Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Structure of the brain serotonine 5-HT3 receptor and other mammalian Cys-loop receptors (NEURO-PENTA)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-05-01
End date: 2018-04-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In the brain, fast neurotransmission involves the release of neurotransmitters in the synapse, their binding to specific receptors, which then open and let ions flow over the postsynaptic membrane. The Cys-loop receptor family directly mediates this neurotransmission. Cys-loop receptors are the targets of a legion of psycho-active and therapeutic compounds (including nicotine, alcohol, benzodiazepines, steroids, general anesthetics). More specifically, the family of -etron drugs are prominent antagonists of the 5-HT3 receptor, and widely used as anti-emetic drugs following chemotherapy or surgery. Therefore, the investigation into the structural mechanisms of these receptors can provide both fundamental biological insights and potential benefits to health. The project proposes to describe and understand, through structure, the pharmacology and conformational transitions in the Cys-loop family of receptors, focusing first on the serotonin 5-HT3 receptor. Starting with a solid body of preliminary results, we will first set up new expression and stabilization tools to facilitate structural studies. Then we will obtain high-resolution structures of the 5-HT3 receptor and of other mammalian receptors, taking advantage of crystallization chaperones. On the way, we will also investigate and engineer proteinic modulators of Cys-loop receptor function. The proposed research will take place at the CNRS in Grenoble, France, in a very favorable environment for structural biology. The applicant is establishing his own group and bringing a new research theme to the host institute. The CIG grant will be instrumental in the success of the proposed research and in the career development of the applicant.

Keywords: cys-loop receptors,serotonin receptor,structural biology,crystallography,eukaryotic expression systems,neurotransmission
Regulation of muscle stem cells by ERRgamma (MUSTEMERR)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-09-01
End date: 2018-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Skeletal muscle is a highly plastic tissue capable of spontaneous repair in response to injury via the recruitment of muscle stem cells called the satellite cells. These cells are localised within the myofibre basal lamina and are activated upon muscle damage, they proliferate and differentiate to replace the damaged muscle. Satellite cells are the key rate-limiting step for successful repair and the transcriptional cues that emanate from the skeletal muscle to activate regeneration are unclear. Thus, discovery of key molecules that regulate satellite cell activation will accelerate the ability to stimulate muscle repair. Estrogen related receptors (ERR isoforms α, β and γ) are a sub-family of orphan nuclear hormone receptors that have been identified as major regulators of cellular and mitochondrial metabolism. Skeletal muscle-specific overexpression of ERRγ has been shown to drive metabolic and angiogenic muscle reprogramming in both health and disease. This project will test the hypothesis that targeting ERRγ in skeletal muscle will improve the myofibre regenerative capacity via satellite cell recruitment and secretion of growth factors. Identification of the underlying mechanisms will provide new knowledge that can be exploited to develop new therapeutic avenues for promoting satellite cell recruitment and myofibre regeneration in terms of injury or degenerative conditions like ageing and muscle wasting disorders. The hypothesis will be tested by addressing the following specific aims: 1) To establish the satellite cell proliferation and differentiation profiles in ERRγ transgenic muscles at baseline and in response to acute eccentric exercise. 2) To investigate the effect of ERRγ on satellite cell recruitment in response to muscle injury. 3) To determine the interplay between muscular revascularisation and reparative myogenesis by ERRγ. 4) To determine whether an AAV-mediated ERRγ delivery increases satellite cell recruitment and improves muscle integrity.

Keywords: skeletal muscle,satellite cells,nuclear hormone receptors,estrogen-related receptor gamma,regeneration,ischemic injury,angiogenesis,mitochondrial biogenesis,exercise
Drivers of trends and regime shifts in ocean phytoplankton and zooplankton (TROPHYZ)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2015-03-01
End date: 2019-02-28
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: TERMINATED

The Earth’s climate system and ecosystems often exhibit non-linear behavior and abrupt changes, the latter especially challenging societies ability to adapt. More specifically, abrupt changes in marine ecosystems are of great socioeconomic concern. Past regime shifts in marine ecosystems such as observed in 1977 and in 1998 in the North Pacific in several trophic levels challenged the marine resources managers because of the scale (throughout the North Pacific) and the abruptness (occurred within a year or so) of the change. For example, after the 1998 regime shift in the western North Pacific, herring, capelin and anchovy replaced the previously dominant Japanese sardine. In marine ecosystems, abrupt changes can be induced by climate variability or can also be generated randomly from within the system. Abrupt changes can also be triggered when the system responds in a gradual way to forcing until it crosses some threshold, after which it rapidly transitions to a new state. Since regime shifts may be detectable earlier in marine plankton than in upper trophic levels, this project aims to investigate the presence of abrupt changes in time series of marine phytoplankton and zooplankton abundance and to identify the physical mechanisms responsible for inducing abrupt changes. This project will further investigate the presence of threshold effects between marine plankton and their physical forcings, where a small increase in forcing leads to a larger change in phytoplankton and zooplankton abundance. The presence of early warning indicators before abrupt changes in marine plankton will be assessed to determine whether these changes could be anticipated in the future.

Keywords: regime shift,abrupt change,threshold,change point detection,zooplankton,phytoplankton,ecosystem resilience
Dissecting the mechanisms of miRNA function (MIRFUNCTION)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-05-01
End date: 2018-04-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

miRNAs are crucial regulators of gene expression that target more than half of eukaryotic genes and play a role in human diseases, including cancer and neurological disorders. Therefore, it is important to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying miRNA-mediated repression. miRNAs act as guides recognizing their target mRNAs by partial complementarity and recruiting a complex of proteins that represses mRNA expression. In this complex, proteins of GW182 family are the key effectors mediating repression. We have shown that GW182 recruits deadenylation complexes via novel protein motifs (W-motifs), leading to translational repression and mRNA deadenylation. Translational repression by deadenylases occurs independently of deadenylation by a mechanism, which is still mysterious. Thus, our first goal will be (1) to analyze the mechanism of translational repression by deadenylases and its contribution to miRNA silencing. Our preliminary data show that W-motifs recruiting the deadenylation complex (CCR4-NOT) are not restricted to the GW182 family and can be found in other proteins involved in RNA metabolism. The roles of W-motifs in these proteins are completely unknown, but important to investigate if we want to better understand the mechanisms of RNA silencing. The fact that CCR4-NOT is involved not only in mRNA deadenylation and translation, but also in other steps of RNA metabolism, including transcription, RNA processing and export, suggests that proteins with W-motifs have the potential to orchestrate gene expression at different levels. Thus, our next goal will be (2) to investigate more broadly the full repressive potential of W-motifs. In a wider context, this proposal will explore the roles of miRNAs in such important and global processes as subcellular localization and translation of mRNAs. Addressing these questions will make substantial advances in our understanding of miRNA function and mechanisms of gene regulation.

Keywords: mirna silencing,translational control,mrna localization,gw182/tnrc6,w-motifs,ccr4-not
Risk and Development: Households and Firms (RDHF)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2020-03-16
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

Poor households in developing countries face low and volatile incomes, with little access to forma credit and insurance. Households often resort to informal institutions in order to smooth consumption and foster investment. The extended family could be such an institution. We test for the relevance of the extended family as a provider of resources able to smooth consumption fluctuations and promote high return investment in non-collateralizable assets such as education. Climate risk and weather shocks are fundamental source of uncertainty. The possible increase in extreme weather phenomena, as well as the changes in the second (and possibly higher order moments) of the temperature and precipitation distributions, could have dramatic consequences for the poor. Lacking insurance against such shocks, the poor will have to take actions to smooth consumption in the short term to the possible detriment of the future by reducing or channeling investment towards low risk-low return investments and crops. Such weather shocks might also have adverse effects on health through direct and economic channels, and in segmented or imperfect markets similar shocks will impact local prices and therefore welfare of the poor. A proper account of such welfare effects require a well estimated system of demand, in particular when we depart from the unitary model of the household. Often households and firms are inextricably linked in developing countries, where micro-enterprises are prevalent. These firms are often small, informal and unproductive. Do they lack business and managerial capital? Can we bring them out of informality? And does formality cause higher productivity? The recent increase in credit available to the poor raises concerns regarding possible increases in default rates. We test for that using a clean identification strategy and two very rich administrative data sources from Mexico.

Keywords: development,risk,climate,households,firms
Harnessing Carboxylic Acids via ABC – Asymmetric Boronic acid-based Catalysis (ABC)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2018-03-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Developing new methods to functionalize molecules controlling their stereochemistry is of outmost important in almost any area of chemistry. However, factors such as costs, efficiency, sustainability and waste production are a major concern. As the pharmaceutical industry is increasingly aware of the importance of and greater clinical success in creating biomolecules with 3-D architectures there is a strong impetus to try to develop new efficient and sustainable asymmetric methods. The impact of organocatalysis (the use of small organic molecules to promote asymmetric transformations) has been immense across many aspect of society spanning from the synthesis of pharmaceutical compounds to agrochemicals and materials. However, whilst useful for the activation of compounds such as aldehydes and ketone, this concept cannot be used for the functionalization of carboxylic acids. This limits the development of new and efficient methods because carboxylic acids frequently represent the starting material as well as the final product of many synthetic sequences. This proposal seeks to explore fundamentally new ideas based around rationally designed boron transformations aimed at the development of novel approaches towards asymmetric, transition metal-free functionalization of carboxylic acids. The proposed approach relies on the activation of carboxylic acids by the addition of chiral boronic acids catalysts to generate chiral mono-acyl boronate intermediates. Subsequent addition of a nucleophile (or a diene) would results in highly valued and polyfunctional non-racemic carboxylic acids, amides and thioesters with water as the stoichiometric waste. Preliminary DFT calculations suggest that the asymmetric induction is viable. This proposal is aimed at the career development of applicant by allowing him to establish an independent research career on a scientific area that is expected to have a big impact on the society.

Keywords: asymmetric catalysis,organocatalysis,green chemistry,sustainable,natural products,carboxylic acids,boronic acids,pharmaceutical compounds,amidation,synthesis
Measuring and Modelling Language Interactions (MEMOLI)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Hungary
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-07-01
End date: 2018-06-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Large-scale migrations result in different languages and cultures getting in contact with each other. It happened so in the past, and continues happening so in the 21st century Europe. Jewish languages, such as Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic or Judeo-Italian, represent eminent examples of such linguistic and cultural interactions, and they will serve as case studies in our project. The present project is composed of two parts. Language interaction, as exemplified by Yiddish and other Jewish languages, will be first measured using contemporary techniques in dialectometry. The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ) will serve as the dataset for understanding how cultural and linguistic features have spread in Jewish communities across Europe, and how these features interact with the local non-Jewish cultures and languages. Second, the quantitative picture thus arrived at will be reproduced using computer simulations. These simulations will combine social network models with cognitive architectures. The social structure and historical change will be approached by a multi-agent version of the Iterative Learning Model. Then, each agent will be equipped with a linguistically motivated cognitive architecture representing the linguistic knowledge in each agent's mind. In particular, the project focuses on Optimality Theory (OT) and its variants (Harmonic Grammar, Maximum Entropy OT, Simulated Annealing for OT, etc.). These contemporary linguistic frameworks come with elaborated learning algorithms, and are implemented by the applicant's OTKit software package. Dialectometry, as well as computer simulations with cognitive models and social networks represent state-of-the-art techniques hardly applied to the study of Jewish languages. The applicant has acquired these techniques in the Netherlands and the United States, and he will transfer them to Hungary.

Keywords: language variation,jewish languages,yiddish,dialectometry,language and culture atlas of ashkenazic jewry,social networks,iterative learning model,optimality theory,computer simulations.
Exploring magnetic quantum phase transitions with ultra-cold Fermi gases (MAG-QUPT)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2018-05-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The project “Exploring magnetic quantum phase transitions with ultra-cold Fermi gases” (MAG-QUPT) aims at developing a novel platform for the experimental exploration of quantum phase transitions and quantum critical phenomena using ultra-cold atomic gases. As envisioned by R. Feynman in 1982, and successfully demonstrated in the last years, these systems can be used to emulate fundamental quantum collective phenomena and constitute ideal test-beds for deepening our understanding of quantum-many body physics. By providing novel insights into long-standing open questions of condensed-matter physics, they pave the way towards the development of new materials and quantum devices. The ambitious goal of this research project is to establish a novel toolbox for the controlled study of magnetic quantum phase transitions based on ultra-cold quantum gases, going beyond the capabilities currently offered by solid-state systems. To this end, we will exploit the unique properties of ultra-cold Fermi gases trapped in optical lattices of adjustable geometries. Building-up on our previous work, we will implement paradigmatic spin models for magnetic quantum phase transitions in this setting, and develop novel tools for their characterization. More precisely, this research proposal introduces two main objectives: i) the development of an experimental apparatus specifically adapted to this goal. ii) the experimental observation and characterization of a prototypical magnetic quantum phase transition, and the study of the corresponding quantum critical regime. Reaching these objectives would demonstrate a new frame for the experimental exploration of quantum critical phenomena. This would open new horizons for our understanding of the fundamental connections between quantum many-body physics and entanglement, with potential applications in the development of novel quantum technologies.

Keywords: ultra-cold fermi gases,quantum simulator,magnetism,quantum phase transition
Pollinator responses to global change and its implications for ecosystem function (BEEFUN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-09-01
End date: 2018-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

As of the year 2000, 40% of Earth’s ice-free land area is being directly used by humans, and an additional 37% is surrounded by human-modified areas. Land-use change, along with other human-induced global change drivers, are accelerating the rates of extinction of most taxa. Researchers are beginning to experimentally investigate how these changes in biodiversity affect ecosystem services, such as water purification, climate regulation, and food production, but do not yet understand the effects of species loss in real ecosystems. Pollination is a critical ecosystem service and relies upon multiple species of pollinators. My proposal aims to understand the threats to the pollinator species that provide this critical ecosystem function and assess the consequences of their decline in real ecosystems. Research about the functional consequences of biodiversity is dominated by small-scale experimental studies. These experiments have manipulated diversity by assembling random subsets of species drawn from a common pool of taxa. This approach is useful for understanding the theoretical consequences of diversity loss but is unrealistic in the sense that it assumes species can go extinct in any sequence over time. Extinction, however, is generally a nonrandom process with risk determined by life-history traits such as rarity, body size, and sensitivity to environmental stressors. The importance of biodiversity loss on the production and stability of ecosystem services will depend, then, on which bee species are lost, and which species are well-adapted to anthropogenic habitats. I will investigate this relationship by developing a framework that goes beyond aggregate biodiversity measures and takes into account trait functional diversity, species specific responses, and community structure. I will use new synthetic analysis of existing datasets form Europe and US, and long-term monitoring of experimentally manipulated natural communities in southern Spain.

Keywords: ecology,biodiversity,pollination,ecosystem function,bees,plants,response diversity,functional diversity