make the technology a clinically applicable test. Major steps are (i) in depths clinical phenotyping and genotyping of patients with cardiomyopathies or HFpEF, (ii) follow-up of the clinical course, (iii) generation of hiPSC lines (40 patients, 40 healthy controls), and (iv) quantitative assessment of hiPSC-EHT function under basal conditions and in response to pro-arrhythmic or cardio-active drugs and chronic afterload enhancement. The product of this study is an SOP-based assay with standard values for hiPSC-EHT function/stress responses from healthy volunteers and patients with different heart diseases. The project could change clinical practice and be a step towards individualized risk prediction and therapy of HF.

Keywords: individualized therapy,individualized medicine,heart failure,engineerd heart tissue,induced pluripotend stem cells
The Electron Capture Decay of 163Ho to Measure the Electron Neutrino Mass with sub-eV sensitivity (HOLMES)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2020-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3057067.0
EU funding (EUR): 3057067.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

HOLMES is aimed at directly measuring the electron neutrino mass using the electron capture (EC) decay of 163Ho. The measurement of the absolute neutrino mass represents a major breakthrough in particle physics and cosmology. Due to their abundance as big-bang relics, massive neutrinos strongly affect the large-scale structure and dynamics of the universe. In addition, the knowledge of the scale of neutrino masses, together with their hierarchy pattern, is invaluable to clarify the origin of fermion masses beyond the Higgs mechanism. The innovative approach of HOLMES consists in the calorimetric measurement of the energy released in the decay of 163Ho. In this way, all the atomic de-excitation energy is measured, except that carried away by the neutrino. A finite neutrino mass m causes a deformation of the energy spectrum which is truncated at Q-m, where Q is the EC transition energy. The sensitivity depends on Q - the lower the Q, the higher the sensitivity - and 163Ho is an ideal isotope with a Q around 2.5keV. The direct measurement exploits only energy and momentum conservation, and it is therefore completely model-independent. At the same time, the calorimetric measurement eliminates systematic uncertainties arising from the use of external beta sources, as in neutrino mass measurements with beta spectrometers, and minimizes the effect of the atomic de-excitation process uncertainties. HOLMES will deploy a large array of low temperature microcalorimeters with implanted 163Ho nuclei. The resulting mass sensitivity will be as low as 0.4eV. HOLMES will be an important step forward in the direct neutrino mass measurement with a calorimetric approach as an alternative to spectrometry. It will also establish the potential of this approach to extend the sensitivity down to 0.1eV. The detection techniques developed for HOLMES will have an impact in many frontier fields as astrophysics, material analysis, nuclear safety, archeometry, quantum communication.

Keywords: neutrino mass,electron capture,163ho,low temperature detectors,calorimetry,energy dispersive spectroscopy,superconducting electronics,multiplexing,digital signal processing,atomic transition