Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Parametrised Verification and Control (PaVeCo)

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-2016, 2016)
Start date: 2017-11-01
End date: 2019-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 195454.8
EU funding (EUR): 195454.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

A variety of interesting systems -- servers that fail with a certain probability; biological models, where proteins are produced with a given rate; automotive and aeronautical systems -- displays stochastic behaviour. As a fully automated method to analyse such systems, stochastic model checking is an important research area. Early techniques have suffered from several shortfalls. One of these shortfalls is that the exact failure rates of components are often unavailable. In this case, parametric models can be used, where probabilities are represented by parameters rather than values. Another shortfall is that stochastic systems are often also partially controllable. Moreover, in addition to stochastic choices, the environment of a system can be unknown or abstracted and can thus display an antagonistic behaviour. The analysis of such systems needs to account for the positive nondeterminism from the partial control over the system, the antagonistic nondeterminism that models the unknown, and the probabilistic choices. The target in this scenario is to synthesise a controller that steers the system in the best way regardless of any environment. A third shortfall is that functional properties (safety, PCTL, LTL, or w-regular goals) and non-functional goals (response time, energy usage) are analysed in isolation. When designing a system or inferring a control strategy, however, functional and non-functional properties are entangled and need to be considered in combination. While parametric analysis and the analysis of stochastic systems in isolation scale to medium size systems, the analysis of systems with mixed goals is a young and rapidly developing field. We will contribute to all three aspects, but our focus will be on studying combinations between these aspects. We will develop practically efficient techniques (as opposed to techniques with good complexity), implement them, and make them available in a tool to allow for their proliferation.

Keywords: model checking,verification,markov games and decision processes,parity games,control,formal methods
Augmenting and broadening T-cell responses to glioblastoma - therapeutic vaccine platform based on HCMV expressing NKG2D ligands (GLIOVACC)

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: Croatia
Call: ERC Proof of Concept Grant (ERC-2018-PoC, 2018)
Start date: 2018-12-01
End date: 2020-07-31
Duration (months): 20.0
Total project cost (EUR): 149968.0
EU funding (EUR): 149968.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The development of an effective vaccine against human cancers is of tremendous importance. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most malignant form of brain tumor with extremely poor survival. The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is involved in GBM pathogenesis suggesting that viral proteins might provide therapeutic targets. We propose a vaccination strategy against GBM based on a genetically modified HCMV that could target HCMV, as well as tumor specific antigens. The proposal builds on the successful implementation of the ERC-AdG StAdvInn, which investigates a murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) expressing the NKG2D ligand RAE-1γ (RAE-1γMCMV), which has tremendous potential for strengthening the CD8 T cell response to a vectored antigen (Trsan et al, PNAS 2013). We have shown the strong potential of such vector to act as a CD8 T cell-based vaccine against malignant tumors (Trsan et al, Eur J Immunol 2017). Moreover, the efficiency of this vector can be enhanced by blocking immune checkpoints. We have constructed HCMV expressing the human NKG2D ligand ULBP2 (HCMV/ULBP2) and confirmed its efficacy in vitro and in humanized mice (Tomic et al, PLoS Pathog 2016). Here we propose to determine the capacity of the HCMV/ULBP2 vector in the immune control of GBM. In short, immune cells from GBM patients will be transferred to NSG mice that will be grafted with GBM from the same patients. Mice will be vaccinated with HCMV/ULBP2 vector expressing GBM associated neoantigens. Based on results with the RAE-1γMCMV in the melanoma model and with HCMV/ULBP2 in NSG humanized mice, we expect a strong effector CD8 T cell response to be generated in these mice resulting in the control of tumor in the NSG host. The proposed project activities include: development and validity testing of the prototype of the integrated vaccine vector, implementation of IPR protection and exploitation strategy. The results of this project will be used to establish the first in man trial in GBM bearing patients.

Keywords: therapeutic vaccination,glioblastoma multiforme,hcmv,nkg2d,cd8 lymphocytes
Predicting comorbid cardiovascular disease in individuals with mental disorder by decoding disease mechanisms (CoMorMent)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Health, demographic change and wellbeing
Theme: Understanding health, wellbeing and disease
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Iceland,Estonia,Norway,Sweden,Sweden,United States,United Kingdom,Denmark
Call: Understanding causative mechanisms in co- and multimorbidities combining mental and non-mental disorders (H2020-SC1-2019-Two-Stage-RTD, 2019)
Start date: 2020-01-01
End date: 2024-06-30
Duration (months): 54.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5998613.75
EU funding (EUR): 5998613.75
Participants: 11
Project status: SIGNED

Comorbid cardiovascular disease in people with severe mental disorders is a major public health concern and poses a considerable financial burden on European Health Care. The CoMorMent project will uncover mechanisms underlying the higher incidence of cardiovascular disease in people with mental disorders. This project builds on our recent findings that genetic variation that affects genes expressed in the brain and which increase the risk of mental disorders also impact lifestyle and behaviour (e.g. diet, exercise, and smoking) that increase cardiovascular risk. The project will identify molecular mechanisms common to mental disorders and unhealthy lifestyles that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. We will take advantage of our genotyped biobank samples united with large national registries with information about disease trajectories and comorbidity in over 1.8 million people. The “big data” available to CoMorMent means that we can apply new statistical tools to discover novel sequence variants conferring risk of both mental disorders and cardiovascular diseases and determine how these may be mediated by lifestyle or behaviour. We will characterize the underlying mechanisms by identifying accompanying structural brain changes and body fat composition from MRI data in combination with gene expression and functional studies. The CoMorMent multidisciplinary expert team in clinical science (cardiology, psychiatry), genetic epidemiology, molecular genetics, and neuroscience combined with experts in machine learning and computation will generate findings that will form the basis of novel stratification and prediction tools, which will be tested and validated in clinical samples. Thus, CoMorMent will form the basis for a new approach in clinical studies by providing precision medicine tools for clinical implementation to remediate a major public health issue.

Keywords: cardiovascular disease,severe mental illness,genetic risk,lifestyle,registries,biobanks,prediction tools
Unlocking wastewater treatment, water re-use and resource recovery opportunities for urban and peri-urban areas in India (PAVITRA GANGA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Climate action, environment,  resource efficiency and raw materials
Theme: Protection of the environment, sustainable management of natural resources, water , biodiversity and ecosystems
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: India,Germany,Italy,Switzerland,Belgium,Sweden,Belgium,Netherlands,Netherlands
Call: EU-India water co-operation (H2020-SC5-2018-1, 2018)
Start date: 2019-02-01
End date: 2024-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4125714.25
EU funding (EUR): 3074821.25
Participants: 15
Project status: SIGNED

India’s water resources are under severe stress resulting from overexploitation and pollution. The Indian government has started the Namami Gange programme in line with the sustainable development goals (SDG), including the improvement of wastewater treatment. PAVITRA GANGA links directly to these programmes and builds on existing cooperation between EU/India, supported by national governments. The objective is to fulfil SDG6 by unlocking the environmental and economic potential of municipal wastewater treatment and reuse solutions for urban and peri-urban areas in India. By focussing on three pillars we ensure maximum impact: - People: we create social awareness through a participatory monitoring approach. We target social vulnerable groups by providing treatment solutions for open drains. We create a community of practitioners by the establishment of open innovation test sites and a training & learning network. - Planet: we focus on rejuvenation of the river by removing organic pollution, heavy metals and emerging compounds that have the biggest impact on Indian streams. We provide technology innovations to upgrade existing wastewater infrastructure and to add treatment systems to open drains, resulting in improved quality of receiving rivers. - Profit: we apply the principles of the Circular Economy and exploit the economic opportunities of waste-to-energy, water reuse and resource recovery. Solutions are cost efficient and require limited investments making them particularly suited for the Indian market. In collaboration with local stakeholders and supported by industrial partners we will set-up two pilot sites at the Barapullah Drain (New Delhi) and the Jajmau plant (Kanpur). The dynamics of a business and technology platform combined with a learning network will form strong Indian water professionals, in line with Skill India, while also training EU experts in understanding Indian challenges. This will accelerate the transition to an EU-India level playing field.
A PRECISION CELL REPLACEMENT STRATEGY FOR PARKINSON’S DISEASE (PreciseCellPD)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Panel description: Medical technologies and tools for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases, therapeutic approaches and interventions, pharmacology, preventative medicine, epidemiology and public health, digital medicine
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2019-ADG, 2019)
Start date: 2021-03-01
End date: 2026-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive incurable neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of substantia nigra neurons (A9/SNs), a subset of midbrain dopaminergic neurons (mDAs) that are required for functional re-innervation of the striatum. Current treatments for PD are symptomatic and do not prevent disease progression. Proof-of-concept clinical studies using human fetal midbrain tissue for transplantation have shown that replacement of mDAs can change the course of PD. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) are currently used to generate mDAs for cell replacement therapy in clinical trials. However, our single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis of these preparations revealed that they comprise a complex mixture of cell types, including mDAs but also excessive vascular progenitor-like cells and serotonin neurons, thought to drive dyskinesias. Selective generation of A9/SNs for PD cell replacement therapy remains thus a major challenge. Here I propose to identify how human adult A9/SNs are generated in order to develop a novel cell type-specific precision cell replacement therapy for PD. I hypothesize that a yet undefined network of transcription factors and regulators control A9/SN subtype specification, and that such factors can be used to engineer A9/SNs starting from hPSCs or astrocytes, moving the field beyond the state of the art. This will be achieved by: 1) Using cutting-edge CRISPR and single cell methodologies to identify the factors controlling the specification of human A9/SNs; and 2) developing two novel cell replacement strategies for PD, involving either transplantation of hPSC-derived progenitors forward-programmed into A9/SNs or reprogramming of endogenous striatal glia in situ into A9/SNs, using a method we recently developed. I expect PreciseCellPD will generate groundbreaking knowledge of the mechanisms controlling the generation of human A9/SNs and will set the basis of a novel and transformative precision cell replacement therapy for PD

Keywords: human embryonic stem cells,direct in vivo reprogramming,single cell transcriptomics
Beyond UNIVERSEH (European University for Earth and Humanity) (Beyond UNIVERSEH)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Science with and for Society
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Germany,Poland,Sweden,France,Luxembourg
Call: Support for the Research and Innovation Dimension of European Universities (Part II) (H2020-IBA-SwafS-Support-2-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-09-01
End date: 2024-08-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2000000.0
Participants: 10
Project status: SIGNED

Beyond UNIVERSEH will develop the research and innovation dimension of the UNIVERSEH European University, an alliance of five partners: University of Toulouse (France), AGH University of Science and Technology (Poland), Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Germany) and University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg). Beyond UNIVERSEH will expand the teaching, learning, know-how of the alliance, into a UNIVERSEH European Research University focusing on “Space” in all its dimensions: Science and Engineering; Economy, Business and Finance; Medicine and Health; Social and Human Sciences; Art and Culture; Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It will bring in researchers and stakeholders from multiple backgrounds, promoting a highly multi-disciplinary and cross sectorial network to address the societal challenges of Space and New Space. Beyond UNIVERSEH’s main ambition is to develop and propose a research policy roadmap for 2035 and a vision for 2050 within the space sector. This roadmap will implement a sustainable, integrated research and innovation network within the UNIVERSEH alliance and beyond. Also, Beyond UNIVERSEH will create a shared and collaborative virtual single lab and a research community among, spearheading new collaborative and interdisciplinary methodologies, to further enhance Space research and innovation outputs. Additionally, the alliance proposal will reinforce the links with: (i) its Space economic ecosystem focusing on industry-academia collaborations, (ii) the citizens; and (iii) policy and decision makers. The consortium has already established collaborations and gathered the support of key stakeholders such as national space agencies. We expect Beyond UNIVERSEH to notably transform the future Space and New Space research landscape, as well as to enhance the links between education and research. Moreover, we believe the methodologies and practices co-created by this alliance will serve as a model for other collaborative initiatives in Europe and the world.

Keywords: space,new space,innovation,research,european university,european research area,citizen science,single lab,research community,knowledge transfer,business academia collaboration
Modulation of the Ubiquitin Proteasome System During Multiple Stages of the Poxvirus Lifecycle (UbiProPox)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Immunity, Infection and Immunotherapy
Panel description: The immune system, related disorders and their mechanisms, biology of infectious agents and infection, biological basis of prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, innovative immunological tools and approaches, including therapies
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2014-CoG, 2014)
Start date: 2015-09-01
End date: 2021-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2270000.0
EU funding (EUR): 516178.75
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Vaccinia virus (VACV), the prototypic poxvirus, is a large, enveloped, DNA virus characterized by its cytoplasmic site of replication and large subset of genes. Due to the complexity of VACV, the majority of studies focus on the virus rather than the host cell. Thus the repertoire of cell factors and functions required for its replication remain largely unknown. Our previous work to define a subset of these, revealed the cellular degradation machinery as a key requirement of VACV replication. Our findings indicated that ubiquitin (Ub), Ub ligase activity, and proteasome-mediated degradation are required for multiple stages of the virus lifecycle. The aim of this proposal is to reveal how VACV differentially modulates or takes advantage of the Ub proteasome system during genome uncoating, the initiation of DNA replication, and the assembly of progeny virions. For genome uncoating we will characterize the spatial and temporal interactions between ubiquitinated viral proteins, proteasomes, the viral uncoating factor, and the viral genome that occur on cytoplasmic cores. To ascertain how Cullin-3 based ubiquitination and proteasome degradation facilitate the switch from uncoating to replication of the viral genome, we will identify the relevant Cullin-3 substrates in the context of a detailed characterization of viral replication initiation sites. Coming full circle, we will explore the mechanisms used by VACV to modulate cellular degradation such that ubiquitinated viral core proteins are packaged into newly forming virions without being degraded. Using systems biology, virology, cell biology, biochemistry, molecular biology and a wide range of microscopy approaches we will unravel the complex interactions between poxviruses and the host cell degradation machinery. In turn, as viruses often serve as valuable tools to study cell function, this work is likely to uncover new insights into how cells spatially and temporally regulate their own degradative capacities.

Keywords: virus genome uncoating,viral dna replication,virus assembly,ubiquitin proteasome system,proteomics,rnai screening
Computer-Assisted Language Comparison: Reconciling Computational and Classical Approaches in Historical Linguistics (CALC)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Panel description: Cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, theoretical philosophy
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2016-STG, 2016)
Start date: 2017-04-01
End date: 2022-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499437.5
EU funding (EUR): 1499437.5
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

By comparing the languages of the world, we gain invaluable insights into human prehistory, predating the appearance of written records by thousands of years. The traditional methods for language comparison are based on manual data inspection. With more and more data available, they reach their practical limits. Computer applications, however, are not capable of replacing experts' experience and intuition. In a situation where computers cannot replace experts and experts do not have enough time to analyse the massive amounts of data, a new framework, neither completely computer-driven, nor ignorant of the help computers provide, becomes urgent. Such frameworks are well-established in biology and translation, where computational tools cannot provide the accuracy needed to arrive at convincing results, but do assist humans to digest large data sets. This project establishes a computer-assisted framework for historical linguistics. We pursue an interdisciplinary approach that adapts methods from computer science and bioinformatics for the use in historical linguistics. While purely computational approaches are common today, the project focuses on the communication between classical and computational linguists, developing interfaces that allow historical linguists to produce their data in machine readable formats while at the same time presenting the results of computational analyses in a transparent and human-readable way. As a litmus test which proves the suitability of the new framework, the project will create an etymological database of Sino-Tibetan languages. The abundance of language contact and the peculiarity of complex processes of language change in which sporadic patterns of morphological change mask regular patterns of sound change make the Sino-Tibetan language family an ideal test case for a new overarching framework that combines the best of two worlds: the experience of experts and the consistency of computational models.

Keywords: historical linguistics,sino tibetan linguistics,comparative linguistics,language history