Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Interaction of Cooper Pairs and Massless Dirac Fermions in Suspended Superconductor-Graphene Devices (DIRACOOPER)

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: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IIF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-09-06
End date: 2014-09-05
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 201932.4
EU funding (EUR): 201932.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Superconductivity occurs in a metal when the temperature is low enough to favour the appearance of a new ground state comprised of time-reversed pairs of electrons. These composite particles, called Cooper pairs, form a condensate giving rise to the extraordinary phenomena characteristic of superconductivity, including zero electrical resistivity and perfect diamagnetism. Graphene is a two dimensional crystal of carbon atoms which despite being non-superconducting exhibits another type of emergent electronic order. Due to the high symmetry of graphene’s hexagonal lattice its charge carriers are massless Dirac fermions. Unlike in a normal semiconductor or metal, these electronic quasiparticles act like neutrinos, obeying the laws of "relativistic" quantum mechanics with an effective speed of light given by the Fermi velocity. This project seeks to study the interaction between these two types of remarkable emergent electronic particles, massless Dirac fermions and Cooper pairs. The conversion of Cooper pairs and massless Dirac fermions, the “relativistic” superconducting proximity effect, can occur in several unique graphene-superconductor (GS) junction devices. It is in the ballistic, short and transparent transport regime that new phenomena, peculiar to the "relativistic" nature of massless Dirac fermions, are expected. To obtain GS devices in this so far unattained limit, novel fabrication techniques will be employed, including chemical vapour deposition of graphene on superconducting electrodes, stencil-mask evaporation, multiple-angle deposition, and sample suspension. Low-temperature electronic measurements on these devices should then reveal theoretically-predicted effects such as specular Andreev reflection and gate-dependent multiple Andreev reflection, as well as others yet to be discovered relying on the interaction between Cooper pairs and massless Dirac fermions.

Keywords: superconductors,electronic,magnetic and superconductive properties,solid state physics,electron-based nano-devices,condensed matter properties
"Role of Nonlinear Dynamics of NF-kB in Inflammation" (NONLIN-KB)

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-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-03-15
End date: 2014-03-14
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 185763.6
EU funding (EUR): 185763.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

NF-kB is a family of transcription factors that coordinately control hundreds of genes involved in many steps of inflammatory processes, from microbial killing to cancer. When inflammatory stimuli hit the cell surface, NF-kB undergoes several cycles of nucleus-to-cytoplasm translocations, resulting in oscillations of nuclear NF-kB concentrations and activity. At single cell level, live imaging and mathematical modeling suggest that NF-kB oscillations are selected over other non-oscillatory dynamics. At population level there is significant heterogeneity, mainly due to cell asynchrony. Mathematical models reproducing population heterogeneity indicate absence of coupling between dynamics of individual cells. This behaviour is thought to be adaptive by enabling a wider multiplicity of responses, but this has not been tested. Moreover, due to collective heterogeneity, the link of NF-kB dynamics to gene expression in a tissue as a whole is far from being clear. Analyses of mathematical models of the NF-kB system using my expertise on Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos Theory showed that complex oscillatory population dynamics are possible. Furthermore, regimes for coherent collective behaviours (synchrony) can be found. These regimes entail the use of periodic stimulations with different intensities and/or periods, suggestive of acute and chronic inflammatory conditions. My project proposes to mathematically explore and experimentally validate complex population dynamics. In vivo quantitative imaging of NF-kB dynamics in GFP-p65 knock-in cells upon repetitive stimulations will provide data to build models on NF-kB collective behaviours. Transcription profiles of synchronized cells will be incorporated into the model. By increasing our understanding on NF-kB collective dynamics, we expect to contribute to strategies for the control of diseases with a huge social impact, like septic shock, autoimmune diseases and cancer, in which the deregulation of NF-kB plays a pivotal role

Keywords: computational biology,modelling tools,cell biology,software engineering,microscopy,computational models
The Economics of Access to Justice (ECO4A2J)

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: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-09-01
End date: 2014-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 183805.8
EU funding (EUR): 183805.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Access to justice (A2J) and litigation are the two fundamental dimensions of the effective resolution of disputes. Balancing the full protection of the right of A2J and the necessary limitation of the amount of socially expensive litigation is a crucial issue not only from the perspective of justice but also for socio-economic and security purposes. In fact, insufficient, inadequate or totally missing legal remedies can both generate social tension and hinder economic development. The project aims at developing the first comprehensive law & economics theory of the mechanism of A2J and litigation by interfacing techniques coming from legal scholarship, game theory and policy impact analysis. The thesis of the project is that A2J has to be endogenised into the law and economics models of litigation by relaxing the usual assumption of dispute resolutions in the shadow of an accessible court. This theoretical step makes it possible to study the potential trade-offs between favouring A2J and saving litigation costs. The ultimate scope of this investigation is comparing different policies with respect to their effects on access to justice and litigation rates. The project will provide a formal explanation of how different policies (e.g., legal aid, ADR, etc.) realise their overall purposes. The theory is validated by empirical applications. The empirical analysis focuses on the specific policy of legal aid across Europe. However, empirical applications could be possible on a broader range of policies. The highly inter-disciplinary nature of the project will cross-fertilize legal, socio-economic, and law & economics fields of research by significantly contributing to a deeper scientific understanding of legal disputes and their resolution as a critical social and economic phenomenon.

Keywords: law & economics,microeconomics,political economy,access to justice,litigation,social welfare,individual choice,trade-off,legal aid
Single unusual DNA (SINGLE UNUSUAL DNA)

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: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IIF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-04-01
End date: 2014-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 201932.4
EU funding (EUR): 201932.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Certain nucleic acids sequences can form unusual structures, like triplexes, G-quadruplexes and i-motif. Nowadays, several genetic diseases have proved to be mediated by the formation of non-B DNA structures at certain chromosomal locations. Therefore, it is very important to inversigate these unusual DNA structures, which may well be biologically relevant, at the molecular level. To study the function of such unusual DNA structures in vivo, it is important to understand how they assemble and interact with ligands. Until now, most of the these studies are carried out in dilute solutions, which do not reflect the real conditions in vivo because the physiological milieu is crowded with various biomolecules. Moreover, current research methods related to unusual DNA structures are ensemble methods, a lot of important phenomena may inherent in ensemble measurements due to population averaging. Magnetic tweezers are extraordinarily sensitive, as this technique is capable of applying piconewton-scale forces, allowing it to provide direct data on the molecular-scale workings of biological systems. Therefore, the magnetic tweezers technique is well suited to experiments on single DNA molecules. The proposal we submitted is the first attempt to investigate unusual DNA structures by magnetic tweezers. We aim to understand how they behave under near-physiological conditions and how the interaction with ligands may affect their behavior. The results can promote other researchers to learn the formation pathways of these unusual DNA structures, and help them to effectively design anticancer drugs or to understand how these structures may interfere with key biological processes. To our knowledge, such study of unusual structures has never been performed – or at least published – with this method. Through detailed measurements of the force-extension relationship of unusual nucleic acids, opened up a new way of investigating these atypical structures.

Keywords: single molecule technique,magnetic tweezers,unusual dna structures,molecular crowding
A High-Throughput Approach for Chemical Reactivity Profiling and Physical Organic Chemistry (HTREACTA)

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-2011-IEF, 2011)
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 209033.4
EU funding (EUR): 209033.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This research proposal challenges current philosophy in reaction analysis in that it offers a HT approach to the generation of reaction parameters orders of magnitude faster than those currently used; although offering data that is as accurate and as robust (if not more so) than traditional methods. The aims of this proposal are to initially undertake a systematic and quantitative evaluation of a simple test cases involving relative amino acid coupling rates before extending studies into the area of nucleophilicity in association with solvent effects but with analysis in an entirely self-consistent and self-correcting manner, Subsequently, the studies would be extended to an analysis of Buchwald-Hartwig based chemistries and a series of phenols and anilines with the focus on Hammett based analysis of coupling partners. Such an approach will have many practical applications. Thus it will allow the chemistry/activity of new monomers to be determined before application in library synthesis, besides offering an understanding of the suitability of existing monomers in library based SNAr chemistries, and the global analysis of coupling reagents with all amino acid coupling partners.

Keywords: high-throughput chemistry,reaction parameters,physical organic chemistry,analytical constructs,nucleophilicity,mass spectrometry
Lessons from the genome of Escherichia coli: understanding heterologous expression of eukaryotic internal membrane proteins in bacterial cells (BIOIMPROVE)

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: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IIF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-12-01
End date: 2014-11-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 192622.2
EU funding (EUR): 192622.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Eukaryotic cells express integral membrane proteins (IMP) that exchange substances with their environment or receive signals in the form of small molecules, peptides or proteins. Most human IMPs are inherently difficult to study, because of complications in obtaining adequate amounts of stable and functional proteins. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest IMP family in the human genome and constitute the most important class of drug targets in pharmaceutical discovery. Escherichia coli is the most used host for heterologous protein expressions, although yields and quality for GPCRs are usually not sufficient for protein characterizations. Currently, our comprehension of processes that influence the biogenesis of IMPs in bacteria is limited. Therefore, the goal of this proposal is to study how E. coli genes could regulate the heterologous production of eukaryotic IMPs, using GPCRs as a model system. In order to achieve this, we will make use of a selection strategy developed in the host laboratory that allows detecting functional GPCR expressed on E. coli and enriching cells for their functional expression level. We will apply this together with systematic libraries of recombined single-gene deletions or of overexpressed genes of E. coli. The information that will potentially emerge will allow a deeper understanding of the processes of heterologous expression of IMPs in bacteria and will also generate bacterial hosts optimized for enhanced GPCR production. The general results arising from this project could ultimately provide valuable information for the discovery of new drugs for therapy. With this proposal, an experienced researcher from Argentina will undertake mobility and carry out a period of: transfer of knowledge, skills diversification and career development in Europe. This will allow create long-term collaborations and the enhancement of mutually-beneficial cooperative networks relationships between the EU and his home country.

Keywords: membrane proteins,g protein-coupled receptors,heterologous protein expression,escherichia coli,genetic engineering,systematic libraries,epistatic genetic interactions
A Chemical Genetics Approach towards Cancer Therapy Targeting Histone Demethylases (HISTONE DEMETHYLASES)

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-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-03-01
End date: 2014-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 200371.8
EU funding (EUR): 200371.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Cancer is one of the most common causes of death in the EU. The disease is characterized by aberrant gene activity in certain cells. Even today, cancer therapy is little focused, which is reflected by severe side effects. Consequently, there is a need for novel and better tolerated therapies. In this proposal an approach to validate a new class of enzymes as targets for cancer therapy is presented. In the cell nucleus, DNA is bound to special proteins, called histones, which play key roles in gene regulation. Histones can be dynamically modified with special marker groups, which allows the control of gene expression without alteration of the DNA itself. Specifically, it is intended to inhibit histone demethylases, specialized enzymes which remove certain marker groups (methyl groups) from histones, which results in gene silencing or activation. Histone demethylases are known to be upregulated in certain cancers and are therefore promising candidates for pharmacological cancer therapy. Ideally, small molecule inhibitors will inhibit cancer growth and might even be able to restore the normal genetic program of a cell. During the study specific small molecule-enzyme pairs will be created, which allows the study of a single enzyme among very similar ones. This chemical genetics approach encompasses the mutation of the enzyme and the synthesis of specifically tailored small molecules. The properties of the enzyme-inhibitor pairs will be evaluated by in vitro assays and crystallization. Afterwards the compounds will be used to decipher the role of the histone demethylase in cell culture models by microarray methods and RNA sequencing. The study will be very interdisciplinary and encompass chemical synthesis, biochemistry, cell biology and structural biology.

Keywords: medicinal chemistry,organic synthesis,biochemistry,cell biology,histone demethylase,inhibitor,epigenetics,post translational modification,protein,chemical genetics,cancer,structural biology
Electrified voices. Acoustic Communities in the Soviet Union, Germany and Great Britain at the beginning of electronic voice reproduction (ELECTRIFIED VOICES)

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-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2013-04-15
End date: 2015-04-14
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 278807.4
EU funding (EUR): 278807.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The relationship between electro-acoustic technologies and political power around 1930 has been a matter of much debate in contemporary scholarship. A large part of existing research defines radio and talkies as repressive instruments, imposed by the Nazi and Soviet dictatorship with the purpose of assembling far- reaching surveillance structures. Conversely other researchers increasingly see repressive regimes as rooted in scientific inventions in the field of telecommunications. In this second research corpus, the radio, the loudspeaker and sound film are assigned a structuralizing function with regard to the reproduction of political power. The solution to this apparent contradiction might be that different approaches, based on social history, linguistics, semiotics and theory of perception, have been used to deal with the question of the interplay between technological media and the development of community. The study will analyze how electro-acoustic knowledge, with its ethical implications, was implemented in early radio and film projects. The following questions will be addressed in connection with this main research focus: What psycho-acoustic and ethno-cultural aspects of sound performance were rated most important in the context of transforming environmental sounds and natural human voices into an electro-acoustic design? How were differences between low vs. high pitch sounds, between male vs. female voices played up in newsreels, e.g. with regard to the semantic differentiation of events, presented either as hard or as soft news? The analysis of early sound sources and public debates carried out by radio & film magazines in Germany (Funk), Soviet Union (Radio front) and Great Britain (Radio times) should provide an answer to the questions posed. The purpose of this analysis is to determine the contribution of electro-acoustic technologies to the emergence of a mass media public sphere and the continuity of local acoustic communities.

Keywords: humanities,media and communication,intercultural comparative studies,acoustic community,announcers' voices,sound design,sound movies,newsreels
A novel technology for producing bio-based synthetic textile fibres from biomass-derived furanic monomers (ECOLASTANE)

Framework: FP7 — Capacities
Programme: Research for the benefit of SMEs
Destination: Research for SME associations
Action type: Research for the benefit of specific groups
Countries involved: France,Czechia,France,Spain,Greece,Spain,France,Spain
Call:  (FP7-SME-2012, 2012)
Start date: 2013-03-01
End date: 2016-02-29
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2861180.5
EU funding (EUR): 2125000.0
Participants: 9
Project status: CLOSED

European Chemicals Industry supplies European Textile & Clothing industry with textile fibres, 75% of which are synthetic (polyester, elastane, nylon). The European Biomass Industry needs to gain market share to the petrochemical industry as supplier of sustainable biomaterials to the Chemicals Industry. More than 99.9% of the world synthetic fibers are made of non-renewable petrochemical resources. As proclaimed by EURATEX, the access to raw materials (especially cotton, man-made fibres and chemicals) is becoming an “extremely urgent problem for the EU Textiles & Clothing industry”. The steep growth of emerging economies (China, Indi, Brazil) is leading to scarcity and price fluctuations, translated into Textile companies facing huge cost increases. EcoLASTANE will develop a high quality, 70%-100% bio-based synthetic textile fibres (bio-based elastane and polyester) by optimising an industrial technology that starting from lignocellulosic feedstocks (wood, crop residues, etc) produces 100% bio-based chemicals (furfural, HMF, THF and FDCA). EcoLASTANE will optimise the synthesis of furfural in Europe by increasing yield, reducing costs, recovering solvents and acetic acid, valorising cellulose for the production of HMF (bio-based monomer with a huge potential still not brought to industrial scale) and producing an in-plant burnable bio-char from lignin to generate heat. From furfural we will optimise the synthesis of 100% bio-based THF, a starting material accounting for 70% of the mass of an elastane elastic fibre. From HMF we will develop a new 100% bio-based polyester textile fibre. Textile products containing EcoLASTANE fibres will have a differentiated, high added value based on: inexpensive price, identical chemical structure (and thus manufacturing and weaving behaviour) to current petrochemical alternatives, bio-based content and eco-efficient production. Our fibres will not need any change of today’s technologies for producing synthetic filaments.

Keywords: bio-based,furanic monomers,furfural,thf,bio-thf,elastane,hmf,fdca,polyester,polar aprotic solvents,heterogeneous catalysis