Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Two Dimensional Molecular Electronics Spectroscopy for DNA/RNA Mutation Recognition (2D-MES)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Physics
Countries involved: Spain
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2020-07-01
End date: 2023-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 172932.48
EU funding (EUR): 172932.48
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

In this project, Dr. Reza Rezapour will address, by a combination of quantum mechanical and classical simulations combined with electronic transport techniques, the sensing capabilities of graphene-based biosensors to identify DNA and RNA mutations in PNA-functionalized graphene nanoribbons. In the search for fast, inexpensive and accurate tools for DNA sequencing and mutation recognition, computational techniques are being fruitfully used to address detection at the molecular level. We will extended the 2D-MES method previously developed by Dr. Rezapour to the identification, not only of single normal and mutated nucleobases on graphene, but of base mutations in DNA or RNA fragments attached to a graphene nanoribbon (GNR) in an aqueous environment. To this aim, after the quantum mechanical (QM) calculation of the transport characteristics of a nucleobases-GNR system in vacuum, we will study: (1) large DNA/RNA fragments in a solvent by molecular mechanics (MM) classical methods (to study mutation stability in a given sequence) and (2) the most stable mutations on a GNR by novel hybrid QM/MM simulations combining the accuracy of QM with the speed of MM. Besides providing new insight on fundamental aspects of physical processes at the interface between solids, liquids and biomolecules, the project will train Dr. Rezapour in advanced new techniques, complementary to his current expertise; and it will provide the community with a new and efficient QM/MM-electronic transport tool by the implementation of transport routines into the existent QM/MM package. The obtained QM/MM transport molecular fingerprints of the mutated DNA/RNA on the GNR will serve as a proof-of-concept for the design of a graphene-based bionsensor fast, inexpensive, and with high spatial resolution.

Keywords: molecular mechanics,negf,sensor,electronic transport
Making Africa Urban: The transcalar politics of large-scale urban development (MAU)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Panel description: Political science, international relations, law
Countries involved: South Africa,United Kingdom,Ghana,Malawi
Call: ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2018-ADG, 2018)
Start date: 2019-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2495276.25
EU funding (EUR): 1420833.75
Participants: 4
Project status: SIGNED

This project will investigate how urban futures are made through different global circuits and in turn shape key transnational processes: geopolitics, development and private investment, through a close focus on the transnational actors and decision-making processes involved in large-scale developments and interventions in selected African cities. The research will produce: new theoretical perspectives on urban politics and policy-relevant understandings of state capacity and land value capture in urban development. The project brings to fruition the applicant’s agenda-setting post-colonial critique in urban studies (2006, Ordinary Cities, Routledge), practically worked through in her recent innovations in comparative urbanism (forthcoming, Comparative Urbanism, Sage). This research will bring forward original empirical findings and develop further the innovative comparative methods tested in a recent esrc funded project. It will contribute theorizations of the new territories of global urban politics, starting in African contexts. Engagements with residents, stakeholders, policy makers and practitioners will build understanding of how better urban outcomes might be secured. The project compares three transnational circuits and nine cases of urban development in three cities (Accra, Dar es Salaam, Lilongwe) where all three circuits have a strong presence, and which encompass a range of levels of urbanization and economic development. Focussing on transnationalised urban development processes and the widely spread phenomenon of large scale urban developments will provide a basis to work against the neglect and exceptionalism of African experiences within urban studies, an important motivation for this project. The research seeks to build African based research capacity in urban studies and includes African based collaborators and early career scholars in the research team.

Keywords: land value capture,urban development
Non-perturbative dynamics of quantum fields: from new deconfined phases of matter to quantum black holes (NP-QFT)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Panel description: Particle, nuclear, plasma, atomic, molecular, gas, and optical physics
Countries involved: Italy
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2019-COG, 2019)
Start date: 2020-10-01
End date: 2025-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1552458.0
EU funding (EUR): 1552458.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

When the degrees of freedom that constitute a quantum physical system are strongly coupled among each other, their collective low-energy behaviour can exhibit a plethora of exotic, surprising and unconventional phenomena. At the same time, however, our most sophisticated tool to describe the quantum world - quantum field theory - becomes extremely difficult to use. This problem appears across the board in many areas, from particle physics, to condensed matter physics, to astrophysics: strong coupling is an intrinsic complexity of quantum systems, whose solution can benefit disparate fields. A large variety of examples is provided by deconfined quantum states of matter, in which the collective behaviour gives rise to emergent low-energy degrees of freedom, often strongly coupled. Another context in which decrypting strong coupling can be the key to a breakthrough is quantum gravity: by the celebrated AdS/CFT correspondence, we can describe gravity in Anti-de-Sitter space in a fully-consistent quantum fashion, in terms of an ordinary - but strongly coupled - quantum field theory in one dimension less. The ambitious goal of this project is twofold: first, to develop innovative techniques to tame strong coupling; second, to exploit those techniques to discover new deconfined phases of matter on one side, and to unravel mysteries of quantum gravity and the quantum physics of black holes on the other side. I will follow several avenues in the quest for new computational tools at strong coupling, such as refining the concept of symmetry, developing supersymmetric localization, probing Borel summability of certain gauge theories. Applying these and other methods, I will systematically explore three-dimensional gauge theories with bosons and fermions, landscaping their phase diagrams and deconfined critical points. Meanwhile, I will extract the quantum entropy and other properties of black holes, exploring signatures of quantum effects to be compared with future experiments.

Keywords: strong coupling,symmetry,supersymmetry,duality,quantum phase transitions,topological phases of matter,quantum gravity,black holes
Levitated particles as the heart of miniaturized sensing technologies (LeviTech)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Panel description: Particle, nuclear, plasma, atomic, molecular, gas, and optical physics
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Call for proposals for ERC Proof of Concept Grant (ERC-2020-PoC, 2020)
Start date: 2020-08-01
End date: 2022-01-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The phrase “no moving parts” is misleading; mechanical oscillators are the beating heart of modern technology. Whether it’s the vibration of quartz crystals setting the pace of computation, or surface acoustic wave devices amplifying signals in smartphones, mechanical oscillators are truly ubiquitous. Micro-Electromechanical Systems, or MEMS devices, dominate research into mechanical devices with technological applications. Due to their ability to be mass fabricated, they have found applications as sensors in industries ranging from healthcare to VR gaming. Their sensing performance is ultimately limited by the energy they dissipate during operation, a problem which gets worse with decreasing size. LeviTech proposes a non-obvious and inventive solution: levitation of the mechanical oscillator. By physically untethering from the environment, most energy dissipation pathways are closed, leading to ultra low-dissipation in what we term L-MEMS devices. To lay the groundwork for technological exploitation, LeviTech outlines a programme of miniaturization of both optical and electrical trapping technologies, to an intermediate state suitable for state-of-the-art sensing, generation of IP, commercial collaboration, and potential prototyping. LeviTech will deliver immediate technological application via beyond state-of-the-art pressure sensing, using a highly inventive technique whereby non-linear L-MEMS yields zero-dissipation sensing.

Keywords: sensing,mems sensor,optomechanics,electromechanics,miniaturization
Stability and Testability: Groups and Codes (TeStability)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Mathematics
Panel description: All areas of mathematics, pure and applied, plus mathematical foundations of computer science, mathematical physics and statistics
Countries involved: Israel
Call: ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2019-ADG, 2019)
Start date: 2021-08-01
End date: 2026-07-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1628750.0
EU funding (EUR): 766344.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Stability in algebra in general and in group theory, in particular, is a general name for questions of the following type: Is every "almost solution" a small deformation of an "exact solution"? E.g. (a) Are two unitary matrices which almost commute small deformations of matrices that do commute? or (b) Is every "almost homomorphism" from a group D to topological group G, a small deformation of a true homomorphism? So (a) is a special case of (b), with D = Z x Z and G = Un(C). In recent years, it has been discovered that "Group Stability" can be the path to the solution of some longstanding problems in group theory such as: Are all groups sofic? hyperlinear? (Two well known problems of Gromov and Connes, respectively). In computer science, property testing is an area which studies the possibility of having (random) algorithms that can check a property while reading only a small amount of the information. A major problem here is: Are there good locally testable codes? Namely, error correcting codes for which one can decide with a high degree of certainty that a vector is in the code, while reading only a small number of its bits. The current project will look at these group theoretic and codes problems from a unified point of view. Some partial works show that they are related to high dimensional expanders, Ramanujan complexes and to lattices in p-adic simple groups and their actions on the associated buildings. We plan to develop further methods to study stability and testability and eventually also to attack the holy grail problems of these areas.

Keywords: groups,cohomology,codes,stability,testability
3D BIOPRINTED PERSONALISED SCAFFOLDS FOR TISSUE REGENERATION OF ANKLE JOINT (TRiAnkle)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing and Processing, and Biotechnology
Theme: Nanotechnologies
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Germany,Spain,Spain,Germany,Spain,Germany,Sweden,Netherlands,United Kingdom
Call: Biological scaffolds for tissue regeneration and repair (RIA) (H2020-NMBP-TR-IND-2020-twostage, 2020)
Start date: 2021-01-01
End date: 2024-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5967151.55
EU funding (EUR): 5967151.25
Participants: 14
Project status: SIGNED

Tendinopathies and osteoarthritis (OA) are extremely common and these injuries associate with high health and socioeconomic costs, long-term postoperative rehabilitation, and loss of productivity. To date, none of the existing surgical or non-surgical alternatives have provided a successful long-term effect, and often the treated tissues do not restore their complete strength and functionality. To fill the critical gap of proper treatments TRiAnkle proposes to develop 3D bioprinted scaffolds based on collagen and gelatine, functionalised with stem cells and/or nanoencapsulated regenerative factors. The surgical implantation of these new functionalised biomaterials will enable the targeted delivery of the mentioned biologically active agents to promote cell growth and differentiation to enable better and faster regeneration of injured collagen-rich tissues like articular cartilage, ligament and tendon of the ankle. Two case-studies will be implemented: the partial rupture (>50%) of Achilles tendon and osteochondral cartilage injuries, which will serve as a technological platform to deliver new regenerative therapies for any other articular, tendinous or ligament diseases of weight-bearing joints. By achieving this goal, TRiAnkle will enable, in comparison with current surgical treatments: - To increase by 10-15% of the ankle joints functionality recovery ratios due to the presence of pro-regenerative components that promote the healing process decreasing also the risk of re-rupture or recidivation. - To reduce the recovery time and the associated healthcare costs up to 50% due to the use of scaffolds that mimic the natural structure and mechanical properties of joint tissues. TRiAnkle will be implemented by a multidisciplinary team made up of biomaterial production companies, manufacturing technologies experts, material engineers, preclinical validation centers, healthcare professionals, patients associations and experts in ethical, regulatory and exploitation.

Keywords: weightweight bearing joints,ankle,achilles tendon rupture,osteochrondal injuries,collagen,gelatine,3d bioprinting,cell and growth factors delivery,nanoencapsulation,bioreactor,animal models
NIGHT SPANISH TEAM (S-TEAM)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: European researchers' Night
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Countries involved: Spain,Spain,Spain,Spain,Spain,Spain,Spain,Spain
Call: European Researchers' Night (H2020-MSCA-NIGHT-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2020-06-01
End date: 2021-05-31
Duration (months): 12.0
Total project cost (EUR): 189008.75
EU funding (EUR): 134000.0
Participants: 8
Project status: CLOSED

The scientific and technological development has a great influence in how our societies make progress, together with other social factors such as politics or economics. However, in recent years a lack of interest in research careers related with science and technology has been reported in several countries around the world, including Spain. The reasons behind this are still not fully elucidated, but current findings point out to a lack of understanding between the scientific and the non-scientific communities. Within this framework, the “NIGHT Spanish Team (S-TEAM)” emerges as an initiative to bring the public at large (children, teenagers, adults, as both parents and professionals and the elderly) in close contact with researchers in an informal context which includes pleasant, enjoyable, attractive and innovative activities. The S-TEAM is planned as a promotional effort in line with the objectives of the work programme of the call H2020-MSCA-NIGHT-2020. S-TEAM comprises a wide range of activities to disseminate local research which will be held at 12 different locations, covering a large part of the Spanish territory. S-TEAM is coordinated by the University of Oviedo and includes seven more Spanish universities as partners. The main aim of S-TEAM is to promote public awareness and understanding of research in science and technology. In order to achieve this, we will encourage researchers to share their work with the public at large, especially those who have benefited from EU support. A critical framework will be established as a forum for discussion with experts from partner’s institutions, about solutions that are being proposed in relation to specific problems of general interest. We do hope to demystify and humanise research, reveal what researchers do, and stimulate young people to embark on research careers.
Striatal cholinergic cell assemblies in movement disorders (SynChI)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator 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
Countries involved: Israel
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2014-CoG, 2014)
Start date: 2015-05-01
End date: 2021-10-31
Duration (months): 78.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2000000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Pathological neuronal synchrony is the hallmark of many neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Huntington’s disease (HD), which further share deficits in cholinergic signaling. Moreover, recent findings have underscored the therapeutic relevance of the synchrony among striatal cholinergic interneurons (ChI) that orchestrate this signaling. They have shown that excessively synchronous ChI discharge induces di-synaptic release of dopamine, GABA and glutamate. Here, I propose to elucidate how ChI synchronization is generated under normal and pathological conditions and thereby identify novel therapeutic targets to treat PD and HD. This study has only very recently become feasible with the advent of powerful tools that I have mastered to explore ChI synchrony. We will employ a combination of cutting-edge in vitro and in vivo techniques to simultaneously record a far larger population of pre-identified ChIs than is currently possible. We will express GCaMP6, a genetically encoded calcium indicator (GECI), exclusively in ChIs, and use multiphoton microscopy to image calcium transients from several ChIs simultaneously in conjunction with intracellular recording from individual ChIs in acute brain slices and in anesthetized mice. Additionally, we will use endoscopic GECI imaging in freely-moving classically conditioned mice. We will employ modern analyses that reveal low-dimensional structures in large neuronal datasets to quantify synchrony (1) during on-going activity; (2) during optogenetic activation of afferents; and (3), in the freely-moving mice, while presenting conditioned cues. Finally, we will study the origins of pathological synchrony in PD and HD mouse models and explore means to correct this condition. This comprehensive approach should explain the pathological ChI synchrony observed in PD; identify novel targets to treat PD and HD; and create a general methodology to study pathological synchrony in many other neurological disorders.

Keywords: parkinson s and huntington s diseases,basal ganglia,acetylcholine,tonically active neurons,group i mglur,intralaminar nucleus,calcium imaging,collective neuronal dynamics,miniaturized microscopy
Preterm Feeding Maturity Measurement and Evaluation (PREMADES)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Health, demographic change and wellbeing
Theme: Treating and managing disease
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Türkiye
Call: Clinical research for the validation of biomarkers and/or diagnostic medical devices (H2020-SMEINST-1-2014, 2014)
Start date: 2014-10-01
End date: 2015-03-31
Duration (months): 6.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of the proposed product is to detect the feeding maturity of preterm babies in an objective manner, by analyzing the swallowing patterns acquired using sensors placed around their hyoid regions. It is also intended to monitor the improvements by regular measurements and analysis of feeding maturity in the preterm infants and compare past evaluations. The product is expected to be proper for point of care usage, marketable globally. Moreover, this non-invasive design will be painless for infants and user friendly for the medical staff. Currently, in practice, doctors utilize observational, trial-and-error techniques or nursing assessment for identification of feeding skills in preterm infants which are mostly subjective. Efforts aimed at more objective assessment techniques have focused on invasive, pressure measurement methods that can be particularly painful for infants. However, such methods are not well suited for regular and real-time monitoring of feeding maturity, thus are not preferred in practice. If successfully completed, the proposed business idea, which aims to detect the feeding maturity by tracking swallowing function merely with sensors placed around infants’ hyoid regions, will meet a highly important need, particularly in the neonatal medicine. At the end of Phase-1, an intensive feasibility study, including market and profitability analyses, and a work plan for Phase-2, which will lead us to the final product on the shelf will be produced. Furthermore in Phase-1, in addition to the feedbacks from the medical staff experimenting with the device, possible improvements required for the prototype will be determined by surveying the point of care medical devices used in the newborn units of the hospitals. Moreover, collaboration opportunities in European countries will be investigated which will be instrumental for forming a consortium in the Phase-2 project. Furthermore, in Phase-1 certification costs and duration will be estimated.

Keywords: neonatal,preterm infants,feeding maturity,non invasive