Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Climate impacts on diatom genomes over micro- and macroevolutionary timescales (DIADAPT)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Panel description: For all organisms : Ecology, biodiversity, environmental change , evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, microbial ecology , marine biology, ecophysiology, theoretical developments and mod elling
Countries involved: Belgium
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2024-STG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-05-01
End date: 2030-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Diatoms are a group of highly diverse, globally dominant microalgae which contribute significantly to global carbon fixation and biogeochemical cycling. Understanding how diatoms adapt to changes in their environment is therefore a major research interest. However, whereas the phenotypic outcomes of adaptation have received considerable attention, we understand little about the genomic underpinnings of evolution and adaptation in diatoms. Within DIADAPT, I will investigate the genomic processes that underlie adaptation to climate shifts in diatoms. To this end, I will focus on two evolutionary radiations of non-model diatoms that are characterized by the repeated colonization of different climate zones throughout their evolutionary history, yet that played out in different ecological conditions: the aquatic and terrestrial realm. Comparative analyses of genomes and transcriptomes obtained from taxa that inhabit polar, temperate, or tropical regions will be complemented with experimental evolution. As such, I will investigate the roles of both genome and gene expression evolution in climate-driven adaptation over macro- and microevolutionary timescales, thus capturing different stages of the adaptation process. By implementing DIADAPT within a robust phylogenetic framework and contrasting the two evolutionary radiations, I will (i) formulate general insights into the genomic basis of climate-driven adaptation in diatoms, (ii) reveal the degree of divergence and repeated evolution in adaptive solutions, and (iii) discern if and how adaptation is constrained by evolutionary history, including differences in ecology, population size, and historical patterns of climate zone transitions. Altogether, the integration of macro- and microevolutionary approaches on the scale of genome and gene expression divergence will generate a deep understanding of climate-driven adaptation in a keystone microbial lineage on an unprecedented geographic and taxonomic scale.

Keywords: adaptation,biodiversity,comparative biology,diatoms,experimental evolution,gene expression evolution,genome evolution,macroevolution,marine biology,microalgae,microevolution,phylogenomics,protists,selection,transcriptomics,terrestrial ecosystems
Ritual Action: Making Deterrence Matter in International Security and Memory Politics (RITUAL DETERRENCE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Panel description: Political science, international relations, law
Countries involved: Denmark
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2021-COG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1949291.25
EU funding (EUR): 1949291.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Deterrence is the strategy of dissuading an opponent from taking an unwanted action for its prospective costs would outweigh the anticipated benefits either by the threat of effective defence or that of retaliation. The role of ritual in making deterrence effective, affectively charged and credible in the eyes of its practitioners has remained below the radar of the existing research. RITUAL DETERRENCE is the first project to pursue a ritual-centred investigation of deterrence in order to advance the understanding of the political and psychological functions of this newly foregrounded practice in international security and memory politics. Theoretically, the project breaks new ground in fostering the understanding of ritual action in international relations, the symbolic logic of which remains neglected compared to the logics of consequences, appropriateness, practice, and habit in the study of world politics. Empirically, it addresses the imperative for systematic cross-cultural and cross-domain research on deterrence as a multi-modal social practice. In delivering a new description of the practice of deterrence and an overhaul of the theory of deterrence, the project offers a comprehensive rethinking of the performance, credibility and the presumed effect of deterrence. The project will provide an innovative ritual theory of deterrence in the contexts of international security and memory politics on the example of a vital historical (NATO-Warsaw Pact) and different contemporary cases (NATO-Russia, USA-Russia, USA-China; memory laws in Eastern Europe). The study combines discourse and practice analysis with expert interviews, participant observation of military exercises and wargaming, encompassing both direct and extended deterrence along traditional and emerging domains of deterrence. Tracing and historicising the interaction ritual chains of deterrence will generate crucial knowledge about how deterrence performances enact and legitimise political communities.

Keywords: deterrence,ritual action,symbolic logic,performativity,identity construction,social theory,nato,united states of america,russia,china,extended deterrence,nuclear deterrence,conventional deterrence,cyber deterrence,hybrid deterrence,memory laws,eastern europe
Rapid elimination of invasive insect agricultural pest outbreaks by tackling them with Sterile Insect Technique programs (REACT)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Bio-Environment
Destination: Fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food systems from primary production to consumption
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Mauritius,Israel,Italy,South Africa,Poland,Belgium,Greece,Austria,France,Portugal,United Kingdom
Call: Tackling outbreaks of plant pests (HORIZON-CL6-2021-FARM2FORK-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-11-01
End date: 2026-10-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 6653075.0
EU funding (EUR): 6653072.0
Participants: 15
Project status: SIGNED

REACT aims to develop long-term environmentally friendly response strategies and novel sustainable tools to protect fruit and vegetable production and export capacities from two invasive insect pests of EU priority, Bactrocera dorsalis (Bd) and B. zonata (Bz). The project proposes a holistic response plan to provide enhanced capacity to prevent, identify, monitor and control these pests. To assess invasion risks, REACT will characterize the main facilitators and critical drivers of early invasive processes, sources and dynamics of adventive populations, and suitable hotspots for species establishment coupled with the analysis of the potential ecological and socio-economic impacts of invasions. To fight invasions at the first onset, REACT will develop a novel field-deployable, rapid and cost-effective mobile solution for interception. Multiple novel reaction strategy components and tools tailored to the characterized bioecological features of Bd and Bz will be developed and integrated to tackle outbreak events by economically sound SIT programs. These include a new bioinformatic pipeline to develop ‘neoclassical’ genetic sexing strains for the target species, novel genetic and metabolic markers to assess the quality of mass-reared flies, and diet supplements for enhanced mass-rearing. To prove the feasibility of an eradication SIT approach for the first time in Europe, releases with Ceratitis capitata will be conducted in areas with low pest prevalence, mimicking invasion scenarios. The program and its socio-economic impact will be evaluated with stakeholders and multiple actors, and a quick intervention guide for diverse invasion risk scenarios will be developed. This will translate into rapid response pest eradication capabilities that are pesticide free, adequate to a wide variety of EU fruticulture and trade under changing climatic, legal, and regulatory conditions and able to safeguard ecosystems and biodiversity while improving food safety.

Keywords: socio economic implications of fruit flies pesticide free insect microbiome omics interception and eradication response strategy for invasive tephritidae bactrocera invasiveness and dispersion
Why do transcription factors bind what they bind when they bind? (TF-KINETIX)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Integrative B iology : from Genes and Genomes to S ystems
Panel description: For all organis ms: Genetics, epigenetics, genomics  and other ‘omics studies , bioinformatics, systems biology , genetic diseases , gene editing, innovative methods and modelling,  ‘omics for personalised  medicine
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2024-STG, 2024)
Start date: 2024-11-01
End date: 2029-10-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1496725.0
EU funding (EUR): 1496725.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Transcription factor binding is orchestrated by a complex interplay between DNA sequence, chromatin composition, protein interactions, and transcription factor concentration. These regulatory features determine the binding kinetics: how long it takes for a certain amount of transcription factor to associate, and subsequently dissociate from specific binding sites. These kinetics are in turn determined by the thermodynamic properties of each interaction. It is currently not possible to measure the biochemical kinetics of transcription factor binding across the chromatinized genome inside the nucleus of a cell. To understand why a transcription factor binds to a specific chromatin:DNA-sequence context in a specific cellular state at a specific time, we need to measure how chromatin and DNA influence the biochemical parameters that underpin transcription factor binding. This gap in knowledge limits our functional understanding of why a binding event occurs, and it hampers accurate predictions of transcription factor binding. Here, I will establish a novel proteomics and genomics toolkit to decipher the regulation of transcription factor binding kinetics to the chromatinized genome. I will resolve interactome- and genome-wide binding kinetics of three lung-cancer-associated transcription factors. By delineating association and dissociation rates, and changes in disorder and binding energy, of all binding events across the genome, I aim to obtain a quantitative understanding of how the proteome composition, epigenetic landscape, and genetic code dictate transcription factor binding. Finally, I will build predictive binding models to engineer cell-state-specific transcription factor binding profiles. Together, this will transform our knowledge about transcription factor binding into a functional understanding where instead of observing, we understand why each binding event occurs when it occurs, and how we can steer these events.

Keywords: transcription factors binding kinetics
Continuous Enzyme Evolution – solving bottlenecks in enzyme engineering to design next-generation biocatalysts (ContiZymes)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Biotechnology and Biosystems E ngineering
Panel description: Biotechnology using all organisms , biotechnology for environment  and food applications, applied plant and animal sciences , bioengineering and synthetic biology , biomass and biofuels , biohazards
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2023-COG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-05-01
End date: 2029-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1999991.0
EU funding (EUR): 1999991.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Directed evolution has revolutionized the application of enzymes in industrial settings by allowing users to tailor the properties and activities of biocatalysts to their needs. But classic directed evolution is notoriously labor- and time-intensive, as it manually stages mutation, selection, and amplification cycles. In contrast, continuous evolution (CE) approaches aim to achieve these steps within a replicating organism, making it possible to engineer efficient enzymes in a matter of days rather than months or years. Unfortunately, current CE approaches are typically applicable only to model enzymes with little industrial value. To unleash the full potential of CE, we will develop a scalable, low-tech CE platform, which is readily applicable to biocatalysts that provide value-added products. Toward this end, we will merge a versatile selection system we recently developed with strategies to diversify the genes of targeted enzymes in vivo and an autonomous setup to grow bacterial populations continuously. Combined the resulting CE-platform will enable us to engineer biocatalysts along many and long evolutionary trajectories. Moreover, analyzing the fate of these populations by sequencing will allow us to map the sequence-structure-function relationships of these biocatalysts. Based on the systematic datasets generated in these efforts, we will train machine-learning (ML)-models to predict functional sequences. Lastly, in a ML-directed CE approach, we will establish a design-build-test-learn cycle to improve models and guide CEs toward promising, but otherwise inaccessible sequence spaces. Overall, ContiZymes will overcome unaddressed challenges associated with the application of biocatalysts that promote sought-after C-C, C-halogen, and C-N-bond forming reactions. We will not only engineer these enzymes at an unprecedented rate and scale, but also map their fitness landscapes and take a critical step toward the on-demand design of next-generation biocatalyst

Keywords: continuous evolution enzyme engineering genetic code expansion biocatalysis machine learning in enzyme engineering
Hamiltonian Dynamics, Normal Forms and Water Waves (HamDyWWa)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting 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: Italy
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-03-01
End date: 2027-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1268106.0
EU funding (EUR): 1268106.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

KAM and normal form methods are very powerful tools for analyzing the dynamics of nearly integrable finite dimensional Hamiltonian systems. In the last decades, the extension of these methods to infinite dimensional systems, like Hamiltonian PDEs (partial differential equations), has attracted the interest of many outstanding mathematicians like Bourgain, Craig, Kuksin, Wayne and many others. These techniques provide some tools for describing the phase space of nearly integrable PDEs. More precisely they give a way to construct special global solutions (like periodic and quasi-periodic solutions) and to analyze stability issues close to equilibria or close to special solutions (like solitons). In the last seven years, I developed new methods for proving the existence of quasi-periodic solutions of quasi-linear, one-dimensional PDEs. This is an important step towards treating many of the fundamental equations from physics since most of these equations are quasi-linear. In particular, this is the case for the equations in fluid dynamics, the water waves equation being a prominent example. These novel techniques are based on a combination of pseudo-differential and para-differential calculus, with the classical perturbative techniques and they allowed to make significant advances of the KAM and normal form theory for one-dimensional PDEs. On the other hand, many challenging problems remain open and the purpose of this proposal is to investigate some of them. The main goal of this project is to develop KAM and normal form methods for PDEs in higher space dimension, with a particular focus on equations arising from fluid dynamics, like Euler, Navier-Stokes and water waves equations. By extending the novel approach, developed for PDEs in one space dimension, I have already obtained some preliminary results on PDEs in higher space dimension (like the Euler equation in 3d), which makes me confident that the proposed project is feasible.

Keywords: hamiltonian pdes,kam theory,normal forms,fluid dynamics,water waves,pseudo differential operators
Investigating the functional roles of histone acylation co-occurrence on transcription in single-cells (Acyl-STEP-seq)

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: Germany
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-07-01
End date: 2027-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 173847.36
EU funding (EUR): 173847.36
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Regulation of transcription is orchestrated by a complex combination of histone posttranslational modifications (PTMs), but how their co-occurrence in the same cell regulate gene expression is still poorly understood. Recently, novel histone acylations have been identified, namely propionylation (pr) and butyrylation (bu). They co-exist with acetylation (ac), arise from cellular metabolism, and are key candidates to fine-tune chromatin activity and transcription. This project will answer fundamental questions on the role of acylations in gene regulation and their co-occurrence in single cells, and provide novel insights into metabolic disorders (propionic acidemia; PA), where histone acylations are altered. Through this project, I will generate the first genome-wide histone acylation map in single cells, functionally link their co-occurrence with gene expression, and establish the impact of a metabolic disease on histone acylations and transcription. Our preliminary data showed that histone H4K16ac/pr/bu play key roles in chromatin activity and could thus regulate transcription, and are impaired in livers of a PA mouse model. I hypothesize that acylations co-occurrence will regulate transcription, and altered propionyl-CoA metabolism in PA will impact H4K16 acylations, and consequently transcription. To achieve this, I will develop an experimental and computational framework for single-cell Simultaneous Transcriptome and Epigenome Profiling (sc-STEP-seq). With this approach, I will map H4K16ac/pr/bu and the transcriptome in single-cells, and integrate epigenomic and transcriptomic changes, in liver samples from PA mice. This interdisciplinary project will address a fundamental question in epigenetics: the functional relevance of histone PTMs regulated by metabolic state in single cells, advance the technology for single-cell multimodal epigenomic profiling, and provide for the first-time molecular understanding of histone acylations in a clinically relevant model.

Keywords: histone acylations histone modification co occurrence single cell multi omics gene regulation metabolism epigenetic crosstalk animal model clinically relevant samples metabolic disorder
Atmospheric tracing of Earth's evolution (ATTRACTE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Earth System Science
Panel description: Physical geography, geo logy, geophysics, atmospheric sciences, oceanography, climatology, cryology, ecology, global environmental change, biogeochemical cycles, natural resources management
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2023-03-01
End date: 2028-02-29
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499125.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499125.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Planetary atmospheres are fundamental reservoirs controlling the habitability of planets. The chemical and isotopic compositions of atmospheric constituents also hold clues on the geological evolution of the entire planetary body. Today, Earth's atmosphere contains about 80% dinitrogen and 20% dioxygen. Yet, there is no scientific consensus on how and why these two molecules emerged and persisted in the Earth's atmosphere. The interactions between the atmosphere and the continental crust also play a major role in controlling the bio-availability of nutrients and the composition of the atmosphere, and thus the climate. However, the evolution of the volume of continental crust over time is strongly debated. Project ATTRACTE will significantly improve our knowledge of the main drivers of atmospheric evolution over time. This will be achieved by going back in time and following the evolution of the composition of the Earth's atmosphere over geological eons. Analyses of gases contained in traditional and new paleo-atmospheric proxies, the post-impact hydrothermal minerals, will be carried out with innovative mass spectrometry techniques. The isotopic composition of paleo-atmospheric xenon will provide new constraints on the history of hydrogen escape for the Archean Earth. Coupled argon and nitrogen measurements will allow to determine, for the first time, the evolution of the partial pressure of atmospheric dinitrogen. Paleo-atmospheric data gathered during the project will be fed in numerical models of Earth's atmospheric and crustal evolution. This will allow to reconstruct how volatile elements have been exchanged between the silicate Earth and the atmosphere through time. Results gathered during project ATTRACTE will ultimately provide new datasets for climate studies of the ancient Earth but will also help building the scientific framework required to interpret future observations of exoplanetary atmospheres and to portray the geology of extrasolar planets.

Keywords: noble gases