Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Defining functional networks of genetic causes for ALS and related neurodegenerative disorders (ALS-Networks)

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: France
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2015-CoG, 2015)
Start date: 2017-04-01
End date: 2023-05-31
Duration (months): 74.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2000000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Brain and spinal cord diseases affect 38% of the European population and cost over 800 billion € annually; representing by far the largest health challenge. ALS is a prevalent neurological disease caused by motor neuron death with an invariably fatal outcome. I contributed to ALS research with the groundbreaking discovery of TDP-43 mutations, functionally characterized these mutations in the first vertebrate model and demonstrated a genetic interaction with another major ALS gene FUS. Emerging evidence indicates that four major causative factors in ALS, C9orf72, TDP-43, FUS & SQSTM1, genetically interact and could function in common cellular mechanisms. Here, I will develop zebrafish transgenic lines for all four genes, using state of the art genomic editing tools to combine simultaneous gene knockout and expression of the mutant alleles. Using these innovative disease models I will study the functional interactions amongst these four genes and their converging effect on key ALS pathogenic mechanisms: autophagy degradation, stress granule formation and RNA regulation. These studies will permit to pinpoint the molecular cascades that underlie ALS-related neurodegeneration. We will further expand the current ALS network by proposing and validating novel genetic interactors, which will be further screened for disease-causing variants and as pathological markers in patient samples. The power of zebrafish as a vertebrate model amenable to high-content phenotype-based screens will enable discovery of bioactive compounds that are neuroprotective in multiple animal models of disease. This project will increase the fundamental understanding of the relevance of C9orf72, TDP-43, FUS and SQSTM1 by developing animal models to characterize common pathophysiological mechanisms. Furthermore, I will uncover novel genetic, disease-related and pharmacological modifiers to extend the ALS network that will facilitate development of therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative disorders

Keywords: molecular and cellular neuroscience,human and functional genetics,genomic engineering,physiological analysis,zebrafish transgenesis,chemical screening analysis
Advanced Holographic Tomographies for Nanoscale Materials: Revealing Electromagnetic and Deformation Fields, Chemical Composition and Quantum States at Atomic Resolution. (ATOM)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Condensed matter physics
Panel description: Structure, electronic properties, fluids, nanosciences, biological physics
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2016-STG, 2016)
Start date: 2017-01-01
End date: 2022-12-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499602.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499602.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The ongoing miniaturization in nanotechnology and functional materials puts an ever increasing focus on the development of three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures, such as quantum dot arrays, structured nanowires, or non-trivial topological magnetic textures such as skyrmions, which permit a better performance of logical or memory devices in terms of speed and energy efficiency. To develop and advance such technologies and to improve the understanding of the underlying fundamental solid state physics effects, the nondestructive and quantitative 3D characterization of physical, e.g., electric or magnetic, fields down to atomic resolution is indispensable. Current nanoscale metrology methods only inadequately convey this information, e.g., because they probe surfaces, record projections, or lack resolution. AToM will provide a ground-breaking tomographic methodology for current nanotechnology by mapping electric and magnetic fields as well as crucial properties of the underlying atomic structure in solids, such as the chemical composition, mechanical strain or spin configuration in 3D down to atomic resolution. To achieve that goal, advanced holographic and tomographic setups in the Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) are combined with novel computational methods, e.g., taking into account the ramifications of electron diffraction. Moreover, fundamental application limits are overcome (A) by extending the holographic principle, requiring coherent electron beams, to quantum state reconstructions applicable to electrons of any (in)coherence; and (B) by adapting a unique in-situ TEM with a very large sample chamber to facilitate holographic field sensing down to very low temperatures (6 K) under application of external, e.g., electric, stimuli. The joint development of AToM in response to current problems of nanotechnology, including the previously mentioned ones, is anticipated to immediately and sustainably advance nanotechnology in its various aspects.

Keywords: electron holography,electron tomography,quantum state tomography
Personalized cardiopulmonary resuscitation device for emergency teams (pCPR)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Health, demographic change and wellbeing
Theme: Active ageing and self-management of health
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Portugal
Call: Accelerating market introduction of ICT solutions for Health, Well-Being and Ageing Well (H2020-SMEINST-1-2016-2017, 2016)
Start date: 2016-12-01
End date: 2017-05-31
Duration (months): 6.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Sudden cardiac arrest affects up to 1 million people in US and Europe per year, being the 3rd leading cause of death globally. Despite international medical efforts, 9 out of 10 people will die after a cardiac arrest (average survival rate 10.6%). In the European Union, cardiovascular disease costs to the economy more than €192 billion annually. Emergency teams suffer the most with the extremely high mortality and morbidity rates due to cardiac arrest worldwide. Currently, medical assistive devices play a limited role on teams’ diagnostics and therapeutic actions during rescue emergencies. Nevertheless, the defibrillation/CPR devices global market was valued at $1.7B in 2014 and is expected to grow until 2019 with a CAGR of 8% reflecting a strong market demand. pCPR is a portable, precise and personalized medical device to properly assist emergency teams during sudden cardiac arrest emergencies. It consists of a thoracic pad with sensors that doctors, nurses and paramedics apply directly to the patient linked to a new monitor display and defibrillator to support and guide their critical decision-making and patient-specific emergent therapy. The value proposition of pCPR is based on emergency end-users’ feedback and experts’ calls for action, through a lean fast-to-market strategy, delivering unique selling points: - Adaptive physiological feedback (disruptive innovation); - Focus on cerebral oxygen saturation, temperature and tcCO2 (new target indicators); - Clinical reasoning algorithms (cognitive aids at point of care); - Cardiac/Neurologic outcomes guidance (assisting device); - Data management for Quality control (analytics); - Exclusively non-invasive sensors (technology); pCPR wants to be one of the leading assistive device for emergency teams worldwide in a 5-years’ time frame, building upon its patented thoracic pad and combined sensing capabilities to deliver better cost-effective patient care and health outcomes, namely the cardiac arrest survival rate.

Keywords: thoracic pad,emergency medical services,cardiac arrest,non invasive,sensors,patient safety,mortality rate,medical device,physiological feedback
Policy Development based on Advanced Geospatial Data Analytics and Visualisation (PoliVisu)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Europe in a changing world - inclusive, innovative and reflective societies
Theme: Innovative societies
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Italy,Belgium,Belgium,Belgium,Greece,France,France,Czechia,Czechia,United Kingdom
Call: Policy-development in the age of big data: data-driven policy-making, policy-modelling and policy-implementation (H2020-SC6-CO-CREATION-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2017-11-01
End date: 2020-10-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3907697.0
EU funding (EUR): 3907696.25
Participants: 16
Project status: CLOSED

PoliVisu is a Research and Innovation project designed to evolve the traditional public policy making cycle using big data. The aim is to enhance an open set of digital tools to leverage data to help public sector decision-making become more democratic by (a) experimenting with different policy options through impact visualisation and (b) using the resulting visualisations to engage and harness the collective intelligence of policy stakeholders for collaborative solution development. Working with three cities to address societal problems linked to smart mobility and urban planning, the intention is to enable public administrations to respond to urban challenges by enriching the policy making process with opportunities for policy experimentation at three different steps of the policy cycle (policy design, policy implementation, and policy evaluation). Experimentation of policy options will enable the cities to tackle complex, systemic policy problems that require innovative thinking to develop transformative solutions.

Keywords: big data,geospatial data,analytics,visualisation,policy development,sensors,real time data,linked open data,heatmaps,transport,traffic
Epistemic AI (E-pi)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Future and Emerging Technologies (FET)
Theme: EIC Pathfinder
Destination: Novel ideas for radically new technologies
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Belgium,Netherlands,United Kingdom
Call: FET-Open Challenging Current Thinking (H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2019-2020-01, 2020)
Start date: 2021-03-01
End date: 2026-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3016618.75
EU funding (EUR): 3016618.75
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

Although artificial intelligence (AI) has improved remarkably over the last years, its inability to deal with fundamental uncertainty severely limits its application. This proposal re-imagines AI with a proper treatment of the uncertainty stemming from our forcibly partial knowledge of the world. As currently practised, AI cannot confidently make predictions robust enough to stand the test of data generated by processes different (even by tiny details, as shown by ‘adversarial’ results able to fool deep neural networks) from those studied at training time. While recognising this issue under different names (e.g. ‘overfitting’), traditional ML seems unable to address it in non-incremental ways. As a result, AI systems suffer from brittle behaviour, and find difficult to operate in new situations, e.g. adapting to driving in heavy rain or to other road users’ different styles of driving, e.g. deriving from cultural traits. Epistemic AI’s overall objective is to create a new paradigm for a next-generation artificial intelligence providing worst-case guarantees on its predictions thanks to a proper modelling of real-world uncertainties.

Keywords: uncertainty theory,imprecise probability,machine learning
Microbial production of custom-made, pure and sustainable anthocyanins (Colourganisms)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1, 2019)
Start date: 2020-02-01
End date: 2020-10-31
Duration (months): 9.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The colour industry is undergoing a radical change as it moves from harmful, synthetic colorants to natural, plant-based colour compounds. This change creates several problems as natural colours are poor in quality, they are impure and they compete directly with agricultural land use and food. To overcome these limitations, at N-CHROMA we have developed a new revolutionary technology to produce colour compounds suitable for the Food & Beverage and Colour Cosmetics industries. We do this by using microorganisms to produce custom-made, high quality and pure anthocyanin compounds in a sustainable and cost effective manner. To achieve this we are using baker’s yeast as a microbial cell factory to produce stable anthocyanins. This class of colour compounds shows advanced characteristics in terms of stability to pH changes, making them more attractive to the target markets. With the SME instrument phase 1 grant, we aim to assess the functionality of our ingredients to existing products. Also, the cost-in-use of our highly pure compounds will be assessed during the technical feasibility study. In addition, we will perform commercial feasibility studies for the use of anthocyanins in the cosmetic, personal care and nutraceutical markets. Such markets have not been investigated so far but they hold great potential for anthocyanins due to their high antioxidant activity and biological function.

Keywords: natural colourants,natural dye,yeast,saccharomyces cerevisiae,microbial production
Bio-sustainable production of natural medicines from Vitex (MediVAC)

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: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Denmark
Call: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) (H2020-MSCA-IF-2014, 2014)
Start date: 2015-05-01
End date: 2017-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 200194.8
EU funding (EUR): 200194.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Vitex agnus-castus (VAC) is a medicinal plant clinically shown to be an effective treatment for premenstrual syndrome. The bioactive constituents are diterpenoids that can interact with G-protein-coupled receptors such as the dopamine D2 and D3 receptors. This specific activity also opens up the possibility of other therapeutic applications where dopaminergic drugs are required, such as for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. The major barrier to the development of VAC diterpenoid drugs, and the further exploration of pharmacological activity of VAC diterpenoids, is the lack of a source of pure compounds. MediVAC is a 24 month research project that will discover the genes involved in the biosynthesis of pharmacologically active diterpenoids in VAC, and to express these genes in a biotechnological platform for the sustainable production of pure bioactive diterpenoids. State-of-the-art imaging mass spectrometry tools will be used to identify diterpenoid rich tissues which will be targeted for transcriptomics. Then, through the integration of bioinformatic, molecular biology and analytical chemistry techniques, the diterpene synthases and cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in VAC diterpenoid biosynthesis will be identified and functionally characterised. The resulting molecular toolbox of diterpenoid genes will be stably integrated into yeast for the production of bioactive diterpenoids. The engineered host strains hold potential for the future development of an industrial scale production platform able to produce high-purity, bioactive diterpenoids for the pharmaceutical industry. Implementation of this proposal will provide the research fellow with essential training in the field of molecular biology and further her plant metabolic profiling expertise, leaving her with a unique and highly sought after skill set.

Keywords: diterpene,medicinal plant,natural product,phytochemistry,terpenoid,biotechnology,yeast
Retrofit all-Electric Bus for reduced Operator Operating costs in urban Transport (REBOOT) (REBOOT)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Smart, green and integrated transport
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Small business innovation research for Transport (H2020-SMEINST-2-2015, 2015)
Start date: 2016-03-01
End date: 2018-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2099123.0
EU funding (EUR): 1469386.1
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

MAGTEC are the UK's largest supplier of hybrid and electric drive systems, we have a 22 year history and reputation for innovative automotive component and electric drive system design and manufacture. Today, 500+ MAGTEC electric drives have been sold to bus and truck manufacturers. Recently, our electric drives have displaced Siemens and Enova as preferred supplier to Optare, the UK electric bus manufacturer, due to a significantly smaller size and 130kg weight saving in the powertrain, as well as a 14% reduction in battery size, weight and cost. In an effort to drive growth for MAGTEC as well as the full EV bus market we have decided to take our Full EV drive system product direct to bus operators. Driven by the bus operator market need to repower their fleets of older, polluting vehicles to full EV operation we have developed REBOOT, an all-electric drive retrofit system that exceeds any Low Emission Zone (LEZ) or Zero Emission Zone (ZEZ) targets. This repower solution offers bus operators the benefits of access to a full EV operation bus at relative low cost; exceed low emission zone targets; access financial incentives for operating low carbon vehicles as well as retain bus fleets that have already been invested in. With this market expected to see imminent high growth, our technology is well placed to take a significant proportion of this target sector. So far, REBOOT has been already been commercially demonstrated in the city sight-seeing bus market segment. The objectives of our project include: • To develop a retrofit all-electric drive system, battery and recharger pack for an 18 tonne bus that weighs less than 2.2 tonnes (the weight of a diesel drive) with the capacity to travel 160km • A final system price of €166,000 that delivers a payback to the operator within 5 years • To deliver an 80% reduction in fuel operating cost for bus operators

Keywords: repower,retrofit,full electric,bus operators,transport,zero emission zone,low emission zone,urban bus routes
Deciphering and predicting the evolution of cancer cell populations (CANCEREVO)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Panel description: Medical technologies and tools for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases, therapeutic approaches and interventions, pharmacology, preventative medicine, epidemiology and public health, digital medicine
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2018-COG, 2018)
Start date: 2019-03-01
End date: 2024-03-31
Duration (months): 61.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1250303.75
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The fundamental evolutionary nature of cancer is well recognized but an understanding of the dynamic evolutionary changes occurring throughout a tumour’s lifetime and their clinical implications is in its infancy. Current approaches to reveal cancer evolution by sequencing of multiple biopsies remain of limited use in the clinic due to sample access problems in multi-metastatic disease. Circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) is thought to comprehensively sample subclones across metastatic sites. However, available technologies either have high sensitivity but are restricted to the analysis of small gene panels or they allow sequencing of large target regions such as exomes but with too limited sensitivity to detect rare subclones. We developed a novel error corrected sequencing technology that will be applied to perform deep exome sequencing on longitudinal ctDNA samples from highly heterogeneous metastatic gastro-oesophageal carcinomas. This will track the evolution of the entire cancer population over the lifetime of these tumours, from metastatic disease over drug therapy to end-stage disease and enable ground breaking insights into cancer population evolution rules and mechanisms. Specifically, we will: 1. Define the genomic landscape and drivers of metastatic and end stage disease. 2. Understand the rules of cancer evolutionary dynamics of entire cancer cell populations. 3. Predict cancer evolution and define the limits of predictability. 4. Rapidly identify drug resistance mechanisms to chemo- and immunotherapy based on signals of Darwinian selection such as parallel and convergent evolution. Our sequencing technology and analysis framework will also transform the way cancer evolution metrics can be accessed and interpreted in the clinic which will have major impacts, ranging from better biomarkers to predict cancer evolution to the identification of drug targets that drive disease progression and therapy resistance.