Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Water Isotopes of Hydrated Minerals (WIHM) (WIHM)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Earth system science
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2495876.0
EU funding (EUR): 2495876.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Water is fundamental to life as we know it, and the current strategy for the search of life on Mars is to “follow the water”. Much of the water on Mars exists today in the form of hydrated minerals that incorporate molecular water or hydroxyl into their crystalline structure. Hydrated minerals provide a tool for studying the past history of the hydrosphere on Mars as well as Earth. Oxygen and hydrogen isotopes of hydration water in minerals record information about the conditions under which the minerals form and subsequently interact with fluids after deposition. This proposal outlines the technological and scientific basis for a new approach to the isotopic study of hydration water in minerals and mineraloids. The recent availability of tunable diode lasers now permits the measurement of water isotopes by laser absorption spectroscopy at a precision equal to or better than conventional methods. This development opens new opportunities for studying the isotope composition of mineral hydration water in novel ways, which hitherto has been difficult or impossible. I propose a five-year program to establish a research group at the University of Cambridge to study the nature of water isotopes in hydrated minerals: (1) how many different types of hydration states of water are present and how they are fixed into the mineral structure; (2) how the isotopic composition varies among the differently bound water in minerals; (3) how the type of bonding of water in minerals affects the rate of isotopic exchange with external water; and (4) whether or not any of the hydration water has retained its isotopic composition from the time of formation. The project will include both a theoretical (ab initio simulations) and empirical approach that has the potential to transform our understanding of mineral hydration water and its isotopic composition. The research has wide ranging application for addressing fundamental problems across many disciplines in Earth and Planetary sciences.
Evolved Replication Systems for Epigenetics (EVOEPIGEN)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Applied life sciences and biotechnology
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-07-31
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2483966.4
EU funding (EUR): 2483966.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Cells have a broad functional and morphological diversity due to differential gene expression. Research in epigenetics combines the study of inheritable, phenotypical changes in the gene expression pattern of a specific cell type that are not caused by a transformed nucleotide sequence of the genetic code itself. Epigenetic marks are represented by a variety of molecular mechanisms including DNA methylation. Alterations of DNA methylation play a crucial role in the onset of diseases like cancer. Many DNA methylation-based biomarkers have been evaluated and the analysis of epigenetic alterations is a promising tool for disease diagnostics, prognostics, and prediction of drug response. In future, this will allow to adapt therapies to a person, which will increase the chance for successful treatments, minimizing side-effects of chemotherapy and administration of ineffective drugs and thus, prevent the onset of follow-up problems that are associated with these events. Thus, cost-effective but robust means that allow the analysis of DNA methylation-based biomarkers are of urgent need. Several methods for analysis of these biomarkers are employed. However, those that have the required resolution are laborious, time-consuming, and error-prone and thus, prevent broad applications of DNA methylation profiling in clinical diagnostics. The aim of this project is to overcome the barriers that prohibit using DNA methylation profiling in broad clinical applications for diagnostics, prognostics, and prediction of drug response. The objectives will be reached by a multidisciplinary systemic approach harnessing the power of organic synthesis (i.e. new synthetic modified nucleotides), biochemical and structural enzyme studies, and directed evolution of DNA polymerases tailored for new replication systems for epigenetics. The evolved replication systems will be superior to known techniques by superseding the bottle necks of current approaches paving the way for broad applications.

Keywords: nucleic acid chemistry chemical biology of nucleic acids modified nucleotides dna polymerases protein engineering directed evolution screening nucleic acid diagonstics
Myosins and the dynamics of intracellular membranes (MYODYN)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Cellular and Developmental Biology
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2020-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Myosins are fascinating proteins with unique biochemical and physical properties. The multiple roles that they play in the dynamics of intracellular membranes are only beginning to emerge. Recent findings from the research team have highlighted unexpected roles in membrane deformation and in membrane fission played by two myosins (myosin 1b and myosin II) functioning at the interface between the Golgi, TGN (Trans-Golgi Network) and endosomes. Building on these results, we propose to establish a comprehensive model describing how several myosins work in concert with F-actin and with microtubule-based motors for sustaining transport events and membrane dynamics in a region of the cell at the crossroads of complex trafficking pathways. Towards this general objective, our main goals are: Goal 1: to understand the role of myosin 1b in membrane deformation Goal 2: to understand the role of nonmuscle myosin II in membrane fission Goal 3: to characterize the actin structures required for myosin functions Goal 4: to identify and to characterize other myosins functioning at the Golgi/TGN/endosome interface and to investigate their functional coordination Goal 5: to understand how myosins are functionally coordinated with microtubule-based motors. The function of myosins will be studied both at the cellular and physical level using two main original methodological approaches available to the research team: minimal in vitro assays (giant liposomes and membrane nanotubes) and normalized cell systems (micropatterns). This proposal represents a new development in the activity of the research team composed of cell biologists, experimental and theoretical physicists. Success of this proposal will rely on the strong experience of cross-disciplinary approaches that allowed the research team in the past to elucidate several physical mechanisms underlying transport processes and membrane dynamics.

Keywords: myosins,actin,golgi complex,endosomes,model membranes,physical modelling,micropatterns
Superconducting Quantum Networks (SUPERQUNET)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Condensed matter physics
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-09-01
End date: 2020-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3242977.0
EU funding (EUR): 3242977.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Today superconducting electronic circuits are one of the prime physical systems to explore both foundations and technological applications of quantum mechanics.The concept of processing information more efficiently using quantum mechanics has stimulated enormous progress in control and measurement of quantum electronic circuits. Now such circuits are one of the prime contenders for realizing a viable quantum information processor. Similarly, the realization of strong coherent interactions between superconducting quantum bits and individual photons has stimulated a wide range of research exploring quantum optics in these systems. In this project we plan to investigate quantum communication using superconducting circuits, an area altogether unexplored in this domain. For this purpose we will develop both hardware and experimental techniques to realize superconducting quantum networks across distances of tens of meters. In contrast to existing experiments in which quantum information is distributed over millimeter distances only, realizing such networks will allow us to address both fundamental and practical questions. In particular, we will create and test networking architectures for superconducting quantum information processors, we will create entanglement over distances on meter length-scales and perform Bell-tests of space-like separated objects with high detection efficiency. We also plan to realize and test elements for quantum repeaters and to explore ideas of blind quantum computation. The remarkable progress in quantum technologies based on superconducting circuits, including more than 5 orders of magnitude improvement in coherence over the last 13 years, contributes to the great potential of these systems for applications. The challenging realization of quantum networks covering larger distances will contribute to expand the range of fundamental questions addressable and applications conceivable in superconducting quantum technologies.

Keywords: superconducting circuits,quantum information science,quantum optics,quantum physics,quantum communication,bell tests
Massive-Object Quantum Physics (MASSQ)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: Germany,Germany
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2020-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1566210.0
EU funding (EUR): 1566210.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The world of quantum physics is usually associated with the microscopic cosmos of atoms and photons. In principle, but so far without any demonstration, even heavy objects can exhibit the distinguished properties of quantum world particles. In 1935, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) challenged a particular prediction of quantum theory saying that two particles can exist in a so-called entangled state in which the two particles do not have individually defined (‘local’) positions and momenta. Most interestingly, the existence of entangled states was subsequently fully confirmed in experiments with photons and atoms. The new project MassQ aims to test and to confirm quantum theory in the macroscopic world of massive, human-world sized objects by realizing an EPR entanglement experiment with heavy mirrors. Two kg-sized mirrors will be cooled to low temperature and their centre of mass motion driven by radiation pressure of intense laser light in such a way that the mirrors will lose their individually defined positions and momenta. As a result, their joint motion will form a unified massive quantum object. This project will realize a fundamental test of quantum theory in the so far unexplored regime of human-world sized objects. Recent advances in gravitational wave detector research and in opto-mechanics make this project feasible. The vision of this project points even further into the future. This project aims to lay the basis for a completely new class of physics experiments. Mirrors with kilogram masses have a proper gravitational field and cause a space-time curvature in their vicinity. This way, in principle, the dynamics of two heavy entangled mirrors need to be described not only by quantum theory but also by general relativity. Today it is completely unclear what the results of such a new class of physics experiments will be. Undoubtedly, they are important to illuminate the deep connection between the two most successful theories in physics.
Perceptual Awareness in the Reorganizing Brain (PERCEPTUAL AWARENESS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its complexity
Countries involved: Italy,United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2020-02-29
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2139556.0
EU funding (EUR): 2139556.0
Participants: 4
Project status: CLOSED

The present project aims at casting light on the neural and cognitive reorganization of visual function following unilateral lesion at various levels of the central visual system such as optic tract, optic radiation, primary visual cortex, extrastriate visual areas. In the first part of the project we will employ behavioural as well as brain imaging methods to study the basic neural mechanisms of blindsight, that is, above chance visually guided behaviour in hemianopic patients in the absence of visual awareness. The neural and cognitive substrate of this condition will be compared with that of conscious vision in order to tease apart the neural and cognitive mechanisms responsible of the shift from unconscious to conscious vision. In addition to purely behavioural experiments all patients will be tested while recording, in planned sequential experiments, ERP, MEG and fMRI to assess the processing stage and the brain areas subserving unconscious and conscious vision, respectively. This procedure will enable us to correlate the level of perceptual awareness retained or acquired and the lesion site. In the second part of the project we will use visual imagery to "access" the deafferented or lesioned visual cortex. By means of fMRI and MEG recording we will assess the effect on specific cortical areas of focusing a mental visual image on given portions of either the intact or the hemianopic field. The results of this procedure will constraint the development of novel imagery-based visual rehabilitation protocols tailored individually on the basis of the lesion profile of the patients and on the presence of concurrent brain imaging feedback on the plastic cortical changes occurred as a result of specific training.

Keywords: visual imagery -blindsight -visual cortex -visual rehabilitation -cortical plasticity -poffenberger paradigm -redundant signal effect -partial report paradigm backward masking
Life in a cold climate: the adaptation of cereals to new environments and the establishment of agriculture in Europe (ADAPT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The study of the human past
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom,United Kingdom,Switzerland,Spain
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2492963.56
EU funding (EUR): 2492963.56
Participants: 5
Project status: CLOSED

This project explores the concept of agricultural spread as analogous to enforced climate change and asks how cereals adapted to new environments when agriculture was introduced into Europe. Archaeologists have long recognized that the ecological pressures placed on crops would have had an impact on the spread and subsequent development of agriculture, but previously there has been no means of directly assessing the scale and nature of this impact. Recent work that I have directed has shown how such a study could be carried out, and the purpose of this project is to exploit these breakthroughs with the goal of assessing the influence of environmental adaptation on the spread of agriculture, its adoption as the primary subsistence strategy, and the subsequent establishment of farming in different parts of Europe. This will correct the current imbalance between our understanding of the human and environmental dimensions to the domestication of Europe. I will use methods from population genomics to identify loci within the barley and wheat genomes that have undergone selection since the beginning of cereal cultivation in Europe. I will then use ecological modelling to identify those loci whose patterns of selection are associated with ecogeographical variables and hence represent adaptations to local environmental conditions. I will assign dates to the periods when adaptations occurred by sequencing ancient DNA from archaeobotanical assemblages and by computer methods that enable the temporal order of adaptations to be deduced. I will then synthesise the information on environmental adaptations with dating evidence for the spread of agriculture in Europe, which reveals pauses that might be linked to environmental adaptation, with demographic data that indicate regions where Neolithic populations declined, possibly due to inadequate crop productivity, and with an archaeobotanical database showing changes in the prevalence of individual cereals in different regions.

Keywords: agriculture barley biomolecular archaeology cereals dna environmental modelling evolutionary adaptation neolithic population genomics wheat
Eukaryotic Regulated RNA Catabolism (EURECA)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Molecular and Structural Biology and Biochemistry
Countries involved: Denmark
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2497960.0
EU funding (EUR): 2497960.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Regulation and fidelity of gene expression is fundamental to the differentiation and maintenance of all living organisms. While historically attention has been focused on the process of transcriptional activation, we predict that RNA turnover pathways are equally important for gene expression regulation. This has been implied for selected protein-coding RNAs (mRNAs) but is virtually unexplored for non-protein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). The intention of the EURECA proposal is to establish cutting-edge research to characterize mammalian nuclear RNA turnover; its factor utility, substrate specificity and regulatory capacity. We foresee that RNA turnover is at the core of gene expression regulation - forming intricate connection to RNA productive systems – thus, being centrally placed to determine RNA fate. EURECA seeks to dramatically improve our understanding of cellular decision processes impacting RNA levels and to establish models for how regulated RNA turnover helps control key biological processes. The realization that the number of ncRNA producing genes was previously grossly underestimated foretells that ncRNA regulation will impact on most aspects of cell biology. Consistently, aberrant ncRNA levels correlate with human disease phenotypes and RNA turnover complexes are linked to disease biology. Still, solid models for how ncRNA turnover regulate biological processes in higher eukaryotes are not available. Moreover, which ncRNAs retain function and which are merely transcriptional by-products remain a major challenge to sort out. The circumstances and kinetics of ncRNA turnover are therefore important to delineate as these will ultimately relate to the likelihood of molecular function. A fundamental challenge here is to also discern which protein complements of non-coding ribonucleoprotein particles (ncRNPs) are (in)compatible with function. Balancing single transcript/factor analysis with high-throughput methodology, EURECA will address these questions.

Keywords: gene expression,rna metabolism
Novel vaccine generation for the treatment of cancer. A glyco-nanomedial approach instructing T cells (GLYCOTREAT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Diagnostic tools, therapies and public health
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-07-31
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2498736.0
EU funding (EUR): 2498736.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

There is an urgent need to develop vaccines for the induction of CD8+ T-cell immunity to treat cancer and infectious diseases. Dendritic Cells (DC) have shown potential to induce antigen specific CD8+ T-cell responses with the help of CD4+ T cells, yet the efficacy by which the induction is achieved still has its limitations. The main challenge is: (a) to increase targeting efficacy to the complete repertoire of DC subsets; (b) to trigger T-cell responses by the DC that is powerful enough to eliminate a tumour (c) to implement novel human read-out systems, that mimic he human body response to evaluate vaccine efficacy. The aim of this research project is to develop new glycan-based nanomedicines targeted to DC to induce powerful T-cell responses. Within the scope of this research project these new glycan-based nanomedicines will be tested to (i) trigger a strong T-cell response to pathogens, (ii) induce a powerful and adequate T-cell response to self antigen in a tumour induced immune suppressive environment and (iii) render fundamental insights to establish a vaccine platform relevant for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. GlycoTreat employs an unconventional, novel glycan biotechnology approach to target a multitude of DC subsets in the human skin to validate the groundbreaking hypothesis that the local administration and molecular size and glycan valency of the targeting compound affect the efficiency of the T-cell stimulating vaccine. This research project joins the chemical design of glyco-nanomedical vaccines with immunological outcomes in our advanced in-vitro, in-situ human skin and in-vivo mouse DC model systems. While crossing the established disciplinary boundaries between chemistry, biology and medicine, Prof. van Kooyk will generate a new field of expertise in vaccine development applied in the field of cancer treatment.

Keywords: dendritic cells,glycan,immune responses,vaccination,therapie,melanoma,c-type lectins,cervical cancer