Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Improvement of the quality and safety of fermented beverages through the management and control of spoilage microorganisms (SPOILCONTROL)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Doctoral Networks
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: France,Italy,Netherlands,Ireland,Spain,Slovenia,Portugal,Germany,Romania,Norway
Call: MSCA Doctoral Networks 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-DN-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-02-01
End date: 2029-01-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3974796.0
EU funding (EUR): 3974796.0
Participants: 34
Project status: SIGNED

SpoilControl will train the next generation of polyvalent researchers in the field of sustainable fermentation technologies, able to meet current and future challenges created by microbial spoilage and improve the quality & safety of fermented beverages. Europe is the historical leader of fermented drinks, whose competitiveness is intensively challenged. Microbial spoilage in fermented food is a growing concern from a financial viewpoint (economic losses) and from a health perspective (increasing presence of pathogens, particularly in improperly homemade or artisanal productions). Such quality & safety issues are amplified by societal and environmental changes: the consumer trend toward low-input products, sustainable practices, small-scale productions and climate changes are associated with increased risks of microbial spoilage. In addition, the fermentation sector cruelly lacks a global framework & training between beverages, resulting in efforts duplication & investments partitioning. SpoilControl will unfold an original strategy based on multiple beverages (wine, spirits, beer, cider, kombucha, kefir), multiple disciplines (from environmental & life sciences to engineering or economics), multiple solutions (development of sustainable biological, chemical and physical treatments). The consortium covers the whole fermentation chain from Fermentation to Glass with 34 partners including universities, SMEs, large companies, innovation cluster, start-up, analysis laboratories, technical institutes and homebrewers’ group. SpoilControl will have multiple impacts: at the scientific level, the study of non-conventional microbial species will be useful besides the fermentation sector; at the societal level, SpoilControl will improve public awareness of safety issues in fermented food and promote best practices for all end-users (industrials, consumers); the development of innovative solutions and treatments will have immediate and long-term economic impact.

Keywords: food sciences bioinformatics biostatistics data processing colloids industrial economics microbial populations adaptation genetic engineering cold plasma ecology diagnostics best practices
NEUROmorphic energy-efficient secure accelerators based on Phase change materials aUgmented siLicon photonicS (NEUROPULS)

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: France,Czechia,Italy,Belgium,Portugal,Spain,Greece,Germany
Call: Ultra-low-power, secure processors for edge computing (RIA) (HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01, 2021)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 8319510.0
EU funding (EUR): 8319510.0
Participants: 16
Project status: SIGNED

The growing need to transfer massive amounts of data among multitudes of interconnected devices for e.g., self-driving vehicles, IoT or industry 4.0 has led to a quest towards low-power and secure approaches to locally processing data. Neuromorphic computing, a brain-inspired approach, addresses this need by radically changing the processing of information. Although neuromorphic electrical computing systems offer advantages in terms of CMOS implementations and scalability, they inherit limitations of conventional electronics such as low energy-efficiency, high latency and low bandwidth density. Besides, such systems often require robust security layers for e.g., safety-critical applications. Security layers based on memory-stored secret keys are prone to several types of memory-accessing attacks. Therefore, silicon hardware approaches for security primitives such as physical unclonable functions (PUFs) are currently investigated because of their absence of long-term digital memory storage. Although electronic PUFs have received major attention thanks to their native CMOS implementation, for secure authentication they are prone to machine learning and side-channel attacks due to their CMOS technology. The NEUROPULS project aims to build next-generation low-power and secure edge-computing systems by developing novel photonic computing architectures and security layers based on photonic PUFs in augmented silicon photonics CMOS-compatible platforms. The integration of emerging non-volatile phase change materials for synapses/neurons and III-V materials for on-chip spiking sources, for the first time, will allow to build novel neuromorphic accelerators featuring RISC-V compliant interfaces for smooth adoption and programmability. Optimal performance will be achieved thanks to a novel full-system simulation platform for design space exploration. Three relevant use-cases will be considered for benchmarking to demonstrate 2 orders of magnitude energy efficiency improvement.

Keywords: neuromorphic computing,silicon photonics,spiking neural networks,risc v interfaces,energy efficient computing,hardware security
Trusted and Green traceability through EU Space Technologies (SPACE4GREEN)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: EU Space
Destination: EU Space
Action type: Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Greece,Estonia,Slovenia,Cyprus
Call: EGNSS applications for the Digital Age (HORIZON-EUSPA-2021-SPACE, 2021)
Start date: 2022-11-01
End date: 2024-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2959812.5
EU funding (EUR): 2334143.75
Participants: 9
Project status: CLOSED

On B2B and B2C relations, the reliability among stakeholders is an essential requirement. Every second of every day, businesses exchange items with suppliers, partners, customers and others. Items mean goods, services, money, data and more. Such exchanges are transactions, that need to be reliable, precise and agreed among the participants. Moreover, in many transactions, the fully automation is not possible, it is needed a trusted centralized entity. In many cases, the human intercession is needed to certify the proper execution of such transaction (audit, public notaries, third-party certifier…). Blockchain aims to enable automatic transactions, reducing the "trust tax" among stakeholders. It is being used in more and more domains. However, Blockchain cannot fully ensure that the digitally recorded information is taken in a certain location and time. The automated and trusted Proof of Location has not been fully achieved without the human intercession. A reliable and affordable source of positioning/timing data is essential to achieve the automated verification of location and time. The new service Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OS-NMA) of Galileo will provide authentication of the navigation data, in order to determine if the data used for processing was produced by the satellites or falsified. The overall goal of SPACE4GREENERis to propose a technological solution that enable a trusted platform among stakeholders of different nature for the automated certification that an activity occurs or a thing is in a location in a certain point of time, without requiring a third-party human certification. The solution is based on the integration of Galileo OS-NMA signals and Blockchain with smart devices and mobile platforms that will produce a trusted information and share it among the stakeholders. The benefit of such approach is applicable to multiple domains, but the technical validation will be focused on Agrifood and fishing scenarios.

Keywords: traceability,agrifood,blockchain,osnma,galileo,proof of location,sustainable agriculture
CCAR2-mediated regulation of CtIP activity on DNA repair (CC-DNArep)

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: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-16
End date: 2027-09-15
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 209914.56
EU funding (EUR): 209914.56
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Ensuring cellular integrity and genome stability requires tight control of DNA damage repair. Defects in the processes involved lead to the accumulation of mutations that might cause various diseases, including cancer. DNA double-strand break (DSB) is the most severe type of DNA damage, and two main pathways exist to repair it. The non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) is an error-prone repair pathway with little or no DNA processing, which results in mutations of DNA sequences at the repair site. Alternatively, Homologous Recombination (HR) ensures an error-free repair by using the information present in homolog sequences. Thus, maintaining the HR:NHEJ balance and precise regulation of these pathways is essential for cell fitness. Upon DSB, CtIP is recruited to the damaged site and promotes DNA end resection, required to initiate HR. Recently, CCAR2 was identified as an antagonist interactor of CtIP, therefore promoting NHEJ. CCAR2 is a protein without defined catalytic activity but with several functional domains known to interact with other protein partners. However, how CCAR2 binding regulates CtIP activity on DNA damage repair remains elusive. In this project, I propose to study this interaction by a multidisciplinary approach. Biochemical and biophysical single-molecule fluorescent studies will be applied to understand the regulatory function of CCAR2 upon interaction with CtIP. These will be combined with molecular dynamics simulations to obtain further insights into their direct interaction and how different ligands affect the stability of the CCAR2-CtIP complex. Moreover, in vitro findings will be complemented with experiments in human cell lines upon induced DNA damage. Altogether, this project will provide a full mechanistic understanding of CCAR2-mediated regulation of CtIP activity in the cell. This will shed light on essential information regarding how the HR:NHEJ balance can be modulated, which could have an impact on the treatment of several diseases.

Keywords: dna resection homologous recombination dna repair
Advancing Membrane Filtration: Understanding Fouling Dynamics and Sustainable Cleaning Strategies (AMF)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Products and Processes Engineering
Panel description: Product and process design, chemical, civil, environmental, mechanical, vehicle engineering, energy processes and relevant computational methods
Countries involved: Italy
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2024-STG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-06-01
End date: 2030-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1412500.0
EU funding (EUR): 1412500.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Understanding and managing the complex interactions between water and energy is a major challenge. To meet the increasing demand for clean water it is necessary to rely on the reclamation of water from unconventional sources such as domestic or industrial wastewater. Membrane filtration is a key technology to augment water resources, but its performances are strongly impacted by membrane fouling that increases the energy consumption of the process. On the other hand, the formation of a biofilm during the membrane fouling deposition has been reported to positively affect the treated water quality. Yet, due to its complexity, membrane fouling is still a puzzling phenomenon with many unexplained aspects due to the lack of appropriate tools. In the last few years, I have been developing an innovative approach that enables monitoring membrane fouling under-continuous operation. The use of this tool is a unique opportunity for a combined experimental-theoretical approach, where the experimental results can be used as input for the modeling. The main objective of this project is to progress towards a deep understanding of the deposition and removal phenomena in membrane filtration processes. The project will include the development of a membrane platform, comprising of observation method and model (i), the understanding of the impact of fouling mechanical proprieties on cleaning efficiency by using Optical Coherence Elastography (ii), development of a selective and sustainable membrane cleaning strategy to allow the tailored recovery of valuable byproducts, removal of target compounds and restorage of membrane performance (iii) and the development of a sensor for full-scale membrane processes (iv). The outcome of this project is a fundamental step towards the necessary advancement of membrane-based processes for water reclamation as sustainable and efficient solution to the global water challenges.

Keywords: fouling biofilm nades desalination water reuse wastewater treatment
Rational Nanoparticle Design for Efficient Transmucosal CRISPR Delivery in Cystic Fibrosis – “CRISPRGels” (CRISPRGels)

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 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2027-02-28
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 206641.2
EU funding (EUR): 206641.2
Participants: 4
Project status: SIGNED

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common genetic lung disease (monogenic autosomal recessive disorder) worldwide and currently there is no cure. The emergence of powerful gene editing tools like CRISPR-Cas (“clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/associated protein 9”), now provides the opportunity to correct the disease-causing mutations which can potentially cure CF. The present research project proposes the development of core-multishell nanogels (NGs) yielding efficient transmucosal delivery of CRISPR-based gene editing tools which can address the challenges for treatment of CF at European level. This project brings together a talented, highly motivated and young Researcher (Dr. Krishan Kumar) with background in polymer chemistry (phase transition temperatures, understanding structure of colloids, bio-macromolecular interactions) and protein science (structural stability, immobilization, enzymatic activity); and an innovative institute POLYMAT in developing biomedical solutions for treating CF diseases based on nanogels mediated controlled release of CRISPR/Cas9 complex. CRISPRGels will focus on advancing the young researcher’s career through development and manufacture stages of non-viral gene delivery systems facilitating the curative gene editing approaches for treatment of CF patients. The host supervisor Prof. Marcelo Calderón is globally recognized researcher working in area of transmucosal delivery using nanogels (NGs). The behavior and interactions of the NGs will be systematically investigated in CF patient-derived sputum and CF bronchial epithelial models. Most efficient NGs will be validated on pre-industrial scale. Multidisciplinary expertise required for CRISPRGels will be complemented by highly experienced research teams Responsive Polymer Therapeutics Group (RPTG), Translational Organ Models Group (TOMG) and i+Med company.

Keywords: nanogels crispr cas9 non viral gene delivery cystic fibrosis gene therapy
European advisory and extension networks on forestry (FORADVISE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Bio-Environment
Destination: Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the Green Deal
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Finland,United Kingdom,Ireland,Sweden,Lithuania,Spain,France,Germany,Latvia,Norway,Portugal,Hungary,Greece,Austria,Czechia,Poland,Slovakia,Croatia
Call: Developing EU advisory networks on forestry (HORIZON-CL6-2024-GOVERNANCE-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2029-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4159046.06
EU funding (EUR): 3999982.04
Participants: 34
Project status: SIGNED

FORADVISE will develop a European network of forest advisory organisations, actors, and networks, to support the modernisation of the forestry sector, and advance towards EU and national policy targets. It will speed up knowledge flows, increase the competences of forest advisors beyond traditional areas of advice, and develop pathways towards a future Forest Knowledge and Innovation System (FOKIS) in Europe. Its ultimate goal is to advance towards more resilient, multifunctional, and productive forests in Europe. To achieve this, FORADVISE, creates a EU forest advisory network on forestry, and animates an iterative knowledge sharing process, combining national and international action, and implements knowledge transfer pilots to adapt advisory practices to new contexts. It develops training modules, contextualising well proven approaches and materials, delivering them through a MOOC. It develops a Cost Benefit Analysis toolkit to increase advisors’ capacities to assess social and economic implications. Lessons learned are the basis for a systematic engagement of policy makers, to create feasible and desirable pathways for the development of forest advisory systems in Europe, and to integrate forest advisors into the Member States’ AKIS. All these activities are supported by an analysis of the Forest Knowledge and Innovation Systems, and the needs and preferences of its different actors. Project activities are supported with dedicated communication and dissemination activities, and exploited through tailored impact pathways, including a digital knowledge platform. As the project advances, a smooth transition towards a self-sustained network is embedded into project activities. A dedicate task identifies working modalities and business models for the long-term continuation of the network, building upon the experience of the FOREXT initiative. FORADVISE consortium gathers Europe’s main actors in forestry advice.

Keywords: akis,forest advisory services,multi actor,sustainable forest management,climate change adaptation,closer to nature forestry,wood mobilisation,forest ecosystem services,nwfps
New directions for deep learning in cancer research through concept explainability and virtual experimentation. (NADIR)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment 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: Germany
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2023-STG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2028-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1498750.0
EU funding (EUR): 1498750.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Deep learning (DL) is rapidly transforming cancer research and oncology. DL can extract subtle visual features from preclinical and clinical image data. In my junior research group, I have developed end-to-end DL methods to predict molecular biomarkers and clinical outcomes directly from histopathology slides. Because histopathology slides are ubiquitously available for any patient with a solid tumor, DL is a broad tool for translational studies, enabling researchers to extract molecular information and make predictions about clinical outcome. However, the potential of DL in cancer research is fundamentally limited because it is purely descriptive and, in many cases, a black-box system. Also, DL is currently disjoint from the vast amount of biological mechanistic knowledge in cancer research, and from the world of experimentation. In NADIR, I will close this gap. My hypothesis is that DL models can not only make predictions but can be used to verify existing biological knowledge and to make new mechanistic discoveries. The main tools that allow me to address this are concept explainability and counterfactual virtual experimentation. For both, there exists a nonmedical proof of concept, but no systematic biomedical application yet. I approach this problem as a biomedical cancer researcher with training in programming, medical image analysis, and biomedical engineering. As such, I will develop DL systems that can extract biological concepts, can elucidate biological mechanisms, and can be used to create, and answer, mechanistic hypotheses. NADIR’s tools will be synergistic with and can be used together with other biological high-throughput experimentation pipelines such as transgenic animal experiments or tumor organoid cultures. The main use case of NADIR is focused on tumor-immune interaction in colorectal and gastric cancer, and through the educational and outreach program in NADIR, it will be made available as a general tool for cancer researchers in biomedicine.

Keywords: computational pathology,artificial intelligence,biomarker,gastrointestinal cancer,colorectal cancer,immunotherapy