Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
The role of Kcnk9 imprinting in development and disease (KCNK9 IMPRINTING)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-07-01
End date: 2010-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 168823.92
EU funding (EUR): 168823.92
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Genomic imprinting is the epigenetic marking of a subset of genes which results in monoallelic or predominant expression of one of the two parental alleles according to their parental origin. In my previous work, I discovered the imprinted expression of the Kcnk9 gene in mice and humans. Kcnk9 is a member of the two-pore (2P)-domain K+ channel family and encodes for the potassium channel protein TASK-3. This family of K+ channels was already shown to play a critical role in both cell apoptosis and tumorigenesis. Furthermore, a Kcnk9 mutation in a rat strain which represents the genetic model of absence epilepsy along with the highest expression in brain indicates that Kcnk9 plays an important role in the central nervous system. The specific aim of this project is to investigate the function of the imprinted gene Kcnk9 by gene targeting in the mouse. The research plan includes a complete characterization of imprinted expression of Kcnk9 by in situ hybridization and allelic expression analysis. The Kcnk9 knock-out will be investigated whether there are significant effects in developmental and physiological processes. Furthermore, the Kcnk9 deficient mice will be examined in terms of neurodevelopmental defects.

Keywords: molecular genetics,epigenetics,genomic imprinting,allele-specific expression,knock-out mouse,potassium channel
Using deep-sea corals to test the role of the deep Southern Ocean in ocean circulation and the regulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide (DEEPOCEANGLACIALCO2)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-03-01
End date: 2010-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 168823.92
EU funding (EUR): 168823.92
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The convective circulation of the world's ocean exerts important controls on two key aspects of the climate system: the transport of heat around the Earth and the degree to which the oceans sequester greenhouse carbon dioxide away from the atmosphere. Models of the past circulation predict variations in its strength that have been implicated in climate change. Marine sediments record changes in ocean chemistry that can be used to test these models. This approach has been pursued with great success in the North Atlantic. The Southern Ocean, on the other hand, is much less studied because of a lack of suitable sediments that record ocean chemistry. And yet, the Southern Ocean and its circulation system may be the key to both heat transport and isolation of a deep ocean carbon reservoir. This proposal seeks to provide key constraints on some of these issues using a unique set of deep-sea coral samples from the Pacific sector (70°S) of the Southern Ocean provided by the British Antarctic Survey and the Alfred Wegener Institute. Specifically we aim to use the radiocarbon ages of the corals, coupled with their calendar ages, to investigate the degree of isolation of the deep Southern Ocean carbon reservoir from the atmosphere, and therefore the extent to which this isolation might explain low atmospheric CO2 during recent glacial periods in Earth history. We also seek to use them to provide basic chemical information on the deep Southern Ocean, information that is key to many studies that use the chemistry of the past North Atlantic Ocean to try to understand ocean circulation.

Keywords: marine sciences,chemical oceanography,carbon cycle (climate change),climate variability and modelling
Low energy physics from background independent quantum gravity (LOWENERGYQG)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2009-03-01
End date: 2009-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 157746.8
EU funding (EUR): 157746.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Quantum gravity is still one of the major open problems in fundamental physics. One of the best developed of the current approaches to quantum gravity is loop quantum gravity (LQG). The main open problem within LQG is to derive the low-energy approximation starting from the basic nonperturbative formalism. Aim of this project is to address such problem, and investigate the low energy limit of LQG. This is important for two reasons, which represent the long term objectives of this research: 1. To assess the viability of LQG as a quantization of general relativity by testing precisely if general relativity emerges in the semiclassical limit. 2. To develop a systematic way for computing quantum corrections in a language that could be directly compared with that of conventional quantum field theory. A technique for addressing this problem has been proposed recently, leading to some preliminary calculations of n-point functions, starting from the full background independent theory. I intend to develop and complete this technique, with the aim of deriving from LQG a consistent perturbative expansion for low energy physics around Minkowski spacetime. If successful, this project could represent an important test for LQG, and in the optimistic scenario, lead to a way of systematically computing quantum-gravitational physical effects from LQG. The project is of great importance for my own career and would allow a period of international mobility in Europe for pursuing my research within the group which is the most competent in this line of investigation.

Keywords: loop quantum gravity,relativity
Single-Molecule studies of photo-conductance on photosynthetic molecular systems by SPM break-junction measurements (PHOTOSYN-STM)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-1-IOF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-06-01
End date: 2011-05-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 225715.46
EU funding (EUR): 225715.46
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This proposal presents a new fundamental approach to study one of the most outstanding processes in nature at the single-molecule level; the photo-induced charge separation process on molecular photosynthetic systems. The last technical advances, especially on Scanning Probe Microscopies (SPM), have allowed approaching a number of relevant molecular processes to a single-molecule level, fact that has brought a revolutionary view to the field of Molecular Biology and a more quantitative comprehension of fundamental bio-molecular processes. Indeed, examples of single-molecule experiments like folding/unfolding of proteins, DNA-enzymes interactions or molecular conductance measurements have become today a reality. In the last, electrical conductance measurements through a variety of simple molecular architectures have been already performed, and relevant fundamental roles such as the presence of different chemical entities; double bounds and/or chemical electron-acceptors/donors in the conduction mechanism, have been already understood. Being immersed in such an excitingmolecu scenario, we have now the opportunity to go one step further and tackle into the analysis of more complex molecular conductance processes at the single-molecule level. Conductance taking place between specific molecular centers at the primary electron transfer step in Photosynthesis is undoubtedly the most important molecular conductance mechanism in life. We have now all required elements at hand to put such a project in practice; technical instrumentation to measure single-molecule conductance under physiological conditions as well as synthetic routes to design the mimetic molecular connections among the photo-conducting pigment and the corresponding secondary electron-acceptor cofactor to approach the problem. Beyond the valuable scientific contribution, the results of this project will span to the desired implementation of such molecular systems on the current photo-electrical cell technology

Keywords: surface chemistry,nanochemistry,photochemistry,electrochemistry,macromolecular chemistry,plant biochemistry,molecular biophysics,instrumental techniques,nanodevices
A Multi-Agent Approach for the Analysis of Early Aspects (EA-ANALYZER)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-2-IIF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-07-01
End date: 2010-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 178874.06
EU funding (EUR): 178874.06
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) is a Software Engineering methodology that provides explicit abstractions for crosscutting concerns. The term crosscutting concerns (e.g., reliability, synchronization) refers to quality factors or functionalities of software that cannot be effectively modularized using existing software development techniques (e.g., object oriented (OO) approaches). This paradigm provides systematic means for identification, modularization, representation, and composition of these crosscutting concerns. The aim of this fellowship is to bring the fellow’s expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and multi-agent systems (MAS) to the host organization with a view to improving the effectiveness and scalability of analyzing crosscutting concerns in requirements.

Keywords: aspect oriented software development,early aspects,multi-agent systems,artificial intelligence
How climate change affect the “weakest links” of animal tolerance? (THE WEAKEST LINKS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2009-10-01
End date: 2011-09-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 166982.27
EU funding (EUR): 166982.27
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The rapid variation of global climate occurring in the last decades together with the consequential effect on the whole life forms has originate an accurate multidisciplinary exploration on the cause, the status and the potential relapse of these environmental alteration. A central goal in exploring the consequences of global climate change is to accurately predict the alteration of thermal stresses on organisms together with the subsequent modification of animal distribution and populations/species diversity. The aim of the present project is to investigate the physiological tolerance and the adaptative flexibility of two marine model organisms in order to forecast and test the animal resilience to the effect of global climate change. The hypothesis consider that the species tolerance range could be narrower in particular selective stages and distribution, the “weakest links”, as at the edges of geographical distribution or in gametes and early ontogenetic stages. The physiological analyses will be addressed to successive hierarchical levels from molecular to cellular to organismic, in order to achieve the broader possible scenario. The researches will be focused on different aspects of respiratory, circulatory and metabolic physiology, on the temperature kinetics and the thermodynamics of selected enzymes, on the modification of protein expressions, and on the metabolic performances of sperm and eggs. This information then will be used, alone and in combination with data from the literature, to test models of global climate change and its relevant effect on marine populations in different thermal and geographical regions. All the results will finally converge into a theoretical evaluation providing further indications on the climate change influences on ecosystems.

Keywords: marine ecosystems (climate change),animal reproduction,animal physiology,applied zoology,environmental biology,zoogeography
Covariant quantization of the superstring (PURESP)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-10-01
End date: 2009-12-31
Duration (months): 15.0
Total project cost (EUR): 154911.75
EU funding (EUR): 154911.75
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The proposal aims at investigating several aspects of the recently proposed "pure spinor" formalism for the quantization of the superstring in a way that keeps all the symmetries manifest. The problem we intend to study has become more and more pressing in recent years, because of the importance and relevance of string theory backgrounds containing fluxes for Ramond-Ramond fields. They appear in the context of gauge/gravity dualities, in the string description of black holes and in cosmological applications, namely some of the most promising directions in which string theory is progressing. A detailed quantitative understanding of the properties of interest in all these cases crucially depends on the knowledge of the interactions with the RR fields, and the pure spinor formalism is the only one capable of addressing the question. On the other hand, the construction of the formalism is still to some extent work-in-progress and has several open issues. Our proposal is divided in two main aspects: a more formal one, oriented to studying the issues involved with a proper definition of the model; this requires the study of a more general class of models (beta-gamma systems, and sigma models on supergroups) that are also of independent interest in the broader context of conformal field theory; and a more concrete and computational aspect, oriented to the calculation of the corrections to the effective string dynamics that depend on the presence of the RR fields.

Keywords: mathematical physics,string theory,covariant quantization
From ecology to mechanisms of the extended phenotype (ANT FUNGI EP)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-1-IOF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-10-01
End date: 2011-03-31
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 214192.91
EU funding (EUR): 214192.91
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Social insects are among the great achievements of organic evolution and their societies represent a major evolutionary transition in life’s move towards complexity. Consequently, insect societies have historically held a considerable interest for both biologists and lay people. One particularly interesting and rapidly developing field for evolutionary biologists is the interaction between social insects and their parasites, because the unique features of social systems may shape parasite exploitation strategies. My proposal will use Cordyceps, a parasitic fungus of ants, as a tool to examine host-parasite relationships within complex societies. This fungus dramatically manipulates ant behaviour before killing them. Building upon my unique understanding of the ecology of ant manipulating Cordyceps I will expand to examine the phylogeny and biogeography of Cordyceps on a global level, with a special focus on manipulative traits (Pierce lab at Harvard). My objectives are to resolve relationships within the ant infecting Cordyceps, test the hypotheses that this group has an Asian centre of origin and test if it is ecologically specialised on certain hosts. I will also investigate behavioural manipulation in a phylogenetic context. The knowledge gained during the outgoing phase will inform a research program during the return host phase (Talbot Lab, University of Exeter), where I will examine the molecular biology of behavioural manipulation of ants by Cordyceps. As such, I propose a project that, in addition to maximizing my professional training, will allow me to combine ant-parasite evolutionary ecology with molecular fungal biology to address fundamental questions in evolutionary biology. This fellowship would facilitate further training and promote my independence upon my return to the ERA. As well as its potential to foster synergisms between a third country and the ERA, it will significantly increase my prospects of obtaining a faculty position in the UK.

Keywords: behavioural biology,evolutionary biology,phylogeny,parasite-host,extended phenotype
A program for high throughput molecular diagnostics of the mutation negative syndromic and nonsyndromic craniosynostoses (CRANIOTECHGENE)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-2-IIF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-07-01
End date: 2010-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 228507.88
EU funding (EUR): 228507.88
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Objectives: To identify the genetic basis of FGFR and TWIST1 mutation negative syndromic and nonsyndromic craniosynostosis Research Plan: Patient cells from the sutures of FGFR and TWIST1 mutation negative syndromic and nonsyndromic craniosynostosis will be screened for mutations using two genetic approaches. Firstly genomic DNA from the patient cells will be hybridised to Affymetrix snp microarrays to determine copy number variation. Secondly the transcriptome of cranial suture cells will be sequenced using the ABI SOLiD technology to identify high quality snps. If successful this project will identify cryptic cytogenetic or point mutations in critical genes that regulate the morphogenesis of cranial sutures. Relevance to work program: This project is intended to be coordinated with an application from a consortium of European molecular genetics diagnostic laboratories for innovative approaches to mutation identification in genetic disorders.

Keywords: clinical analysis,rare diseases,craniosynostosis,mutation screening,dna sequencing
Constraining Geomorphic transport laws for mass wasting processes (SLIDELAWS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF, 2007)
Start date: 2008-09-01
End date: 2010-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 161284.95
EU funding (EUR): 161284.95
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Today LiDAR technology gives us the opportunity to detail geomorphic features like landslide scars, and first-order streams at the decimetre scale, so that we can characterize process-specific dynamics over large landscape areas for the first time. The ability to identify and measure such features might allow us to quantify colluvial sediment flux and to forecast landslide hazards more accurately. In this context, the ability to partition the landscape into process domains by connecting landscape form to process enables us to rapidly assess hazards at new field sites. This connection between process and form has been cast into the framework of geomorphic transport laws, which can be used to estimate both position, and transport rates of Earth surface processes. Currently, geomorphic transport laws are only available for a handful of processes and none have been developed for landslides and debris flows. These are most needed for addressing fundamental scientific issues (i.e., long-term landscape evolution), and for solving more practical problems (i.e., hazard assessment). We propose to advance the current understanding of hillslope processes at the watershed scale by constraining transport laws for mass wasting in the Trentino Region using LiDAR, field methods, and GIS distributed modelling. Specifically, we aim to express landslide sediment flux as a function of hydro-geo-topographic attributes across terrain units. Objectives include to: (i) Classify this landscape into geomorphic process domains; (ii) Discriminate the topographic signatures of post-glacial mass-wasting processes that are superimposed to the glacial palimpsest; (iii) Document the variability of the saturated and unsaturated hydraulic properties across bedrock and surficial units; and (iv) Investigate the effects of hillslope hydrology, as reflected in the hydraulic properties, of both bedrock and surficial units on mass wasting style in terms of magnitude-frequency relations and sediment flux.

Keywords: geology,geomorphology,hydrology,lidar,geographic information systems