Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Single cell proteomics for studying circulating tumor cells and monitor disease progression on breast cancer patients (CTCPROTEOMIC)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-09-03
End date: 2014-09-02
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 200371.8
EU funding (EUR): 200371.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The planned research is aimed at the proteomic analysis at single cell level for circulating tumor cells (CTCs), as these cells shed from the primary tumor site and are identified in transit within the bloodstream of cancer patients with metastatic degree of the disease. The proposed work have an highly multidisciplinar approach to engage the central challenge of our proposal, combining proteomic analysis, microfluidic antibody capture chips and a ‘full optical’ platform which accounts for cell manipulation, cell lysis and protein’s quantification with a level of sensitivity down to proteins copy number. Milestone of the project in carrying out analysis at single cell level, is the comprehensive proteomic study of cell-to-cell variations for the expression of cancer biomarkers, which ultimately led to the heterogeneity, complexity and evolution at phenotypic level of the disease. By the analysis of circulating tumour cells isolated from the peripheral blood of breast cancer patients, we will focus the attention on the quantification of the free form of estrogen receptor and its phoshpotypes, as a unvaluable biomarker directly involved in cellular proliferation and actually targeted by endocrine therapies in clinical practice. Thus, estrogen receptor will be embedded in a platform for multiplex proteomic analysis at single cell level with other four biomarkers. Information achieved by analysis of CTCs will be directly correlate with the status of cells at primary tumor site and the overall status of the disease. Results are expected to provide new insights into tumour cell biology and will offer a new non-invasive tool to monitor the evolution and the progression of the disease, as well the response to therapies during treatment and follow-up of patients.

Keywords: health sciences,single cell analysis,circulating tumor cells,breast cancer,endocrine therapy,proteomic,cancer biomarkers,microfluidic device,optical techniques
The role of the transcription factor GATA3 in kidney function and disease (GATA3 IN KIDNEY)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Austria
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2013-05-01
End date: 2015-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 187888.2
EU funding (EUR): 187888.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Mutations in GATA3, a dual zinc-finger transcription factor, cause the autosomal dominant hypoparathyroidism, deafness, renal dysplasia (HDR) syndrome, and down-regulation of GATA3 results in clear cell renal cell carcinoma. The renal abnormalities in HDR patients consist of cysts, renal aplasia/hypoplasia, mesangioproliferative glomerulonephritis, and vesicoureteral reflux. In the developing kidney, GATA3 is expressed in the ureteric bud along the branching process that gives rise to the collecting system of the definitive kidney, as well as in the glomerular mesangium and adjacent endocapillary cells. Nephric duct-specific inactivation of Gata3 leads to ectopic ureter budding as a result of premature nephric duct cell differentiation and loss of Ret receptor expression, leading to urogenital malformations such as kidney dysplasia, duplex systems, as well as vas deferens hyperplasia and uterine agenesis. While GATA3 has been identified to have a role in the developing kidney, little is known about its role in the adult kidney and the cellular pathways it regulates. Moreover, GATA3 has been shown to have a protective role in glomerulonephritis, however the molecular mechanisms of this process are unknown. Thus, the overall aim of this project is to define the role of GATA3 in normal adult kidney and in kidney models of glomerular disease. The specific aims are to: 1) assess the expression pattern of GATA3 in normal adult kidneys and in kidneys with glomerulonephritis; 2) determine whether heterozygous Gata3+/- mice are more susceptible to an earlier/more severe form of glomerulonephritis compared with wild-type mice; 3) investigate the role of GATA3 in the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway; and 4) identify the target genes of GATA3 in normal adult kidneys using ChIP-Seq. An integration of these data will advance our understanding of the cellular pathways regulated by GATA3 in the kidney and the molecular mechanisms giving rise to glomerular disease.

Keywords: transcription factor,glomerulonephritis,zinc-finger,renal,hdr syndrome
Multimodal Regulation of Cullin-RING Ligases by CSN (CSN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2013-05-01
End date: 2015-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 184709.4
EU funding (EUR): 184709.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The COP9 Signalosome (CSN) is an eight-subunit molecular machine conserved in eukaryotes. Defects in CSN function are reported in human disorders and a CSN-related pathway recently emerged as a promising cancer drug target. CSN regulates embryonic development, DNA repair, cell cycle checkpoint progression and autophagy. The remarkable pleiotropy of CSN is partially explained through its enzymatic activity towards Cullin-RING E3 ubiquitin ligases (CRLs), which are activated by neddylation and inactivated by CSN-mediated deneddylation. However, loss of CSN function results in loss of CRL activity in cells: an observation which has not been fully explained and is known as the 'CSN paradox'. Intriguingly, we recently observed stable CSN-CRL complexes, irrespective of CRL neddylation and our preliminary results suggest a novel model of multimodal regulation of CRL architecture and function by CSN. Our key research objectives are to structurally characterize CSN-CRL complexes, to determine their functional significance and to dissect the mechanisms, which regulate the interaction. Owing to our team’s complementary expertise and the already established molecular tools, we are in a unique position to achieve these experimentally challenging aims. Our hypotheses are guided by 3D structural data and will be validated in established in vitro assays. All required protein complexes can be purified in large amounts from recombinant systems. In parallel, testing specific predictions and activities in vivo will benefit from already available human cell lines. Our findings will be complemented by an unbiased, large-scale proteomic analysis to characterize distinct CRL-CSN complexes and identify relevant post-translational modifications that regulate complex formation. We expect our results to have important implications for the fundamental understanding of CSN function and CRL regulation, and these may reveal new opportunities to develop specific inhibitors of clinical relevance.

Keywords: human biology,molecular biology,cell biology,structural biology
Facial Expression Recognition in the Wild (FER IN THE WILD)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IIF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-06-01
End date: 2014-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 200371.8
EU funding (EUR): 200371.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

With the every-day growing reach of technology through mediums like internet and mobile computing, having a human-computer interface with the ability to recognise facial expressions (and subsequently the affective state) can be very useful tool for future technology. However, the existing facial expression recognition systems can typically handle only deliberately displayed and exaggerated expressions under controlled laboratory environment. The main aim of the proposed “FER in the Wild” project is to build a fully-automatic and real-time AU detection system capable of handling spontaneous facial expressions under uncontrolled natural settings that is easy-to-use, cost-effective and can be easily merged with any other existing setup. To achieve this goal, a fully-automatic and real-time face tracking system based on a new class for face models, called the Online Robust Deformable Model (ORDM), is proposed that is capable of handling faces under real-world settings. The proposed ORDM, based on the methods for online and incremental subspace learning, will not rely completely on the offline training and will continuously update its models to achieve robust fit to varying pose and illumination conditions. Moreover, a recently proposed Principal Regression Analysis (PRA) framework, used for placing a strong prior over the space of plausible solutions, will be explored and made much more robust to assist in faster and better convergence of the ORDM fitting methods. The proposed project will also extend the state-of-the-art by formulating the Discriminative Dynamic State Regression Machines (DDSRM) with an underlying structure (i.e. with a hidden units or states), referred to as Hidden-DDSRM. This layer of hidden variables will enable HDDSRM to model the complex underlying structure of spontaneous AUs. As a result, a novel AU detection method capable of continuous and accurate prediction of the AU intensities for spontaneous facial expressions will be developed.

Keywords: computer science,human computer interaction,image processing,intelligent interfaces
Basal factor engineering and synthetic nucleosomal DNA super-template construction for pre-initiation complex assembly (PICENGINEERING)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-05-01
End date: 2014-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 269096.4
EU funding (EUR): 269096.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Initiation of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription is activated by the assembly of preinitiation complex (PIC) onto gene promoters. PIC contains the largest general transcription factor (GTF), TFIID that comprises TATA box-binding protein (TBP). The binding of TBP to TATA promoter is rate-limiting step in PIC assembly and is stabilized by GTFs, TFIIA and TFIIB. TFIID also contains reader domains that recognize specific epigenetic marks in nucleosomes located upstream and downstream of transcription start site. Structural information on the architecture of nucleosomes, DNA, TFIIA, TFIIB and TFIID in this context remains elusive to date limiting our understanding of DNA architecture at promoter site and the interaction of TFIID with epigenetically modified nucleosomes in transcription initiation. The objective of this proposal is to explore this cross-talk by creating a synthetic DNA super-template for PIC assembly containing modified nucleosomes, promoter DNA, TFIIA, TFIIB and TBP. This will be attempted via an international collaborative effort, employing integrated multidisciplinary approach including protein and DNA engineering and their supramolecular assembly combined with chemical cross-linking. This template will be analyzed with and without highly purified, fully recombinant TFIID (sub)complexes through a multi-resolution structural approach with X-ray crystallography, electron microscopy and small angle X-ray scattering techniques. This methodology will be useful to explore interactions of similar complexity involving other chromatin regulatory factors, thereby extending the horizon of transcription research or general multi-protein complex research, which is at the forefront of contemporary molecular biology. The interdisciplinary nature of this project promises to contribute to the applicant’s career development by diversifying and advancing her competencies and refining her skills ultimately guiding her towards a position of independent leadership.

Keywords: biological science,de novo design,structural biology,dna recognition,transcription,pre-initiation complex,pol ii rna polymerase,tfiia,tfiib,tata-box,nucleosome,dna super-template,cross-linking
Sparse Online Learning (SOL)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Greece
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2013-05-01
End date: 2015-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 215701.2
EU funding (EUR): 215701.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The emerging theory of Compressed Sensing (CS), changed the very essence of our thinking about signal recovery, system identification and parameter vector estimation. Since its debut only a few years ago, CS attracted considerable research interest with thousands of papers spanning along the Mathematical, Machine Learning and Signal Processing communities. This ``research happening'' gave birth to many significant contributions bringing the CS paradigm closer to a wide range of real-world applications. The vast amount of efforts, so far, has been invested in CS-based signal recovery techniques, which are appropriate for batch mode operation. This fact poses restrictions and inconveniences in cases, where online / real-time processing is necessary. Indeed, all the online sparsity-aware signal recovery methods, so far, are in a ``primitive'' stage of development compared to the state-of-the-art in CS. There is a reason for this; the extension of batch CS methods to perform online processing is not a straightforward task and both new algorithmic and theoretical tools have to be developed towards this goal. The current proposal takes this challenge, i.e. to develop a generic algorithmic framework for online signal and system recovery, which will embody advanced developments of the CS theory. Moreover, the developed techniques will be of linear complexity, thus being suitable for real-time operation and capable of dealing with multiple-sensor cases and distributed processing, required in wireless sensor networks. The effectiveness of the proposed approach will also be evaluated in a real-world medical application; a wireless multi-channel electrocardiogram monitoring system. This project provides the fellow an excellent opportunity to gain high quality scientific training and complementary skills, necessary to obtain the professional maturity required for an academic career.

Keywords: signal processing,compressed sensing,adaptive filtering
Polymer Grating Sensors (POGS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-05-01
End date: 2014-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 200371.8
EU funding (EUR): 200371.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

“POlymer Grating Sensors” (POGS) is a project that will significantly extend the range of application of silica optical fibre grating sensors by developing a mature version of the technology in polymer optical fibres, whilst at the same time forming a training environment for the fellow that is both interdisciplinary and intersectoral. Polymer fibres offer some significant potential advantages over silica, the two most important perhaps being the ability to sense much higher strains – as may be encountered in modern composite materials - and the considerably reduced stiffness of the plastic compared to the glass fibre. Polymers are however complex materials and the properties of a polymer grating sensor are dependent on the sensor fabrication process. This project places the fellow at the centre of a collaboration between two key groups in this field. The host, Dr. DJ Webb, heads a team who are the world leaders in polymer fibre grating fabrication. The fellow will also spend several months at the Technical University of Denmark, who are at the forefront of microstructured polymer fibre fabrication particularly relating to fibres based on TOPAS cyclic olefin copolymer. In 2011 this collaboration produced the first grating sensors in TOPAS fibre and have shown that these devices do not display the sensitivity to humidity that is a problem with the usual fibres based on poly(methyl methacrylate). This timely project gives the fellow the opportunity to explore and develop this brand new fibre technology for long term, high strain sensing, producing optimised, repeatable and reliable grating sensors and develop new applications whilst undertaking research with industrial collaborators (Dr. Peter Foote - BAe Systems, Dr. Kate Sugden – Astasense Ltd) who will provide an industrial perspective on the technology. The project incorporates both “on the job” and formal training in both scientific and “soft” skills to allow the fellow to develop as an independent researcher.

Keywords: technological sciences,optoelectronics,applied optics,optical fibre sensors,polymer optical fibre,bragg gratings
Identification of molecular pathways underlying activity-dependent neuron-glia communication using in vitro microfluidic systems (CELESTIAL)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IIF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-10-01
End date: 2014-09-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 184709.4
EU funding (EUR): 184709.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Interactions between neurons and glial cells underlie the normal development, structure and function of the nervous system. Perturbation of this communication occurs during injury, in acquired or hereditary neuropathic diseases of the central and peripheral nervous systems, and with ageing. However, the specific nature and the physiological significance of neuron-glia interactions remain largely unknown. We propose here the use of a microfluidic co-culture platform to characterize and investigate the role of non-synaptic responses of glial cells following stimulation of neuronal activity. In particular, we will co-culture neurons and glial cells of the peripheral nervous system, and monitor glia-specific changes at the transcriptome- and the secretome-levels, after manipulation of the electrical activity of neurons. We will subsequently interfere with the identified signaling pathways, and study effects on neuronal structure and function. Following this in vitro approach, we expect to identify potential mediators of the axon-glia communication and decipher their role in maintaining the nervous system integrity and function.

Keywords: health sciences,neurobiology,peripheral nervous system,neuron-glia interactions,electrophysiology
Electrosynthesis of biofuels from gaseous carbon dioxide catalyzed by microbes: A novel approach/quest of microbe-electrode interactions (ESBCO2)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IOF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-07-01
End date: 2015-06-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 183658.35
EU funding (EUR): 183658.35
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

An increase in atmospheric CO2 derived from combustion, the rising prices of crude oil, and the diminishing supply of fossil fuels poses great challenges to worldwide sustainability. Thus, the necessity of developing greenhouse gas mitigation technologies and biobased renewable energy sources is very urgent. Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) exploits the ability of microbes to make electrical contacts with electrodes and other cells and the production of biofuels with such microbial electrosynthesis is of great interest. However, mechanisms by which microorganisms conserve energy to maintain cells and support growth when directly accepting electrons for MES from electrodes is not explored yet. Moreover, information on carbon and electron flow during CO2 reduction to biofuels at a cathode is not yet fully explored. Thus, MES needs to overcome several microbial, electrochemical and technical challenges. This IOF will contribute to the development of a cost effective alternative to current fuel production, using greenhouse gas CO2 (model pollutant) as a feedstock. This IOF will use new concepts dealing with the better understanding of electron (e-) transfer/exchange, surface engineering conductive biofilms, system biology/genomics, genomic tools, nano-networks and novel materials and practical implications of these concepts for environmental clean-up and the development of renewable energy sources.The proposed IOF will provide a tool for the EU Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23rd April 2009 on the promotion of the use of renewable energy, and also falls into the category of EU climate and energy policies, and Europe Horizon 2020 strategy demanding climate and energy targets to be met by 2020 for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. This IOF project will a investigate and develop a technology for the conversion of CO2 (greenhouse gas) into biofuels and will play an instrumental role in achieving a healthy environment.

Keywords: biodegradation,climate change mitigation strategies,co2 control,renewable energy,gaseous pollution control,biocatalysis. liquid biofuels,microbial electrosynthesis,nanobiotechnology