Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Exploitation of enzyme promiscuity to generate ribosomal natural product diversity (EXPLORE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Panel description: Biotechnology using all organisms, biotechnology for environment and food applications, applied plant and animal sciences, bioengineering and synthetic biology, biomass and biofuels, biohazards
Countries involved: Germany,United Kingdom
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2020-COG, 2020)
Start date: 2021-06-01
End date: 2026-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1977125.0
EU funding (EUR): 1577500.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Natural sources have been highly important for the discovery of new drugs, offering compounds that possess exciting and potent bioactivities. The development of many promising natural products is significantly hampered by the difficulties associated with the synthesis of novel analogs. The family of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide (RiPP) natural products offers a plethora of different, promising bioactivities and highly diverse scaffolds. I propose to develop two new complementary routes to generate modified, bespoke RiPPs in vitro and in vivo: Interchangeable leader peptide (ILP) technology, which is a novel approach tailored to RiPPs. Every RiPP is produced from a precursor peptide that consists of a core peptide (the eventual natural product) and a pathway-specific recognition sequence that is recognized by parts of the biosynthetic machinery. ILP technology will allow me to swap out recognition sequences and thus combine the biosynthetic machineries from diverse RiPP pathways in a mix-and-match approach to generate new-to-nature, hybrid RiPPs using two routes: (1) We will develop this technology in vitro to take full advantage of non-natural amino acids and other building blocks. (2) We will transfer an optimized, streamlined version to an in vivo setting using peptide ligation in the cytoplasm of E. coli. This will allow us to use the power of genetics to create large libraries of compounds. I will harvest the novel enzymatic modifications enabled by ILPs to generate diverse RiPP scaffolds that contain amino acids, non-natural amino acids, enzymatically modified amino acids and non-a-amino acid building blocks. We will then use ILP technology to identify novel pathoblockers for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The successful completion of this project will revolutionize the design of RiPPs-inspired next generation libraries with diverse scaffolds for application in tool compound development, target identification and drug discovery.

Keywords: natural products,ripps,engineering
Nichoid: nanoengineered three-dimensional substrate for stem cell expansion (NICHOIDS)

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: Italy,Italy
Call: ERC-Proof of Concept-2016 (ERC-2016-PoC, 2016)
Start date: 2017-06-01
End date: 2018-11-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 110000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) raise a great interest for regenerative medicine for many clinical applications such as orthopaedic, plastic and reconstructive surgery, within autoimmune or degenerative disease treatment and as immune-suppressive agents in organ transplantation. In stem cell therapy, cells are injected in the patient after an extensive in vitro manipulation aimed at obtaining a sufficient cell number able to guarantee the therapeutic effect. Currently, stem cell "manufacturing" implies the use of “feeder” cells and additives from animal sources, hampering the clinical use mainly for safety reasons. In the context of an ERC Consolidator grant (ERC-CoG) that I currently lead, I introduced a novel ground-breaking concept for an easy to use, repeatable, cost-effective, and safe substrate for stem cell expansion, called the “nichoid” substrate, capable of avoiding feeder cells and dangerous additives. The substrate is polymerized with a laser in a biocompatible resin using a frontier nano-fabrication technology called “two-photon laser polymerization” (2PP). To explore the possibility of an economic exploitation of this invention covered by an Italian Patent submitted in September 2015 and already extended as PCT, the goal of this PoC is to perform a technical and commercial feasibility to move the method developed in the PI’s laboratory during the ERC grant to the market. In particular, I plan to speed up the maturity level of the technology further developing the production process of individual nichoids (fabrication up-scaling by at least a factor of 10, allowing to cover a culture surface of 5 squared cm in five hours), setting of an actionable IPR strategy (including a market assessment), identification of the suitable exploitation strategy for valorising the patent/know how (licensing). The nichoid could drastically reduce down to few years the time to market of stem cell products that is currently 20 years.

Keywords: stem cells,adult,mesenchymal,cultivation,substrate,nanofabrication,laser,two photon polymerization,parallelization,up scaling,clinical translation,stem cell therapy,cell factory
The NGOs’ virtual reality content viewing platform (Mokita)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Spain
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1, 2018)
Start date: 2018-12-01
End date: 2019-05-31
Duration (months): 6.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Hikaru is a Spanish SME focused on Virtual Reality for social causes. After having produced the first VR campaigns against Gender Violence, Alzheimer prevention, Bullying or Compulsive Eating Disorder, we are developing Mokita. NGOs spend on average 15% to 35% of their total budget on low-return marketing activities (TV ads, street fundraisers). These activities are inefficient for NGOs and ill-considered by donors. Meanwhile, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) departments struggle to identify well-considered high-impact social projects to allocate their resources. Mokita is a simple solution, the very first Virtual Reality content viewing platform for immersive experiencing NGOs’ projects with an integrated donation, subscription and volunteer system, with the possibility of sponsorship by CSR. The benefits include: (i) For NGOs: Showroom of projects, reduce marketing costs, obtain more funds, transparency and accountability. (ii) For Donors: Customized offer, immersive experience, immediate transactions, donate to specific programmes, and share their interests with others. (iii) For companies implementing CSR: enhance brand perception, recruitment and retention, and brand differentiation. We have achieved TLR6 as we have developed a prototype platform, the payment gateway, the application library, and the content player. At a commercial level, we are in close contact with CSR departments of banks, NGOs and key opinion leaders. The opportunity is huge, the global VR content creation market is projected to rise to an astral figure of € 33.96 bn in 2024. Furthermore, NGOs give more than €53 bn annually only in EU, 2.5 bn people worldwide donate to charity and Fortune 500 firms spend €12.4 bn a year on CSR activities. Adapting our closer competitor’s business model to our scope, we have estimated that after 5 years from launch, we will manage 1.1% of all European donations, earn €15.3M profit and generate a R.O.I of 12.67 (NPV of €5.8 M).

Keywords: virtual reality,crowdfunding,social entrepreneurship,non profit organizations,campaigns,empathy,ngos,social platform,fundraising,charity,donors
Assessment of riverine litter (plastics) inputs to the marine environment (LitRivus)

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: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Spain
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2020-04-01
End date: 2022-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 160932.48
EU funding (EUR): 160932.48
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Assessing riverine litter input variability to the marine environment at large scale through field data collection: progress in marine litter pollution science beyond the state-of-the-art. Marine litter is a major global environmental concern and highly relevant in the political agendas and environmental policy frameworks, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals.The fact that the patterns in dynamics and distribution of riverine litter remain unknown to date underlines that LitRivus can greatly advance the field of marine litter and the global plastics issue. The project will be focused on innovative monitoring methods to study riverine litter input, providing details on dynamics and variability of litter flux in rivers, which is the missing information necessary to validate models for assessment of riverine litter loads to the sea. Empirical data will facilitate formulation of models to reduce uncertainties and improve estimations. Moreover, the use of international data from RIMMEL project (DG Joint Research Centre, European Commission) and collaboration with experts through RiLiNet will provide the project a large scale. Publication of these results will be very welcome internationally, providing a new approach to the topic based on field data, and serving larger goals pursued by the scientific community, e.g. calculation of marine litter mass balances at different geographical and temporal scales. Furthermore, this will be the first time comprehensive data on riverine litter inputs will be evaluated in relation to policy and decision-making frameworks, such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Water Framework Directive and the EU Strategy for plastics, thus guaranteeing that science-policy knowledge transfer is achieved in order to improve plastic mitigation measures.

Keywords: marine litter,riverine litter,marine pollution,plastics,marine strategy framework directive,water framework directive,circular economy,plastics strategy
Software-Defined Number Formats: Bridging the Gap between Performance, Accuracy, and Security (SoftNum)

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: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2025-01-16
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 224933.76
EU funding (EUR): 224933.76
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

All computing devices implement computer arithmetic as a core functionality. Nearly all computing devices moreover implement the same, standardized number formats in order to aid software portability. However, with Moore’s Law ending, we question whether it remains the best approach to achieve high performance and low energy consumption by applying the same standardized number formats for all applications. Among others, the Internet-of-Things (IoT) presents a proliferation of compute devices with a wide variety of functionality, among others in data sensing, data analytics, and inference of machine-learned models. Additionally, security mechanisms, which are essential for internet-connected devices, are compute-intensive workloads. We posit that each of these workloads will see improved performance and energy-efficiency from distinct, specialized computer arithmetic. The SoftNum Marie Curie Fellowship will explore how to make number formats, generally considered to be hard-wired functionality, software-defined. Software-defined number formats have the advantage of high performance, low energy consumption, and ensure sufficient while not excessive precision. For instance, with SoftNum it will be possible to design a data sensing device that pre-processes data streams at the minimal precision possible to minimize energy consumption, embeds a watermark to prove ownership and origin of the data, all while achieving the required application-level accuracy. This project, if successful, will have a major impact on how we perceive the design of computing devices. It will create an unprecedented degree of virtualization of the core computing hardware, with an estimated system-level speedup of 50% and reduction of energy consumption by 70%. This novel proposition promises to accelerate the Fellow’s career, who brings prior expertise in computer arithmetic to the project, under the mentorship of an expert in transprecise computing and runtime system software.

Keywords: computer arithmetic,transprecise computing,internet of things iot
Development of an innovative and safe ultralight two-seater turbine helicopter (DISRUPT)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Action type: Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Italy,Czechia
Call: Fast Track to Innovation Pilot (H2020-FTIPilot-2015-1, 2015)
Start date: 2016-01-01
End date: 2018-06-30
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4104787.5
EU funding (EUR): 2873351.25
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

Ultralight helicopters are used for a variety of transportation needs, attracting users from the recreational, private and public market segments because of their agility and convenient storage and transportation capacities. However, most ultralight helicopters on the market today are designed and manufactured with technology dating back to the 1980s. This creates a serious safety issue in adverse weather conditions. Indeed, ultralight helicopter accidents caused an estimated 57 deaths in Europe in 2013. The principal cause of these accidents is “Loss of Control-In Flight”. Many of these accidents could have been prevented with better ultralight helicopter designs and more powerful engines. The DISRUPT (Development of an innovative and safe ultralight, two-seater turbine helicopter) project is a state-of-the-art concept to manufacture a new and improved ultralight helicopter. Our helicopter design, turbine engine and parachute safety mechanism will make ultralight helicopter flights safer for passengers and reduce the number of tragedies caused by loss of pilot control.

Keywords: ultralight helicopter,safety,turbine engine,reliability,ballistic parachute,microlight,flying,helicopter
Decoding cell-to-cell variation in genome integrity maintenance (DiVineGenoMe)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Molecules of Life: Biological Mechanisms, Structures and Functions
Panel description: Molecular biology, biochemistry, structural biology, molecular biophysics, synthetic and chemical biology, drug design, innovative methods and modelling
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2016-STG, 2016)
Start date: 2017-04-01
End date: 2022-09-30
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Cells must ensure the integrity of their genome, and failure to do so can lead to mutations and cause disease. A sophisticated molecular network senses genomic lesions and coordinates their faithful repair with other DNA transactions, including transcription and DNA replication. Research over the last years has significantly advanced our understanding of the DNA damage response and continues to provide crucial insights that explain how cells deal with genotoxic stress to avoid malignant transformation. More recently, the intriguing phenomenon of cellular heterogeneity reached into the limelight as it became increasingly clear that significant variability exists between individual cells, even of the same genetic background and cell type. Single cells matter, for instance during cellular transformation or tumor relapse, and cellular variability thus impacts disease development and therapeutic outcome. Its determinants are surprisingly unexplored, however, and have not been studied in context of genome integrity maintenance. The main objective of this project is to systematically assess cellular heterogeneity in genome integrity maintenance and characterize its causes and consequences. Quantitative automated high-content imaging of large cell cohorts will be used to identify hitherto unknown determinants of variability in the cellular responses to genotoxic stress and dissect at the single cell level the variability in (1) the chromatin response to DNA double-strand breaks, (2) the cellular response to replication stress, and (3) the cellular capacity to trigger phase transitions, a newly emerging mechanism of dynamic compartmentalization, at sites of genomic lesions. This project will bridge two thus far independently developed research fields (genome stability and cellular heterogeneity), reveal how cell-to-cell variation impacts cell fate and survival in response to genotoxic stress, and may uncover ways to homogenize this response for improved cancer therapies.

Keywords: genome stability,dna repair,cellular heterogeneity,single cell analyses,cancer development and therapy,rnai screening,replication stress,organelle biology,intracellular phase transitions
Being safe around collaborative and versatile robots in shared spaces (COVR)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: Robotics SPARC (cPPP)
Countries involved: Germany,Italy,France,Netherlands,Denmark
Call: System abilities, SME & benchmarking actions, safety certification (H2020-ICT-2017-1, 2017)
Start date: 2018-01-01
End date: 2021-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 10705433.75
EU funding (EUR): 10448333.75
Participants: 5
Project status: CLOSED

Increasing demand from the growing and aging population can be assuaged by ever closer safe human-robot collaboration (HRI): to improve productivity, reduce health limitations and provide services. HRI and safety are both major topics in the Work Programme. Safety regulations will be a barrier to cobot deployment unless they are easy to access, understand and apply. COVR collates existing safety regulations relating to cobots in e.g. manufacturing and fills in regulatory gaps for newer cobot fields e.g. rehabilitation to present detailed safety assessment instructions to coboteers. Making the safety assessment process clearer allows cobots to be used with more confidence in more situations, increasing the variety of cobots on the market and the variety of services cobots can offer to the general population. TRYG provides a one-stop shop which uses a common approach to safety assessment and is valid across all fields and applications. TRYG will provide clear and simple online access to best-practice safety testing protocols via a user-friendly decision tree, guided by questions about the cobot and its intended behaviours. Resulting application-specific testing protocols specify how to assess safety and document compliance with regulations. We support coboteers by providing safety-relevant services based in well-equipped facilities at each partner site. TRYG services cover all stages of cobot development from design through final system sign-off to safety in use and maintenance, provided through consultancy, risk analysis, actual testing, workshops, courses, demonstrations, etc. – all designed to inspire people to increase cobot safety. All TRYG elements will be beta-tested by external cobot developers etc. financed by FSTP. By using project elements “live”, these FSTP beneficiaries not only develop their cobots further towards market, but also contribute their knowledge to the TRYG system and provide valuable feedback to both partners and standards developers.

Keywords: a domain independent system for choosing validation methods to demonstrate compliance with safety standards
EuroScience Open Forum ESOF2018 (ESOF2018)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Science with and for Society
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: France
Call: The Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) 2018 (H2020-IBA-SWFS-ESOF-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2017-06-01
End date: 2018-11-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1234062.5
EU funding (EUR): 999999.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

ESOF (EuroScience Open Forum) is the largest interdisciplinary science meeting in Europe. It is dedicated to scientific research and innovation and offers a unique framework for interaction and debate for scientists, innovators, policy makers, business people and the general public. Created in 2004 by EuroScience, the non-profit grassroots association of researchers in Europe, this biennial, interdisciplinary, pan-European forum brings together over 4 000 researchers, educators, business actors, policy makers and journalists from all over the world to discuss breakthroughs in science. After Stockholm, Munich, Barcelona, Torino, Dublin, Copenhagen, Manchester, the 8th edition of ESOF will take place in Toulouse, France, from 9 till 14 July 2018. The motto of ESOF 2018 is “Sharing science: towards new horizons” and enrols itself in the “Open innovation, open science, open to the world” vision for Europe. ESOF’s Scientific Programme will deal with major societal challenges, such as sustainable cities, sustainable living, global change, science policy and transformation of research practice, health in our societies, understanding divided societies, and so on. The call for sessions strongly encourages the participation of society through innovative format and the alignment with one cross-cutting issue, such as gender issues or ethics. It is complemented by five other programmes: - the Science and Policy Programme, which addresses policies on science for Europe; - the Career programme, which is geared specifically towards young European researchers; - the Science to Business Programme, which addresses the involvement of the private sector in science and innovation; - the Media and Communication Programme, which targets media involvement in all forms with a specific agenda dedicated to science communication; - the Science in the City Programme which provides a scientific cultural programme to engage with the general public.

Keywords: citizen science,public engagement,responsible research and innovation,interdisciplinary,research policies