Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Axonuclear Communication in Neuronal Growth Control (NEUROGROWTH)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Neurosciences and neural disorders
Countries involved: Israel
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-10-01
End date: 2018-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2498040.0
EU funding (EUR): 2498040.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Neurons exhibit the most marked size differences and diversity in intrinsic growth rates of any class of cells. How then can a neuron coordinate between biosynthesis rates in the soma and the growth needs of different lengths of axons? The central hypothesis of this proposal is that neurons sense the lengths of the axonal microtubule cytoskeleton on an ongoing basis by bidirectional motor-dependent axon-nucleus communication, and that the oscillating retrograde signal generated by this mechanism provides input for the coordinated regulation of neuronal biosynthesis and axonal growth. We will test this hypothesis in a multidisciplinary work program that will characterize and quantify the link between biosynthesis levels and axon outgrowth rates and identify and validate the roles and functions of key molecules underlying this mechanism. This research program will elucidate how neuronal biosynthesis and axon growth are co-regulated. New mechanistic insights on this fundamental aspect of neuronal cell biology will have far-reaching implications. From the basic science perspective, this work will establish a new modality for encoding spatial information in biological signals, providing a one-dimensional solution to the three-dimensional problem of sensing cell size. Moreover, the proposed mechanism can explain intrinsic limits on regenerative neuronal growth and raises the intriguing possibility of opening new avenues to bypass such limits towards acceleration of axonal growth for effective neural repair.

Keywords: axon growth,cell size,axonal transport,local translation,dynein,importin
Reconsidering Constitutional Formation.Constitutional Communication by Drafting, Practice and Interpretation in 18th and 19th century Europe (RECONFORT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The study of the human past
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-03-01
End date: 2018-02-28
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1880373.0
EU funding (EUR): 1880373.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The genesis of the modern constitutional state in late 18th and 19th century Europe has met im-mense public awareness and cross-border participation. Though this phenomenon is well known, basic patterns of constitutional communication (i.e. socio-cultural and cross-border contexts, ‘Zeitgeist’) have never been addressed before. In this concern ReConFort applies an evolutionary, dynamic and interactive concept of forming constitutions by text, societal context, political practice, constitutional interpretation and communication. The transdisciplinary project focuses on the constitutional “discourse” around selected constituent assemblies: the Polish Sejm (1788-1792), the Spanish Cortes (1810-1812), the Belgian National Congress (1830-1831), the Frankfurt Parliament (1848-1849) and the Italian Parlamento Subalpino (1861). Albeit all these historical paradigms are particular and different, they all shared a Europe-wide public interest. The research approach draws upon mainly inedited and still unknown archival sources: cross-border correspondences, publicistic activities of protagonists, exile literature, and regional to cross-border constitutional journalism in leading public media. The synchronic comparative analysis is complemented by systematic diachronic studies. Thereby ReConFort identifies common structural criteria, features and principles in constitution forming processes. ReConFort finally aims at assessing basic determinants and mutual interdependencies of constitutional formation and communication in Europe. This research focus will estalish a deeper understanding of mutual influences of constitutional developments in Europe by pointing out the transnational dynamics of constitutional forming, practice and interpretation. Thus, ReConFort crosses the frontiers of traditional legal and historical sciences and will be of value for the present integration process of the EU.

Keywords: constitutions,legal studies,comparative legal history,constitutional history
Adversary-Oriented Computing (AOC)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-06-01
End date: 2019-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2147012.0
EU funding (EUR): 2147012.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Recent technological evolutions, including the cloud, the multicore, the social and the mobiles ones, are turning computing ubiquitously distributed. Yet, building high-assurance distributed programs is notoriously challenging. One of the main reasons is that these systems usually seek to achieve several goals at the same time. In short, they need to be efficient, responding effectively in various average-case conditions, as well as reliable, behaving correctly in severe, worst-case conditions. As a consequence, they typically intermingle different strategies: each to cope with some specific condition, e.g., with or without node failures, message losses, time-outs, contention, cache misses, over-sizing, malicious attacks, etc. The resulting programs end up hard to design, prove, verify, implement, test and debug. Not surprisingly, there are anecdotal evidences of the fragility of the most celebrated distributed systems. The goal of this project is to contribute to building high-assurance distributed programs by introducing a new dimension for separating and isolating their concerns, as well as a new scheme for composing and reusing them in a modular manner. In short, the project will explore the inherent power and limitations of a novel paradigm, Adversary-Oriented Computing (AOC). Sub-programs, each implementing a specific strategy to cope with a given adversary, modelling a specific working condition, are designed, proved, verified, implemented, tested and debugged independently. They are then composed, possibly dynamically, as black-boxes within the same global program. The AOC project is ambitious and it seeks to fundamentally revisit the way distributed algorithms are designed and distributed systems are implemented. The gain expected in comparison with today's approaches is substantial, and I believe it will be proportional to the degree of difficulty of the distributed problem at hand.

Keywords: distributed algorithms,distributed systems,fault-tolerance,dependability,concurrent computing,middleware,peer-to-peer networks,publish-subscribe systems,notification and event-based systems.
AMPA Receptor Dynamic Organization and Synaptic transmission in health and disease (ADOS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Neurosciences and neural disorders
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2491157.0
EU funding (EUR): 2491157.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

AMPA glutamate receptors (AMPAR) play key roles in information processing by the brain as they mediate nearly all fast excitatory synaptic transmission. Their spatio-temporal organization in the post synapse with respect to presynaptic glutamate release sites is a key determinant in synaptic transmission. The activity-dependent regulation of AMPAR organization is at the heart of synaptic plasticity processes underlying learning and memory. Dysfunction of synaptic transmission - hence AMPAR organization - is likely at the origin of a number of brain diseases. Building on discoveries made during my past ERC grant, our new ground-breaking objective is to uncover the mechanisms that link synaptic transmission with the dynamic organization of AMPAR and associated proteins. For this aim, we have assembled a team of neurobiologists, computer scientists and chemists with a track record of collaboration. We will combine physiology, cellular and molecular neurobiology with development of novel quantitative imaging and biomolecular tools to probe the molecular dynamics that regulate synaptic transmission. Live high content 3D SuperResolution Light Imaging (SRLI) combined with electron microscopy will allow unprecedented visualization of AMPAR organization in synapses at the scale of individual subunits up to the level of intact tissue. Simultaneous SRLI and electrophysiology will elucidate the intricate relations between dynamic AMPAR organization, trafficking and synaptic transmission. Novel peptide- and small protein-based probes used as protein-protein interaction reporters and modulators will be developed to image and directly interfere with synapse organization. We will identify new processes that are fundamental to activity dependent modifications of synaptic transmission. We will apply the above findings to understand the causes of early cognitive deficits in models of neurodegenerative disorders and open new avenues of research for innovative therapies.

Keywords: glutamate receptors,receptor trafficking,synaptic plasticity,super-resolution imaging,image analysis methods,single molecule tracking,chemical biology.
The Peformance of Democracies (PERDEM)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Institutions, values, beliefs and behaviour
Countries involved: Sweden
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-05-01
End date: 2019-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499475.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499475.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project will use an institutional approach to answer the question why some democracies perform better than others. Democratic systems can be institutionalized in innumerous ways given variation in for example party system, electoral system, type of public administration, judicial control and type of legal system, degree of lobbyism, degree of decentralization, rules for the public budget, possibilities to use referendums, the power of the executive and so on. This huge variation in the institutional configuration of existing democracies will be used for developing a theory for explaining the difference in democracies ability to perform. The motive for this project is the following: Democracy as an overall model for how societies should be governed must be seen as a remarkable success. Over the last centuries, several waves of democracy have swept over the globe, bringing representative democracy to places where it seemed inconceivable fifty, or even twenty-five years ago. There are certainly many reasons to be enthusiastic about this historically remarkable development. However, this enthusiasm is dampened by three things. One is that empirical research shows that there is only a very weak, or none, or sometimes even negative, correlation between established measures of human well-being and measures of the level of democracy. For example, communist-authoritarian China now outperforms liberal democratic India on almost all measures of population health. The second reason is that a number of democracies turn out to have severe difficulties managing their public finances in a sustainable way. The third problem is that democracy seems not to be cure against pervasive corruption. In fact, many authoritarian countries turn out to be less corrupt than many democratic ones. Empirical research shows that these problems have severe consequences for citizens’ perception of the legitimacy of their political system.
Decrypting signals in the crypt. (DECRYPT)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Immunity and infection
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499992.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499992.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Pathogens and symbionts: War and Peace at mucosal surface in intestinal crypts. In the proposed program called DECRYPT, I wish to strengthen novel orientations of our laboratory aimed at decrypting the dialogue between the microbiota and the host, while keeping a balance with the study of pathogens, both being analyzed at their interface with the gut mucosa to further our knowledge of the homeostatic and pathogenic mechanisms that respectively characterize a healthy and a diseased gut. The intestinal crypt is a key location to study this dialogue because it contains the stem cells, the differentiation and transit amplifying/proliferative compartments that are essential for epithelial regeneration at homeostasis, and restitution following an aggression. It is also embedded in a niche of immune cells that participate in homeostatic and pathological processes under microbial stimuli. Thus the breaking nature of my project will bear on the demonstration that crypt homeostasis depends on signals “emitted” by the microbiota, thereby stressing the depth of our symbiosis with the microbial world, and on the demonstration that the crypt is also the target of enteric pathogens like Shigella, thus introducing the novel paradigm that pathogenesis is not only matter of inflammatory destruction of infected tissues, but also of altered epithelial restitution. An extension of this paradigm is that loss or subversion of the microbiota-crypt homeostasis may account not only for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), but also for colon cancer. This fundamental knowledge will also be the basis for translational research, particularly the search for molecules that boost antimicrobial defenses and comfort homeostasis. In summary, I propose a balanced combination between the “cellular microbiology of pathogens” and the “cellular microbiology of symbionts”.

Keywords: bacterial symbiosis,bacterial pathogenesis
Long-Lived Nuclear Magnetization in Dilute Para-Water (DILUTEPARAWATER)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical sciences
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2019-12-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The magnetization of hydrogen nuclei in H2O constitutes the basis of most applications of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI.) Only ortho-water, where the two proton spins are in states that are symmetric with respect to permutation, features NMR-allowed transitions. Para-water is analogous to para-hydrogen, where the two proton spins are anti-symmetric with respect to permutation. The objective of this proposal is to render para-H2O accessible to observation. Several strategies will be developed for its preparation and observation in solids, liquids and gas phase, with yields up to 33%. When diluted in acetonitrile at room temperature, we found that Tortho(H2O) = 6 s. Based on experiments on H2C groups where Tpara/Tortho > 37, we conservatively estimate that Tpara/Tortho > 10 for H2O, so that we expect Tpara = 60 s. Dilution in aprotic solvents inhibits the exchange of protons and extends the lifetimes t(H2O) of water molecules from ca. 1 ms in pure water to 10 s and beyond, so that proton exchange does not hamper the use para-water. The ratio Tpara/Tortho of H2O depends on temperature, viscosity, paramagnetic agents, etc., which affect intra- and inter-molecular dipole-dipole interactions, chemical shift anisotropy, and spin rotation. In cases where proton exchange significantly shortens the lifetime of para-H2O, we shall prepare and observe para-ethanol and aqueous solutions of para-glycine, which cannot suffer from proton exchange, and allow similar perspectives as para-water. In conventional MRI, contrast stems mostly from spatial variations of T1 and T2. By monitoring the ratio Tpara/Tortho as a function of spatial coordinates, it will be possible to obtain a novel type of contrast. In suitable phantoms and porous media, para-water will allow us to characterize slow transport phenomena such as flow, diffusion, and electrophoretic mobility. The study of transport phenomena will become possible over longer time intervals, lower velocities or greater distances.

Keywords: mri,relaxation,dnp,dissolution
The chemical biology of RNA G-quadruplexes (RNAQUAD)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Molecular and Structural Biology and Biochemistry
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499107.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499107.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

For over a decade, our research programme has focused on the chemical biology of nucleic acids. The structure of nucleic acids is key to their biological functions, and the four-stranded guanine rich class of structures called G-quadruplexes constitute a particularly intriguing motif. Recent evidence suggests a role for G-quadruplex (G4) structures in RNA leaving their fundamental importance in biology open for exploration. Our central hypothesis is that the G4 structural motif, rather than its sequence per se, conveys important function(s) in RNA. We propose to directly address this hypothesis by the experimental identification of functional RNA G4 structures within the cellular transcriptome on a genome-wide scale. In particular, we intend to reveal detailed insights into their functional contributions to: a) translation and b) telomere biology. The proposed programme constitutes an integrated, interdisciplinary approach that combines chemical biology, synthetic chemistry, molecular and cell biology together with genomics.

Keywords: chemical biology,rna g-quadruplex,rna regulation,terra,telomere,alternative splicing,translational control
Ecology of anaerobic methane oxidizing microbes (ECO-MOM)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Evolutionary, population and environmental biology
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2018-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

For over a century it was believed that methane (CH4) could only be oxidized by micro-organisms in the presence of oxygen. The possibility of nitrate-dependent or metal-dependent anaerobic oxidation of CH4 (AOM) was generally dismissed. However, about 6 years ago the microbes responsible for the nitrate-AOM reaction were discovered. This was followed by molecular approaches that resulted in the identification of the responsible Methylomirabilis oxyfera bacteria. Recently, the widespread environmental occurrence of these bacteria was demonstrated leading to the realization that AOM may play a significant role in the CH4 and nitrogen cycles. M. oxyfera is a unique microbe with unusual properties that we only begin to understand: the production of oxygen from NO by a putative NO dismutase and a very unusual polygonal cell shape. Even less is known about metals (Fe3+ or Mn4+) as electron acceptors for AOM. The aim of this project is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the metabolism and ecological importance of the M. oxyfera bacteria, and to enrich new metal-dependent AOM microbes. Such understanding contributes directly to our environment and economy because AOM is a new sustainable opportunity for nitrogen removal from wastewater. The results will show how the CH4, nitrogen and iron cycles are connected and may lead to new ways of mitigating methane emission. The biodiversity and contribution of AOM-microbes to the biogeochemical cycles in oxygen-limited ecosystems will be investigated, and new metal-AOM enrichments will be performed. Together the environmental and metabolic data will help to understand how and to what extent AOM-microbes contribute to the biogeochemical cycles and thus shape atmosphere of our planet. The research lines will employ state-of-the- art methods to unravel the exceptional properties of these highly unusual and important microbes. The experiments will be performed in one of the world best equipped laboratories for microbial ecology.

Keywords: methane,iron,nitric oxide
Memory-enabled Optical Quantum Communications and Information Networks (MOQUACINO)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-ADG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1738404.0
EU funding (EUR): 1738404.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The primary objective of this proposal is to build a large-scale photonic quantum network in order to enter a new and different regime of macroscopic quantum behaviour for light. We intend to implement a network of sufficient scale that the behaviour of the system is uncomputable, and that new physics will emerge from the study of its dynamics that will inform research in a number of fields dealing with complex systems, from fundamental physics to biology. This network will also enable new modes of quantum communications, sensing, simulation and computation that go well beyond anything that is possible using classical physics. Specifically we shall develop a truly scalable approach to building both linear and nonlinear photonic networks, and construct a 20-node, 20-qubit, 20-particle loss-tolerant photonic network that operates palpably beyond classical boundaries. It has not proven possible to break through into a new regime of complexity to date because of the intrinsically probabilistic character of the feasible network operations. In this proposal, we overcome this bottleneck. Our approach will integrate robust, simple, broadband photonic quantum memories together with novel pure-state light sources fabricated in precise 3-D photonic structures, coupled to integrated, highly-efficient photon-number-resolving detectors. Deterministic photon-photon interactions will be engendered either by measurement and storage or by nonlinear interactions in the memory made possible by coherent quantum feedback control. This will deliver a multi-node array of synchronized conditional quantum operations, novel quantum light-matter interactions and distillation of high-quality entangled states. The outcome of this project will be a viable means to explore new regimes of many-body quantum physics, with impact on information processing, including multi-particle quantum simulation, multiparty quantum repeaters, multimode quantum sensors and elementary quantum computing.