Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Role of netrin signaling in blood vessel pathfinding (NETRIN-ANGIO)

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: Belgium
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-03-01
End date: 2011-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 227824.74
EU funding (EUR): 227824.74
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Netrins were described as bifunctional guidance cues, capable of attracting or repelling developing axons via activation of receptors of the deleted in colorectal cancer (DCC) and uncoordinated 5 (UNC5) families, respectively. Recently, they have also been implicated in the process of blood-vessel formation or angiogenesis, where they may also act as bifunctional cues, but their effect is unclear, with previous reports showing contradictory endothelial behaviors. In order to clarify the pro- or anti-angiogenic role of the signaling pathway initiated by netrins on endothelial cells, combined in vitro and in vivo approaches will be pursued. We will be focused on the cellular situation previous to the stimulation of different types of endothelial cells. Homogenous populations on arterial, venous and microvascular endothelial cells will be analyzed. We will carry out a compared screening of mRNA levels on resting, proliferating or differentiating endothelial cells, on situations of netrin1 or 4 stimulation and baseline. Expression pattern of candidate molecules differentially regulated will be further characterized in developing zebrafish and mice by in situ hybridization. To rule out the active role of those molecules during developmental angiogenesis, the candidate will study their role on zebrafish development by both loss- and gain-of function approaches, using new powerful genetic tools. These genetic studies will be complemented with in vitro assays to document the navigation of endothelial tip cells and how gene up- down-regulation can affect the tip/stalk behavior, to dissect the pro- or anti-angiogenic signaling pathways induced by netrin1 and 4.

Keywords: natural sciences,developmental biology,blood vessel formation,netrin
Late Holocene climate and sea ice variability in the southwestern Labrador Sea (CLIMICE)

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: Denmark
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-08-01
End date: 2012-05-27
Duration (months): 29.0
Total project cost (EUR): 284055.15
EU funding (EUR): 284055.15
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

CLIMICE aims to reconstruct late Holocene changes in sea ice variability and regional sea surface temperatures (SST) in the Labrador Sea area using high-resolution sediment records. Information of past natural variability in climate is essential for refining and validating future climate change models and improving predictions. The records will contribute to a better understanding of the role of Arctic sea ice export by the Labrador Current in influencing large-scale North Atlantic thermohaline and atmospheric circulation. The study area is climatologically crucial, since sea ice, ice bergs and associated melt water entrained by the Labrador Current directly affect the mid-latitude main core of the Gulf Stream warm water transport route towards the north. The sediments will be analysed using a highly innovative biological and chemical multi-proxy approach based on 1) study of fossil diatom assemblages and diversity, focusing on ice diatoms, and diatom-inferred reconstruction models for sea surface temperatures, and 2) IP25, a recently established chemical tracer for sea ice algae. The study will further include sediment alkenone data, a well-established chemical proxy for SST, and (fossil) diatom oxygen isotope data, the latter implying an experimental approach for SST reconstruction still having many uncertainties. Paleoceanographic data from dinoflagellate and foraminifera studies of the same sediment cores will also be available. Thus, this study provides a unique possibility to compare results from IP25 and oxygen isotope analyses with well-established climate proxies from the same sediment cores. Due to the (partly) innovative and experimental character of the work, realisation of the project is only feasible by collaboration of several laboratories based in Denmark, France, Germany Norway and U.K. The applicant herself will notably work mainly with the first methods (1 &amp; 2), whereas the other data will be generated by collaborating partners.

Keywords: climate change,arctic sea ice,sea surface temperatures,natural variability,late holocene,multi-proxy sediment records
Electron transfer through multiple consecutive phenanthrenyl containing DNA (ET DPHEN DNA)

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-IIF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-08-01
End date: 2011-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181935.46
EU funding (EUR): 181935.46
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Synthesis and development of novel DNA base pairs that are orthogonal in their recognition properties compared to the natural base pairs are avidly pursued by scientists. Such novel base pairs are investigated as tools in biotechnology and in designing novel genetic systems. Interest in artificial base pairs continues because of their application in materials research and nanosciences. Likewise charge transfer (CT) through the DNA duplex has received considerable attention and is being explored in fundamental and applied research. The objective of this project is to synthesize and study DNA containing more than one phenanthrenyl-pair (dPhen-R) in a duplex DNA. This would provide the first example of electron transfer through a duplex containing multiple phenanthrenyl (dPhen-R) base replacements. Substitutions (R) on the ring will influence the redox potential of the aromatic system. This will also influence the electron transfer efficiency. This project will also pursue the synthesis of a base-pairing nucleobase analogue capable of acting as an electron acceptor. This electron acceptor will report on electron transfer by a fluorescent response and increase the stability of the duplex. The optimized DNA-based architecture will then be attached to a gold surface in order to observe direct electron transfer by nanoelectrochemistry. It is envisioned that this novel DNA architecture and future designs may be applied in DNA based biosensors and in the area of DNA nanomaterials.

Keywords: bioorganic chemistry,nucleic acids,supramolecular,hydrophobic bases,phenanthrene,stacking interactions,electron transfer,dna materials,nanotechnology,oligonucleotides,fluorescence
Institutional Compatibility Analysis for Resource Use Sustainability (ICARUS)

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: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-04-01
End date: 2011-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 161260.45
EU funding (EUR): 161260.45
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The Institutional Compatibility Analysis for Resource Use Sustainability (ICARUS) project aims at filling the lack of attention which has been given in agricultural economic literature to institutional causes of unsustainable land use (Oskam, Feng, 2008). This can be done by introducing, both at a conceptual and an empirical level, a formalised methodology to determine how incompatibility between policy instruments (such as rural development measures) and pre-existing institutional settings could influence the sustainability of natural resource use in different European rural contexts. More specifically in this project we would like to focus our attention on the influence of institutional dynamics (such as the effect of introduction of new rural development measures in the working institutional settings of a local context) on land use decision of family-farms, which are, at the moment, the most relevant organisational forms of land management in the European rural areas. Under the common definition of family farms, in fact, it is possible to find all over the European Union Member States a range of different organisational modes or governance structures, which goes from single owner to private limited company in which the family holds all the shares (Slangen et al., 2008). Each organisational form is characterised by a specific decision-making setting but, as a common background, the decisions about resource use are mainly influenced by factors related on the family needs and context relationships. Multiple and sustainable land use provided by a range of multiple farm types is a key-element which characterises the European rurality, and a relevant part of it is constituted by “family farming” land use settings. This is the basic idea around which this project has been pivoted. To achieve this objective we need, on one hand, to understand better the fundamental processes of institutional formation, together with the compatibility between the formal and informal rule

Keywords: institutional economics,land use sustainability,family-farm,rural development analysis
Cross-market linkages: How important is information? (CROSS-MARKET INFO)

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: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-09-01
End date: 2011-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 151863.51
EU funding (EUR): 151863.51
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This work focuses on understanding international price discovery mechanisms and the nature of order imbalance (private information) relations between different asset classes. Returns between equity and bond markets are related in the same economy due to active portfolio management. Returns in the same asset class are affected by international price movements and exchange rate fluctuations, due to diversification. Concurrently, research in market microstructure literature posits that the price discovery process occurs via order imbalances for assets. Hence, the returns of international assets are linked across asset classes and countries and are also linked to order flows, that reflect private information. We propose a theoretical model that links order imbalances (private information) and returns in all the asset classes, hence merging the three different strands of the literature, and empirically investigate the relation between equities, bonds and exchange rate order flows.

Keywords: social sciences,cross market,order flow,international active diversification,market microstructure
SMALL TO LARGE DEFORMATIONS OF UNSATURATED SOILS: AN APPLICATION TO EARTH STRUCTURES (SLADUS)

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-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-06-01
End date: 2011-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 172434.64
EU funding (EUR): 172434.64
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In unsaturated soils, pores are filled partly by water and partly by air. Unsaturated soils occur naturally (as superficial ground above the water table) or in manmade structures (as compacted earth in infrastructure embankments, underground nuclear waste repositories and flood defences). Unsaturated soil mechanics has experienced significant advances during recent years, instigated by the use of compacted earth as sustainable building material and by the pressing need of the construction industry to improve techniques for management and appraisal of earth structures. Seminal contributions to unsaturated soil mechanics have been made over the past two decades but the current state-of-the-art is still unable to provide an accurate understanding of pre-failure behaviour in compacted soils, which is crucial to ensure long-term serviceability and cost-effective maintenance of earth structures. Mechanical non-linerarity and dependency of small-strain stiffness, as well as damping, on stress history are important properties not properly described by existing constitutive models. Understanding the response of compacted soils at small strains is not only central to applications in engineering dynamics, such as predicting ground motion during earthquakes or next to high-speed railways, but also to the analysis of earth structures under static loads of service. The proposed project will contribute to fill such gaps of knowledge by pursuing two intertwined lines of investigations. Firstly, it will undertake a wide-ranging programme of triaxial and resonant column tests on unsaturated clayey silt samples compacted both in the laboratory and in-situ following standard procedures to ensure comparable material fabrics. Secondly, it will formulate a constitutive model capable of describing mechanical behaviour from small to large strains and will highlight advantages and limitations of such model when reproducing the behaviour of soils compacted both in the laboratory and in-situ.

Keywords: civil engineering,geotechnics,infrastructures engineering,flood defences,earth structures,constitutive modelling,soil mechanics,soil testing,unsaturated soils,small strains
Palaeobiological inference through phylogenetic analysis of Pleistocene deer (DEER PALAEOBIOLOGY)

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-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-04-09
End date: 2011-01-08
Duration (months): 21.0
Total project cost (EUR): 173416.47
EU funding (EUR): 173416.47
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The present research aims to reconstruct the phylogeny of Plio-Pleistocene European deer and to use it as a case study of “adaptive radiation” to try to understand some classic palaeobiological questions such as the link between diversification and environmental change, the origins of endemism, size fluctuations within lineages, and the evolution of sexual organs (antlers) in relation to factors such as habitat and body size. Deer are very abundant in the European Pleistocene and their marked species turnover and high rate of evolutionary change make them useful biochronological indicators and a good example of adaptive radiation. However, a clear understanding of their evolution is biased by their confused taxonomy, and the number of identified remains is reduced by the fact that their systematics is mainly based on antler and cranial morphology, not taking teeth and limb bone morphology into account. I will therefore first review the confused taxonomy of the Pleistocene deer, with special regard to the Megacerini (giant deer) and to the Dama-like deer (fallow deer) also assessing relationships with other taxa, by re-examining the original descriptions and re-studying key specimens from Britain and the continent. Then I will determine metric and non-metric morphological variation in the dental and postcranial remains using articulated skeletons from key sites in Western Europe as a guide. A cladistic analysis based on all available non-metric characters will provide a systematic framework for the exploration of palaeobiological questions. Chronological calibration will allow assessment of speciation rates in relation to environmental change. Geographical and chronological variation in size and adaptive form will be interpreted in relation to climate, habitat and guild diversity, testing ideas on the correlates of body size, antler complexity, and feeding and locomotor adaptation.

Keywords: quaternary deer,megacerine,dama-like deer,taxonomy,morphology,morphometry,statistic analysis,cladistic analysis,palaeobiological questions,antlers,size fluctuation,habitat related evolution
SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME (SARS): DESIGN, SYNTHESIS, IDENTIFICATION, AND EVALUATION OF NOVEL NON-PEPTIDIC INHIBITORS OF MAIN PROTEASE EMPLOYING DYNAMIC LIGATION SCREENING (DLS) (PISARSCOV)

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-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-03-01
End date: 2011-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 170418.35
EU funding (EUR): 170418.35
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) emerged in 2003 in Asia, and within a few months infected 8500 people world and caused more than 800 deaths. This novel medical condition is a viral respiratory illness caused by the SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). And at present, no efficacious therapy is available, for these reason finding a useful drug candidate against SARS corona virus is a goal with high scientific, technological and socio-economic interest. Our (and other´s) preliminary results indicate that the viral protease is an excellent target for the treatment of coronaviral infections. In order to obtain new active SARS-CoV molecules as main protease inhibitors Dynamic Ligation Screenig (DLS) methodology will be developed. This new approach combines dynamic, target-assisted formation of inhibitory species and detection by fluorescence-based screening methodology. In addition to use an enzymatic reaction for fragment detection amplifies the signals and thus reduces the required amount of protein drastically. Finally, enzymatic detection via a fluorescent reporter molecule should enable high-throughput screening (HTS) in microtiter plates. Based on preliminary results, the synthesis of structural analogues of peptide-aldehydes, that containing in the C-terminal extreme other functionalities, will be synthesized. The reaction of these analogues of peptide-aldehydes, acting as directing probe, with a library of amines, carboxylic acid and isocyanides in presence of the enzyme, their substrate in water through Mannich and Ugi reactions provides -amino carbonyl and -N-acylamino amides compounds. The analysis of the crude reaction mixtures will be carried out employing fluorescence assay and it will be allowed us find active fragments (Hits). In these cases, it will be transform through “reversed” screen until obtain one non-peptidic inhibitor. Finally, molecular modelling studies will be realized to determinate both structure-activity relationship.

Keywords: health sciences,natural sciences,medicinal chemistry,solip phase synthesis,high-throughput screening
Climate Change and BIRDs in the African SAVannah (SAVBIRD)

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: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IOF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-09-15
End date: 2012-09-14
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 231461.78
EU funding (EUR): 231461.78
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Climate change is arguably the greatest threat to biodiversity today. Understanding the mechanisms that underlie climate impacts is crucial if biodiversity goals are toe be met as the global climate changes. To date, climate impact research has focussed on northern areas, yet tropical ecosystems hold most biodiversity. For the first time, this project will have the overriding objective of identifying the mechanisms of climate impacts on biodiversity in the African savannah. This objective will be met through a highly innovative combination of modelling, monitoring and empirical work, to assess the impact of changing climates (particularly water availability) on Tanzanian bird species. Working as part of the University of British Colombia’s internationally recognised research group on savannah ecology before reintegration at the University of Aberdeen, the fellow will gain the experience and training required to facilitate his establishment at a European research organisation where he will be able to develop a research group focussing on tropical ecology and climate change. The combination of high quality science and training as part of a world class research group, plus the return period after gaining these new skills will ensure that the project meets the aim of the “People” work programme.

Keywords: animal ecology,ecosystem impact (climate change),applied ecology
Structural and Functional Characterization of the RZZ Complex. (RZZ)

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: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-04-01
End date: 2011-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 164208.45
EU funding (EUR): 164208.45
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This application is concerned with the structural and functional characterization of the RZZ protein complex, a critical constituent of metazoan kinetochores. The RZZ, a 400-kDa trimer, is named after the initials of its components, Rod, Zwilch and Zw10. The RZZ is implicated in the execution of mitosis, the process of equal partitioning of the genetic material. In mitosis, the sister chromatids attach to spindle microtubules and become aligned at the metaphase plate. This alignment process is orchestrated by the dynamic interaction of microtubules with kinetochores, the site of end-on attachment for microtubules to mitotic chromosomes. By recruiting the minus-end directed microtubule motor dynein, the RZZ complex contributes to form initial, lateral attachments of kinetochores to microtubules. The RZZ is also required for kinetochore recruitment of Mad1 and Mad2, two essential constituents of the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC). Through biochemical reconstitution and structural methods, we will gain an understanding of the yet unknown organization of the RZZ. We will also develop biochemical assays to probe the interaction of the RZZ with defined kinetochore and SAC components, thus gaining an insight into the role of the RZZ in the larger framework of kinetochore organization and dynamics.

Keywords: structural biology,applied biology,mitosis,spindle assembly checkpoint,kinetochore,rod/zw10/zwilch (rzz) complex