Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Targeting epilepsy with phototherapeutics (PhotoTherEpi)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment 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: Germany
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499375.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499375.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

As photo-activatable drugs (PDs) can be precisely controlled in space and time, caged and switchable photoactivatable drugs (CPDs, SPDs) are rapidly emerging as potential therapeutics for varied forms of cancer, vision loss, diabetes, or pain disorders. Despite their potential, PDs have not been exploited for epilepsy, a common, often debilitating neurological disorder. As 30% of epilepsies are medically intractable, and antiepileptic drugs often cause multi-organ side effects, PDs could break new therapeutic ground. PDs can be applied on demand, and locally activated/inactivated in single or multiple epileptic brain areas in a targeted fashion. This minimizes systemic side effects, and allows the application of potent drugs from other fields yet unthinkable in routine epileptology (e.g. general anesthetics). Importantly, being small molecules, different PDs can be combined or easily exchanged, and do not require protein expression. Using current and new PDs, we aim to control epileptic networks in vivo in a realistic epilepsy mouse model, and resected human brain tissue from patients with intractable epilepsy. Aim 1 will quantify antiepileptic potency of a range of PDs in human tissue using field potential and patch-clamp recordings, and cellular scale 2-photon imaging. In aim 2, PDs will be evaluated in vivo using wireless video-EEG, imaging and light-fiber-targeted drug photoactivation in chronically epileptic mice. Further, by use of caged immunomodulators, we will explore disease-modifying capacity of targeted PD photoactivation in epileptogenesis and chronic epilepsy. PhotoTherEpi will establish targeted photopharmacology as a versatile, and powerful new approach to control focal epilepsy, which could jumpstart a new branch of translational epilepsy research. The approach could obviate the need for resective surgery in many cases, and be used in multi-focal epilepsy. Importantly, it may be clinically tested in the foreseeable future.

Keywords: epilepsy,epileptic networks,photopharmacology,calcium imaging
MultIwavelength LAser for fast DiagnOstic in biomedical and manufacturing applications (MILADO)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Digital
Destination: Digital & Emerging Technologies for Competitiveness and Fit for the Green Deal
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Partnership: Photonics (co-programmed)
Countries involved: Austria,France,Germany,Finland
Call: Versatile light sources and systems as tools for manufacturing and medical application (Photonics Partnership) (RIA) (HORIZON-CL4-2023-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-06-01
End date: 2027-05-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5525854.62
EU funding (EUR): 4943399.26
Participants: 8
Project status: SIGNED

MILADO will provide a robust and universal technology platform for low-cost and large volume fabrication of mid infrared (MIR) lasers enabling novel sensors in medicine and production. Key innovation is the technology upscale of the epitaxy of Quantum-Cascade-Lasers (QCLs) on large area substrates and the development of concepts for direct III-V-epitaxy on silicon. Merging III-V and Si-photonics by integrating QCLs and Si-based MIR photonics using CMOS-based technology well-established but very costly III/V-technology-based manufacturing of QCL light sources for spectroscopic applications will be replaced by a cost-effective and scalable manufacturing technology on CEA’s CMOS Pilot Line bringing MIR technology out of its niche. Another building block of MILADO towards a general platform that can be extended for further integration of sensors and actuators in MEMS technology are MIR-PICs made from Ge/SiGe-structures for the definition of waveguides, combiners and any other passive devices required to handle the optical connection of QCLs. MILADO’s technology will open up new markets by enabling novel sensors for personal medical diagnostics or edge-sensors in chemical production. The versatility of the approach will be demonstrated in use cases covering process control and medical diagnostics reaching from the hospital to the patient covering waste anaesthetic gas detection, histopathology to biomarker monitoring.

Keywords: quantum cascade lasers,heterointegration iii v on silicon,cmos processing,mid infrared pics,wearable medical devices,edgesensing,large area qcl epitaxy,qcl growth on silicon
Five kW Electric Propulsion system for Future European missions in MEO, GEO and beyond (F4F)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Space
Destination: Open Strategic Autonomy in Developing, Deploying and Using Global Space-Based Infrastructures, Services, Applications and Data
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Italy,Belgium,Germany
Call: Space technologies for European non-dependence and competitiveness (HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2026-05-31
Duration (months): 29.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4284800.26
EU funding (EUR): 2999360.18
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

Electric Propulsion systems based on HET thrusters are now the de facto standard for more than half of the GEO telecommunications and MEO navigation satellites launched each year, with Fakel's SPT-140d model representing the solution until early 2022 baseline for nearly all LSIs worldwide. This is due to its extreme reliability, the long heritage accumulated over the years, and the considerably lower selling price than the few existing competitors (Safran -France-, Aerojet and Busek -USA-). With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, all LSI found themselves in the need to find an alternative to Fakel's Hall effect thruster. As the only product that can be purchased on the western market together with Aerojet Rocketdyne's XR-5, from February 2022 Safran's PPS©5000 became the de facto new incumbent as it is not subject to ITAR restrictions. The F4F project aims at developing an alternative system, based on a different thruster, SITAEL’s HT5k, featuring magnetic shielding for very long life operations and able to be fed with both Xenon and Krypton. The TU will be coupled with an evolution of flight-proven Thales Belgium Mk3 PPU, the Mk3 EVO, and with an European solution for low pressure flow management from the German Company AST. The three subsystems will be modified to reduce complexity and limit at the bare minimum ITAR/EAR controlled items. Through a full coupling test, F4F will demonstrate performance at system level with the thruster unit operated with both xenon and krypton, and advance its TRL towards a full qualification.

Keywords: het,geo,meo,exploration,magnetic shielding,long life thruster,krypton,xenon,low pressure fluidics,on orbit operations,in orbit servicing,
Understanding the Interaction of T cells and Immune Complexes in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (TICI-SLE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Postdoctoral Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Germany,United States
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 265647.84
EU funding (EUR): 265647.84
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Systemic Lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease with a complex pathogenesis. Immune complexes (ICs) are formed and deposited in various tissues, leading to inflammation and damage. T cells are part of the adaptive immune system, but also express innate-like receptors that could interact with ICs by binding complement factors or the constant region of immunoglobulins. However, the extent of these interactions and there relevance for the SLE pathogenesis has not been investigated so far. In the TICI-SLE project, we will analyze these interactions by 1) investigating the expression of receptors that could interact with ICs on T cells in the blood and inflamed tissue of SLE patients, 2) cultivating T cells with immune complexes and antibodies stimulating or blocking individual receptors, thereby elucidating the consequences of these interactions and 3) analyzing spatial T cell/IC interactions and their secondary consequences (like proinflammatory changes in stromal cells and chemoattraction of inflammatory cells) in skin samples from SLE patients. We hypothesize that T cell/IC interactions result in (co-)stimulation of T cells, leading to production of proinflammatory cytokines, cytotoxicity and induction of an inflammatory microenviornment. Understanding these interactions can then be exploited by the future development of therapeutics targeting these interactions. An additional focus of the project will be the personal development of the applicant and the dissemination and exploitation of project results.

Keywords: systemic lupus erythematosus,autoimmunity,t lymphocytes,immune complexes,complement system
Dynamics of Adaptation and Resistance in Cancer: MApping and conTrolling Transcriptional and Epigenetic Recurrence (DARC MATTER)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Integrative B iology : from Genes and Genomes to S ystems
Panel description: For all organis ms: Genetics, epigenetics, genomics  and other ‘omics studies , bioinformatics, systems biology , genetic diseases , gene editing, innovative methods and modelling,  ‘omics for personalised  medicine
Countries involved: Italy
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2023-COG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-03-01
End date: 2029-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1995582.0
EU funding (EUR): 1995582.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Tumours evolve, transforming from early-stage curable disease into treatment-refractory, deadly cancer. Therapy resistance is arguably the biggest problem in oncology today, and much of it remains unexplained. The central hypothesis of this proposal is that a large proportion of unexplained drug resistance is due to heritable epigenetic alterations, and non-heritable transcriptional plasticity in cancer cells. I refer to these mechanisms as the dark matter of cancer evolution. Genetic, epigenetic and transcriptional adaptation, together with changes in the tumour microenvironment, may happen at the same time in the same tumour. Lack of knowledge of these mechanisms hinders the development of new treatments strategies. Tackling drug resistance requires a unique combination of clinical cohorts, experimental models, evolutionary biology and computational methods. I will map and quantify the mechanisms and evolutionary dynamics of genetic and non-genetic drug resistance at unprecedented scale. I will focus on colorectal cancer, the third most common cancer and second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. I will use patient-derived organoid models, matched to clinical cohorts followed longitudinally. I will measure organoid evolution under the pressure of cancer drugs, with and without the tumour microenvironment. I will track cell lineages with lentiviral barcoding and perform longitudinal single cell multi-omics, measuring genomes, epigenomes and transcriptomes of the same cell. I will interpret the results within a unique computational framework that brings together evolutionary theory with machine learning to measure, predict and control resistance. This project will identify new mechanisms and dynamics of cancer drug resistance, deliver new predictive models, and find novel collateral drug sensitivities. This will allow designing rational drug combinations and schedules that will prevent or delay resistance, drastically improving patient outcome.

Keywords: cancer evolution,multi omics,single cell,machine learning
SOFT actuators for Wearables, Exoskeletons, and Augmenting Robotics (SOFTWEAR)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Doctoral Networks
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Sweden,France,Denmark,Austria,Germany,Netherlands,Italy,Switzerland,Australia,Japan
Call: MSCA Doctoral Networks 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2812982.4
EU funding (EUR): 2812982.4
Participants: 22
Project status: SIGNED

SOFTWEAR will create a highly interdisciplinary DN in the emerging and rapidly growing field of wearables, with a unique focus on soft actuators for wearables and exoskeletons. The primary objective of SOFTWEAR is to train young researchers in the multidisciplinary science of soft actuators for integration in wearables and augmenting textiles. This will be achieved by merging chemistry, physics, mechanics, electronics, textile technology, design, human-technology interaction and ethics in a truly interdisciplinary manner, while teaching essential skills in ethics, product development, IPR and industrial realisation, thus providing a unique added value to the careers of the Researchers. This ambitious aim will be accomplished by on-the-job training on innovative research projects developing beyond-the-state-of-the-art soft actuator technology and integrating this into active garments and soft exoskeletons. This will be carried out at leading academic groups and by immersion in applied projects at the industrial partners. SOFTWEAR will thus provide Europe with highly educated researchers in the emerging field of wearables, focused on integrating actuation. This will put Europe in a world-leading position in this field and will supply European companies with a highly skilled workforce in soft actuators and advanced smart textiles.

Keywords: smart textiles soft actuators wearables exoskeleton electroactive polymers yarn actuators,textile robotics,wearable robotics
A Digital Twin for GEOphysical extremes (DT-GEO)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Research infrastructures
Theme: Research infrastructures
Destination: Technology and infrastructures
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Iceland,Germany,Portugal,France,Italy,Poland,Switzerland,United Kingdom,Norway
Call: Interdisciplinary digital twins for modelling and simulating complex phenomena at the service of research infrastructure communities (HORIZON-INFRA-2021-TECH-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 11138287.5
EU funding (EUR): 11138287.5
Participants: 27
Project status: SIGNED

With present computational capabilities and data volumes entering the Exascale Era, digital twins of the Earth system will be able to mimic the different system components (atmosphere, ocean, land, lithosphere) with unrivaled precision, providing analyses, forecasts, and what if scenarios for natural hazards and resources from their genesis phases and across their temporal and spatial scales. DT-GEO aims at developing a prototype for a digital twin on geophysical extremes including earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and anthropogenic-induced extreme events. The project harnesses world-class computational and data Research Infrastructures (RIs), operational monitoring networks, and leading-edge research and academia partnerships in various fields of geophysics. The project will merge and assemble latest developments from other European projects and Centers of Excellence to deploy 12 Digital Twin Components (DTCs), intended as self-contained containerized entities embedding flagship simulation codes, Artificial Intelligence layers, large volumes of (real-time) data streams from and into data-lakes, data assimilation methodologies, and overarching workflows for deployment and execution of single or coupled DTCs in centralized HPC and virtual cloud computing RIs. Each DTC addresses specific scientific questions and circumvents technical challenges related to hazard assessment, early warning forecast, urgent computing, or resource prospection. DTCs will be verified at 13 Site Demonstrators (SD) and their outcomes will contain rich metadata to enable (semi-)automatic discovery, contextualisation, and orchestration of software (services) and data assets, enabling its integration to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). The proposal aims at being a first step of a long-term community effort towards a twin on Geophysical Extremes integrated in the Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative.

Keywords: digital twin,natural hazards,destination earth,epos ri,fenix ri
The Artificial Motion Factory (ARTIFACT)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Systems and Communication Engineering
Panel description: Electrical, electronic, communication, optical and systems engineering
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2024-STG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2030-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499955.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499955.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Today’s robots are confined to tightly controlled environments: even the complex choreographies that the Atlas humanoid flawlessly executes heavily rely on handcrafted control strategies and detailed workspace models, with little place for sensing. To put it bluntly, robots are nowhere near the level of agility, dexterity, and even less so autonomy, robustness, and safety required for their deployment “in the wild” alongside people. The tenet of ARTIFACT is that the key to an actual revolution will come from the algorithmic foundations of artificial motion intelligence, an AI challenged from the start to interact physically with dynamic environments and, ultimately, people. To do so, we will break away from the dichotomy between optimal control, where the role of perception is traditionally limited to an early state estimation stage, and reinforcement learning, where control policies are typically learned model-free with no guarantee to cope with the curse of dimensionality. In ARTIFACT, we will devise a unified, structured, modular, and learnable control architecture for providing robots with advanced decision-making capabilities to solve complex tasks and face new interactions as they experience the world. It will leverage the notion of differentiable programming at all scales to enable robots to (i) capture models of their interactions directly from a sound combination of sensor data and first principles from physics, (ii) autonomously discover new complex gestures and movements leveraging their past experiences, and (iii) learn embodied representations to control their interactions finely and reason about the physical world. It will be implemented in open-source software and shown in real-world and challenging scenarios requiring fine dexterity and high agility. Altogether, these contributions will be the key enablers to enhance robot autonomy fundamentally, thus opening the age of ubiquitous robots at the service of mankind.

Keywords: machine learning optimization computer vision optimal control reinforcement learning simulation
Next generation versatile and effective AAV-mediated large gene delivery (NextGeneTx)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment 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: Italy
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2024-STG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-04-01
End date: 2030-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

Despite 6 products on the market and dozens in advanced phases of clinical development, in vivo gene therapy with vectors derived from adeno-associated viruses (AAV) still faces the major challenge of the limited vector cargo capacity (< 5kb). This prevents AAV application for treatment of inherited diseases caused by mutations in large genes. To address this, we have recently developed an AAV-based strategy relying on the use of short protein elements called inteins. These, when fused at the extremities of fragments of a large protein delivered to cells through AAV, can mediate joining of the fragments in a traceless manner, resulting in the reconstitution of the intact target protein. However, despite being extensively utilized as biotechnological tools in vitro, the in vivo application of inteins for therapeutic purposes comes with several limitations. These include: insufficient levels of full-length protein reconstitution for some applications; complex design; and production of undesired, potentially harmful by-products. NextGeneTx aims to expand the potential of AAV-inteins as an innovative in vivo biotechnological tool for therapeutic purposes, by addressing each of these limitations. To achieve this, we will leverage cutting-edge technologies to: i. engineer inteins with improved efficiency and greater design flexibility; ii. modulate intracellular trafficking of intein-containing protein fragments to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of full-length protein reconstitution; iii. develop strategies to reduce the production of unwanted by-products. We will test the therapeutic relevance of evolved AAV-inteins in both gene therapy and genome editing applications, using human retinal organoids and animal models of retinal diseases. The outcomes of NextGeneTx will define a highly adaptable, safe, and effective next-generation AAV-based approach to deliver large genes, thus significantly expanding the patient population that can benefit from in vivo gene therapy.

Keywords: aav,gene therapy,genome editing,large gene delivery,retinal organoids,animal models,inherited retinal diseases,directed evolution