Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
THz-FIR Colour Imaging of Skin Condition Based on Analysis of Its Thermal Emission (THz-Skin)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Pathfinder
Destination: Open to supporting projects in all areas of science, technology,...
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Finland,Italy,Lithuania,United Kingdom,Switzerland
Call: EIC Pathfinder Open (HORIZON-EIC-2025-PATHFINDEROPEN, 2025)
Start date: 2026-02-01
End date: 2030-01-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2998912.5
EU funding (EUR): 2998912.5
Participants: 9
Project status: SIGNED

In the EU skin cancer causes 36,000 deaths per year and €9 billion in healthcare and indirect costs. Diagnosis relies on expensive tools and specialists, thus preventing mass screening to improve patient outcomes and costs. THz-Skin addresses this by developing a platform that merges advanced detection technology with unique spectroscopic data for effective, accessible diagnostics. We build on the well established fact that cancer biomarkers manifest as spectral fingerprints in the terahertz-far infrared range. By resolving these features from body thermal emission, we achieve real-time, zero-radiation, non-invasive, label-free cancer diagnostics – a real breakthrough in early skin cancer detection. Our platform blends high-performance, miniaturized sensors with a large, open-access spectral fingerprint library of skin conditions. Inspired by the RGB model for visible light, our Multifrequency Pixels (MFPs) decompose skin thermal emission into spectral bands in the 3-25 THz range, where biomolecular cancer signatures occur. Our MFPs consist of compact, low-cost micromechanical bolometers fitted with frequency-selective metasurfaces, achieving high sensitivity and body thermal radiation analysis without cryogenics or bulky spectrometers. Diagnostic capabilities can be continuously improved by optimising MFP architecture and expanding our spectral library with simulated and experimental data. Our platform is designed for scalability, affordability and broad deployment in primary care settings. It is also designed to integrate with AI diagnostic tools, adding sub-cutaneous, cancer specific information to standard camera images. To ensure real-world readiness, our system will undergo in vivo validation using animal models, demonstrating its diagnostic performance in biologically relevant conditions and paving the way to a new era in advanced skin diagnostics.

Keywords: terahertz,far infrared,micromechanical bolometer,color imaging,spectral fingerprints,metasurface,field programmable gate arrays,skin cancer,in vitro and in vivo experiments
Gene-Independent Combination Therapy for Rod-Cone Dystrophy (CombGeneTher)

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: France
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2023-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 211754.88
EU funding (EUR): 211754.88
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Rod-cone dystrophies are inherited retinal diseases whose clinical course begin with the degeneration of rod photoreceptors and evolve with the progressive loss of cones that, in turn, leads to complete blindness. These diseases affect 1:2500 individuals worldwide with many underlying gene defects. Although gene replacement therapy has been very successful in treating inherited retinal degenerations in the clinic, with one FDA approved product on the market and over 30 clinical trials, it is costly and time consuming to develop a gene replacement therapy for each mutation. Moreover, gene replacement can only be helpful if the underlying mutation is known and recessive. Despite the genetic heterogeneity of these diseases as well as their inherent complexity, all rod-cone dystrophies converge on a common phenotype of rod cell loss, followed by cone cell degeneration first in the periphery and then in the fovea, leading to complete blindness. A gene therapy approach aiming to counteract the symptoms of rod-cone dystrophy rather than the individual genetic causes has the potential to be helpful in the highest number of affected patients. In this action we propose to develop a combination gene therapy to restore light sensitivity in mouse models of rod-cone dystrophies. AAV-mediated expression of optogenetic channels in cone photoreceptors will restore light sensitivity and maintain downstream retinal circuitry processing. The optogenetic therapy will be combined with the AAV-mediated delivery of rod derived cone viability factor (RdCVF), a factor normally secreted by rods to promote cone survival, lost in rod-cone dystrophies; RdCVF expression in combination with optogenetic channel expression will promote survival of newly lightsensitive cones. Furthermore, this action proposes to deliver optogenetic channels and RdCVF to human retinal organoids, showing expression and photoreceptor activation in human tissue in vitro.

Keywords: optogenetics,retina,aav,viability factors,blindness,retinal organoids
Solar syngas streamed from photonic-enhanced perovskite photovoltaics: paving the way for market deployment (SolarWay)

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: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Portugal
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-07-01
End date: 2026-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 156778.56
EU funding (EUR): 156778.56
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

In the face of the escalating environmental challenges, the transition to renewable energies has emerged as a critical and pressing necessity for a sustainable future. Installation of photovoltaic panels is one way to contribute to the decarbonization, but currently there is only one cost-effective technology available for commercial applications - silicon. Perovskite Solar Cells (PSC) have emerged recently as a very promising alternative, but some issues like poor stability and the use of an evaporated metallic back-contact are still hindering its way through industrialization. A promising holistic solution is to replace the metallic back-contact by a highly conductive carbon material. The challenge now is to match the efficiency obtained by the metal back-contact, by maximizing the carbon material’s conductivity, enhancing the interfacial contact or increasing the photon absorption. Regarding the latter issue, light trapping structures are a promising solution since they already proved successful at maximizing the current generation in silicon solar cells. Furthermore, large-scale deposition methods must be adopted to develop a realistic experimental procedure compatible with large-scale production, and the encapsulation must be optimized to maximize the life time of the solar module. Still, the intermittency nature of solar energy might create a mismatch between energy production and consumption. An effective solution is to convert the excess energy into syngas (mixture of CO and H2) by co-electrolysis of CO2 and water. This gas can then be converted into a synthetic fuel and replace the fossil fuels derivatives, contributing for the EU’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon-emission by 2050. The optimization of the solar-to-syngas system can be complex due to the extend of dependent processes in series, and thus a computing simulation is a strong tool for predicting the operation and maximizing the energy efficiency of the entire process.

Keywords: solar fuels,perovskite solar cells and modules,carbon back contacts,light management,electrolysis
Strengthening Computational Biodiversity Research in Greece (Comp-Biodiv-GR)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area
Programme: Widening participation and spreading excellence
Theme: Attracting and mobilising the best talents
Destination: Attracting and mobilising the best talents
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Greece
Call: ERA Chairs (HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2400000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2400000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This ERA chair proposal has two objectives: (1) to set up an interdisciplinary and internationally visible Biodiversity Computing Group (BCG) at the Institute of Computer Science at the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (ICS-FORTH). The BCL shall substantially and sustainably strengthen computational biodiversity research and research on computational methods for disentangling molecular evolution in Crete with a spill-over effect to Greece. This is motivated by the fact that computational biodiversity research is currently substantially under-developed in Greece, while the area has been recognized as a Biodiversity hotspot due to its high levels of spatial, temporal and habitat heterogeneity as well as complex geological and climatic history since the late Tertiary with an exceptionally high percentage of endemism, particularly so, on the island of Crete. It shall generate excellent research outputs with an emphasis on the quality of scientific articles but explicitly not quantity, as well as usable and well-documented open source software for Biodiversity computing. This will contribute to knowledge generation in the area of computational biodiversity research at a global scale. (2) The ERA chair shall furthermore attract excellent students and researchers from Greece, and abroad to be trained at and to collaborate with BCG. Thus the project contributes to foster brain gain and to prevent brain drain at ICS-FORTH. This is crucial as currently still too many excellent students leave Greece for a PhD abroad and too few of them return. Also, too few international scientists move to Greece from abroad.

Keywords: bioinformatics,computational evolution,computational biodiversity,virus evolution,parallel computing,energy efficiency,scalability,algorithm engineering,uncertainty quantification
Development of new sp3 C–H carboxylation strategies via interrupted Ni-catalyzed chain-walking catalysis (CARBO-CHAIN)

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: Chemistry
Countries involved: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-04-01
End date: 2025-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181152.96
EU funding (EUR): 181152.96
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

While originally designed to control the topology of polymers, catalytic chain-walking reactions have recently offered new vistas for forging carbon-carbon bonds at previously unfunctionalized C(sp3)–H sites by formally translocating the metal catalyst throughout the alkyl side-chain of a substrate. In particular, nickel catalysis has positioned at the forefront of this emerging field due to its modular reactivity through one- or two-electron pathways. Nevertheless, the chain-walking process is poorly understood in mechanistic terms, being the nature of the active intermediates still subject of considerable speculation, and with Ni(I) or Ni(II) species arbitrarily proposed with no supporting experimental evidence. This project will tackle the challenge of isolating and characterizing discrete Ni(I) and Ni(II) intermediates to test their reactivity in chain-walking scenarios. Control at Ni disproportionation-comproportionation events, and the use of alkyl carbon fragments with appendant carbonyl chelating-motifs will materialize this goal by intramolecularly stabilizing the nickel complexes. The knowledge acquired will be utilized for a regiodivergent chelation-controlled carboxylation of Weinreb amides with CO2, delivering 1,4-dicarbonyl motifs with two orthogonal molecular handles. Lastly, the asymmetric variant of this transformation will strengthen future applications of this novel reactivity in de novo drug synthesis, late-stage functionalization approaches, and radiolabelling assays.

Keywords: nickel catalysis chain walking c h functionalization carbon dioxide fixation
Skin Microbial Devices - Hop On (SKINDEV 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): 21.0
Total project cost (EUR): 491680.0
EU funding (EUR): 491680.0
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

Chronic skin inflammation, including conditions like atopic dermatitis (AD), burdens at least 250 million patients worldwide with a lifelong chronic, debilitating, and incurable disease. Current therapeutic drugs are effective but compromise the immune system. An ideal therapy should only be produced in situ at the required time and provide simpler and local administration. SKINDEV focuses on the creation of Smart Skin Microbial Devices by genetic engineering of naturally occurring skin bacteria, Cutibacterium acnes (CA), so they can sense the skin health status. In SKINDEV Hop-on we will consolidate this ambition by contributing to the design and creation of robust and versatile chassis for SSMDs. This will be achieved by delivering insights into the bioenergetics and metabolism of CA. We plan to investigate CA bioenergetics, nutrient uptake, secreted metabolites (via metabolomics), and biomass composition in AD lesions compared to healthy skin. Understanding CA energy metabolism, which is still elusive, is fundamental not only to design and optimize production of therapeutic substances, but also to bring light into competitive/synergetic interactions within the skin microbiota and with the host. Successful achievement of SKINDEV’s ambitious goals requires highly integrated interdisciplinary collaborations by scientists working at the forefront of relevant disciplines. The inclusion of FC.ID will strengthen SKINDEV’s interdisciplinarity by providing complementary disciplines and thus consolidate SKINDEV’s scientific objectives while simultaneously increasing the scientific and technical capacity of FC.ID.

Keywords: microbiology,bioenergetics,energy metabolism
Bent-Core Liquid Crystals & Tailored Aggregates and Nanostructures Generated Orthogonally (BCLC-TANGO)

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: Chemistry
Countries involved: Spain,Germany
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 165312.96
EU funding (EUR): 165312.96
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Europe faces the imperatives of green and digital transition, continually seeking novel nanoscale materials. Smart soft nanomaterials, with their responsiveness to stimuli open a wide range of application to meet industrial and societal challenges, while supramolecular chemistry enables tailoring captivating architectures and functionalities. For the goal of closing research-technology loop, BCLC-TANGO’s objective is to develop innovative functional soft materials through leveraging the orthogonal “self-assembly dancing” of bent-core molecules, with focus on BC liquid crystals and tailored aggregates and nanostructures, as well as on the exploration of suitable processing options. In this Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action, Dr. Mašulović will receive crucial training at the Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA)-University of Zaragoza, under the supervision of Prof. Maria Blanca Ros. Fundamental approach of organic synthesis and supramolecular chemistry will be used, along with modern techniques of material and nanoscience to design and synthesize novel bent-core molecules (1), to broadly characterize them exploring functional properties suitable for application (2) and increase their real applied potential through processing (3). During 6 months of secondment at the Institute for Molecular Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials, University of Heidelberg, under supervision of Prof. Eva Blasco, she will explore a novel approach of 3D/4D printing for some of these supramolecular materials as one of the processing methods. This project will pave the way for the development of easily manipulable smart soft nanomaterials, with tunable properties, having a far-reaching implication for industries. In addition to promoting women education in STEM, the fellowship will have a formative and highly beneficial effect for Dr. Mašulović enabling transition from a young researcher to a professional with a valuable set of scientific and transversal skills.

Keywords: organic chemistry,supramolecular chemistry,soft matter,tailored nanostructures,self assembly,liquid crystals,gels,microfluids,3d printing,electrospinning,advanced microscopies
The Imperial Affliction: The Impact of Empire on Roman Rulers (Imperial Affliction)

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: Germany
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): 202125.12
EU funding (EUR): 202125.12
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This project explores the impact of ruling the Roman Empire on the rulers themselves and asks how this fed back into the practice of rule, as an explanation for well-recognized, but poorly explained, trends in Roman administrative practice towards greater arbitrariness, violence, and despotism. Inspired by comparative evidence and scholarship on modern imperial systems, it hypothesizes that the tactics by which Rome compensated for its limited manpower, such as ad-hoc decision-making and the empowerment to deal summarily with provincials, incrementally changed the practice of those figures—emperors, governors, officials, military commanders—who enacted them. This brings together two poorly-theorized observations of Roman imperialism—its reactiveness, and its increasing arbitrariness—in a compelling explanatory thesis with comparative payoffs. It has relevance for the study of all imperial systems in which the ruling class consider themselves superior to the ruled, re-conceptualizing arbitrary and violent practice as a pathogen contracted through the experience of ruling subject communities. It ties into EU objectives concerning citizen participation in institutions of the state, since it argues that when a state views its citizens as subjects, rather than partners, a tendency towards arbitrariness is inevitably involved.

Keywords: comparative history imperialism violence
Second-modelocking for a universal material-processing laser (UniLase)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Systems and Communication Engineering
Panel description: Electrical, electronic, communication, optical and systems engineering
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2021-ADG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-12-01
End date: 2027-11-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Lasers are ubiquitously used to cut, drill, mark, texture, 3D print materials. Material-processing lasers remain divided into CW, nanosecond- and ultrafast-pulsed, each excelling and falling short differently. CW lasers reach the highest powers, cost the least, and are far more common but cause heat damage, and their utility is material-specific. Ultrafast lasers achieve supreme precision on any material but remain niche as they are inefficient and expensive. Nanosecond lasers fall in between. We propose to overcome this categorisation by inventing a universal laser that can process any material, from metals to living tissue, exceed the efficiency limit of equilibrium thermodynamics, approach the quantum mechanical limit and surpass the speed of industrial CW lasers. It will do so by taking our invention of ablation-cooled laser-material removal (Nature 2016) to uncharted territory where electrons and atoms will be kept perpetually far from mutual equilibrium even between successive pulses. The same laser will perform 3D printing or tissue welding by switching to quasi-CW operation. To this end, we need the unprecedented combination of 30-fs pulses at 1-kW average power and on-the-fly tunable repetition rates of 0.1-1 THz. The latter implies an impossibly short laser cavity. The alternative is to support multiple pulses in the same cavity but this has long suffered from poor performance due to fundamental reasons. Regular modelocking generates ultrashort pulses by locking cavity modes via nonlinear feedback but it has no mechanism to mutually lock multiple pulses. We fill this conceptual gap by introducing a nonlinear time filter. This innovation underlies the new laser concept of second modelocking, which will create thousands of ultrafast pulses in perfect periodic arrangement to reach extreme repetition rates with a disruptive potential for not only material processing and laser surgery, but also microwave, THz generation, beyond-5G communications, laser ranging.

Keywords: laser material processing,optical frequency combs,modelocking of lasers