Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Unlocking the Dynamics of Dopamine in Aging: Balancing Pre- and Post-Synaptic Mechanisms for Optimal Brain Function across the adult lifespan (DOPAGE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Panel description: Cognitive science, psychology, linguistics
Countries involved: Sweden,Finland
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-06-01
End date: 2030-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2000000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Many older adults experience impairment of cognitive functions, such as memory. While changes to the aging brain are often assumed to underlie cognitive decline, but it has turned out surprisingly hard to identify coupled brain-cognitive changes in aging. This challenge is magnified when searching for potentially modifiable brain alterations that could serve as targets for various kinds of interventions. A promising candidate mechanism is age-related alterations in neurotransmitters like dopamine (DA) and noradrenaline (NA), crucial for brain functions. Yet, existing models of aging related to DA and NA are inadequate, as past studies solely focused on either the DA or NA system and also emphasized a single facet of the multifaceted DA system (either pre- or post-synaptic). This represents a serious omission because various parts of the DA system are tightly regulated and the balance between pre- and post-synaptic markers, rather than each marker in isolation, might be more critical for efficient neuromodulatory function. Contrary to the prevailing notion of a global DA neurodegeneration, characterized by a hypodopaminergic condition, I hypothesis that aging is accompanied with loss of balance between pre- and post-synaptic DA systems. This imbalance holds profound implication for functional brain integrity and cognitive decline in aging. The overarching goal of this ground-breaking research program is to, for the first time, address the fundamental question of how the dynamic interplay between pre- and post-synaptic markers of the DA, along with its interaction with equally critical NA, evolves as individuals age and how these dynamics are linked to functional brain integrity and cognitive decline. Of particular interest is whether transiently restoring the balance between pre- and post-synaptic components of the DA system and NA through pharmacological intervention, opens a window to remodel the aging brain and improve cognitive function in some older individuals.

Keywords: pet,mri,dopamine,aging,cognition
Biocomposites in smart plastic transformation processes to pave the way for the large-scale uptake of sustainable bio-based products-Hop-On (Bio-Uptake-Hop-On)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area
Programme: Widening participation and spreading excellence
Theme: Improved access to Excellence
Destination: Improved access to Excellence
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Portugal
Call: Hop on Facility (HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ACCESS-06, 2023)
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 500437.5
EU funding (EUR): 500437.5
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

New strategies of the European Union related with transition to bio-based and circular economy involve several sustainability requirements, among others, at the environmental level. In this context, the project Bio-Uptake targeted the development of bio-based polymers with innovation towards circular solutions, promoting the re-use of the products to be developed (bath ceiling, foot orthosis, garbage lid). In Bio-Uptake-Hop-On, UAveiro brings to Bio-Uptake, a new pillar to fully achieve the environmental sustainability of the developed products, by certifying their low environmental and human impacts. Thus, Bio-Uptake-Hop-On main goal is to characterize the safety of developed bio-based materials and products to Environmental and Human (E&H) Health, across the different production and innovation steps. For this, three fit-for-purpose approaches will apply: i) assess the E&H hazardousness of the materials and products, to support applying the safe-by-design concept and select the least hazardous materials and intermediate product formats to proceed to the final production stage; ii) identify the best architecture design of foot orthosis and bath ceiling formats that promotes less growth of human pathogens, and (iii) characterize the influence of weathering conditions, during usage, on chemicals/particles leakage from the garbage lid and as well on its safety to the environment. The applied research carried out within Bio-Uptake-Hop-On will generate a complementary indicator that will benchmark the toxicity of developed materials and products to feed the Life Cycle Assessment to be carried out in WP1 and will assist WP5 on the selection of the bio-based materials and products that are more eco-friendly and safer for Humans, while keeping their functionality. By contributing to the development of materials and products with lower environmental and human impacts Bio-Uptake-Hop-On will support achieving Green Deal targets, namely those related with Zero pollution.

Keywords: bio based products environmental and human safety safe by design low environmental footprint environmental sustainability,eco friendliness
Virtual Immersion for Student Awareness of Climate Change (VISTA)

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: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Norway
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 267418.56
EU funding (EUR): 267418.56
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The Virtual Immersion for Student Awareness of Climate Change project (VISTA) is a design-based research initiative aimed at enhancing lower-secondary school students’ awareness of climate change and its global consequences. Climate change and its adverse effects on individuals are among the most critical and pressing global issues in today’s world. To address this worldwide challenge and foster environmentally conscious societies, it is paramount to cultivate awareness among children and young individuals, who will shape the workforce and society of tomorrow. The overall aim of VISTA is to design, implement and evaluate virtual reality-based interventions to raise students’ awareness of climate change, its global consequences and possible responses. Furthermore, the project seeks to evaluate the influence of virtual reality (VR)-based interventions in secondary education, leveraging VR’s potential to provide students with immersive, realistic, and highly effective environmental experiences.

Keywords: climate change awareness,secondary education,mixed method study,quasi experimental study
New strategies to characterise genomic diversity for biodiversity conservation (ConserVar)

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: Sweden,Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-09-15
End date: 2025-09-14
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 222727.68
EU funding (EUR): 222727.68
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Genetic diversity is one of the three basic elements of biodiversity. Understanding the full extent of this diversity within species is fundamental for their conservation. However, despite the ongoing advances in DNA sequencing technologies, conservation genomics is lagging behind in using whole-genome data efficiently. In contrast, other fields, such as human genomics, have developed theoretical and computational approaches to tackle this. If applied to endangered species, these approaches will provide a better understanding of their genetic diversity, particularly regarding the structure of this diversity across populations and its effect on adaptation to changing environments. By leveraging two types of genetic data currently overlooked in conservation genomics – haplotype information and structural genomic variation, I will develop new analysis strategies to characterise genomic variation in endangered species. Using the Arctic fox as a model species, I will use whole-genome data from both present-day and historical samples to: 1) infer subtle patterns of population structure and gene flow, 2) quantify temporal changes in genomic structural variation and 3) assess the ability of these types of genetic data to inform on adaptation to local environments. This research programme will provide not only a comprehensive characterisation of genomic diversity in Arctic foxes – with a direct impact on the Swedish Arctic fox conservation programme, but also new analytical tools for conservation genomics, unlocking the full potential of whole-genome data for biodiversity conservation. Combining my solid track record on both human and biodiversity population genomics, and the host’s extensive expertise on conservation genomics and palaeogenomics, this fellowship will allow me to obtain the key scientific and transferrable skills to establish myself as a research leader in the field and make substantial contributions to biodiversity conservation.

Keywords: population genomics,biodiversity conservation,genetic diversity,whole genome data,haplotype based approaches,structural variation
A Modular Framework for Designing and Producing Biohybrid Machines (BioMeld)

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
Countries involved: Serbia,Spain,Italy,Belgium,United Kingdom
Call: Development of technologies/devices for bio-intelligent manufacturing (RIA) (HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-10-01
End date: 2026-03-31
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3978056.93
EU funding (EUR): 3978056.93
Participants: 7
Project status: SIGNED

Bio-hybrid machines (BHMs) combine living cell actuators with artificial materials in order to achieve greater autonomy, flexibility, and energy efficiency compared to standard robots. However, BHMs are developed in silos of individual research groups, making their development more of an art relying on individual knowledge, intuition, and skills than on standardized decision-making processes. To push the manufacturing of BHMs towards bio-intelligent paradigm and model-based engineering, we propose to develop a self-monitoring and self-controlling manufacturing pipeline of BHMs. To realize such a pipeline, we would need to (i) Develop a modeling and simulation framework that will streamline the processes of design, quoting, manufacturing, verification, and reporting, thus significantly reducing error-prone manual steps. Also, given that actuators in BHMs are living cells, which greatly expands the parameter space, we believe that the development of BHMs would greatly benefit from AI-guided modeling process to optimize search for the most efficient design; (ii) To experimentally test, optimize, and verify the platform by developing a proof-of-principle reconfigurable modular catheter BHM; (iii) To group all necessary manufacturing equipment into an integrated bio-intelligent manufacturing cell (BIMC) and demonstrate its adaptable operation. As a proof-of-principle, we will use BHM catheter as it is an innovative medical device that would be able to arrive into hard-to-reach regions of the human body and release drugs there.

Keywords: biohybrid machine,cell actuators,machine learning,catheter,manufacturing cell
Dissecting the molecular mechanisms of cellular heterogeneity controlling infection-associated development in plant pathogenic fungi (CELL-ENEITY)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Biotechnology and Biosystems E ngineering
Panel description: Biotechnology using all organisms , biotechnology for environment  and food applications, applied plant and animal sciences , bioengineering and synthetic biology , biomass and biofuels , biohazards
Countries involved: Spain
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2022-STG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-12-01
End date: 2028-11-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499439.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499439.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Clonal microorganisms display cellular heterogeneity at the transcriptional level, to survive under unfavourable conditions or differentiate into specialised structures. This is the basis of antibiotic and fungicide resistance, but very little is known about how cellular heterogeneity originates and operates in the infection biology of agricultural fungi. Magnaporthe oryzae is one of the most devastating fungal pathogens in the world that destroys enough rice to feed 60M people every year. It produces ~50,000 new spores a day from a single lesion in the fields, but it remains unknown whether they are transcriptionally different. Spores contain three cells that display cellular heterogeneity between them during appressorium development, a specialised cell necessary for infection. Two of the cells undergo autophagy rapidly and the third undergoes a mitotic division leading to the formation of the appressorium. The mechanism by which cellular heterogeneity operates in spores has never been elucidated. This proposal will identify, for the first time, the molecular mechanisms driving cellular heterogeneity and genes subjected to it. An unparalleled resolution of the infection-associated developmental program of individual spore cells will be obtained by scRNA-seq, which will identify a cohort of virulence factors critical for infection. I propose that the underlying mechanism of cellular heterogeneity is the cell cycle, through the activity of Cyclin Dependent Kinases (CDKs) and a novel group called non-PSTARE CDKs, reported to be regulators of transcription in other organisms. By a state-of-the-art chemical genetic approach combined with phosphoproteomics, their role and signalling pathways will be determined. Overall, with this proposal, novel components associated to the infection process of one of the most threatening fungal pathogens in the world will be determined, opening avenues that up to date have not been explored and whose potential is inestimable.

Keywords: fungi,plant pathogen,transcription,cell cycle,cdk,single cell rna seq,food security,heterogeneity,spore,magnaporthe oryzae,rice blast disease
Bioactive lipids Regulate Adaptive Immune responses in Neurodegeneration: novel target for treatment? (BRAIN)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Panel description: Nervous system development, homeostasis and ageing , nervous system  function and dysfunction , systems neuroscience  and modelling , biological basis of cognitive processes and of behaviour, neurological and mental disorders – In humans and all other organisms
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2022-ADG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-09-01
End date: 2028-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499686.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499686.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Traditionally, AD is regarded as a neurodegenerative disease and as such, the major focus has been on investigating and treating neurodegeneration and neuronal functioning. Only the last decade, it became apparent that AD pathogenesis strongly interferes with immunological processes and vice versa. Indeed, my novel findings show that the immune system in patients with early AD is already severely derailed and highlight a specific role for CD8+ T-cells. My exciting data also suggest the importance of bio-active lipids like sphingolipids and specialized pro-resolving mediators in early AD pathogenesis, possibly by controlling the immune system. The identification of how the altered lipid landscape underlies AD and affects immune homeostasis is essential to come to new insights into disease pathogenesis and to discover novel intervention strategies, the ultimate goal of the BRAIN project. I therefore here hypothesize that a misbalance in bioactive lipids plays a key role in the induction and propagation of the impaired immune homeostasis associated with AD progression, thereby forming a novel target for treatment. My key objectives are: i) Unravel bioactive lipid signatures and define correlations with disease progression, sex, biomarkers and an unbalanced immune response in early AD, ii) Elucidate the underlying mechanisms of uncontrolled lipid mediator balance and how this relates to the altered immune landscape, iii) Identify key players in this process and perform proof of concept studies to define if restoring the lipid balance reinstates immune homeostasis and consequently cognition and disease pathogenesis in AD. Together this study will provide in-depth understanding of how bio-active lipids affect immune mediated processes that underlie disease progression, investigate interaction thereof and decode underlying mechanisms to pave the way towards the development of improved prognostic/diagnostic tools and identification of novel therapeutic targets.

Keywords: alzheimer s disease,lipids
A Quantum System on Chip for equal access to secure communications: a pilot-ready photonic integrated circuit with embedded quantum key distribution functions for high-performance transceivers. (NARWHAL)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Transition
Destination: Open to supporting projects in all areas of science, technology,...
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: EIC Transition Open 2022 (HORIZON-EIC-2022-TRANSITION-01, 2022)
Start date: 2022-11-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 34.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2307188.0
EU funding (EUR): 2307188.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Quantum computing, forecasted to happen within 10 years, will bring unprecedented computing power, rendering obsolete current data security protocols based on public keys, affecting our open society, our business and basic individual rights. Quantum key distribution (QKD) technology can solve this strategic data security problem by providing information-theoretic security, making systems unbreakable even with unlimited computing power. However, until now, technology development for QKD has been focused on government and defence applications, with solutions made of discrete components in big boxes only a few can afford. With equal access to secure communications at stake, what is missing is a solution fit for mass-market industrialization to embed QKD technology in the fixed and mobile networks we rely on every day. PhotonIP offers such a solution: a quantum ready, high-performance, dual polarization 100G miniaturized engine on a single chip, Quantum System on Chip (QSoC), compatible with the smallest form factors for pluggable transceivers deployed in access networks and using the same wavelength channel for classic and quantum operations. The project aims to develop a technology demonstrator of a QSoC that is ready for pilot production and offers breakthrough performance at low cost and full compatibility with current and future optical communications infrastructure. This proposal builds on the UniQorn FET project on Quantum Technologies (GA820474), where PhotonIP's founders developed a differential phase shift transmitter on a photonic integrated circuit fit for secure quantum key distribution and leverage PhotonIP proprietary and patented Hip_ technology, a high-performance integration platform that allows a unique hybridization of the Photonics Integrated Circuit (PIC), which integrates best-in-class best in class InP based materials for all active functionality with best-in-class Silicon on Insulator for the optical passive functionality on-chip.

Keywords: quantum key distribution,photonic integrated circuit,transceiver,system on chip
Indigenous Psycholinguistics - Tracking Reference Across Cognition (IndiPsych-TRAC)

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: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-08-01
End date: 2027-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 260347.92
EU funding (EUR): 260347.92
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This proposal addresses fundamental open questions about how language processing uses basic cognitive resources like memory and planning/attentional space. It does so by drawing two languages which are almost completely new to psycholinguistics, Shipibo and Cuzco Quechua, and through them, a new construction, switch-reference, which is also largely unexplored. Although switch-reference is under-explored, it is of interest because current models of linguistic memory and sentence planning suggest that it should be incredibly difficult, and yet it is used productively by speakers of languages throughout the Americas and Oceania. This research therefore moves the needle forward on fundamental questions that address cognitive abilities beyond just language processing, while simultaneously broadening the sample on which psycholinguistic theories are based. While all languages have essentially the same cognitive resources, the different grammatical forms from language to language imply different strategies to use those resources efficiently. If one of the goals of psycholinguistics is to understand the cognitive resources that are available, and how they can be deployed, this degree of systematic flexibility between the world’s languages is a tremendous scientific resource. Yet the vast majority of psycholinguistics typically only studies a handful of the largest East Asian languages and a few closely-related European ones, i.e., those that are already in close proximity to scientific laboratories. This problem is a subset of the one at work throughout psychology: an over-reliance on WEIRD societies (Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic; Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). This creates a heavily skewed sample, both in terms of linguistic variety and populations. Therefore, psycholinguistic studies of switch-reference in Shipibo have value beyond the specific language. The project will provide unique new data to address current theoretical issues.