Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Research and training network on understanding Deep icE corE Proxies to Infer past antarctiC climatE dynamics (DEEPICE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Innovative Training Networks (ITN)-European Training Networks
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Italy,Germany,Switzerland,Norway,Belgium,Sweden,France,Netherlands,Denmark,United Kingdom
Call: Innovative Training Networks (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-01-01
End date: 2024-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4166057.88
EU funding (EUR): 4166057.88
Participants: 10
Project status: SIGNED

DEEPICE aims to train a new generation of European researcher (15 ESRs) working on scientific issues related to climate change in Antarctica by taking advantage of the unique scientific dynamic of the new European ice drilling "Beyond EPICA" which started in 2019 to extract a 1.5 million years old Antarctic ice core. The consortium gathers complementary expertise in instrumentation (for field conditions in extreme conditions or in the laboratory for the precise analysis of small ice samples), statistic tools as well as glaciological and climatic modeling from 10 different countries. The ESRs will carry out their individual research projects with a focus on an analytical or modeling subject in a strong interdisciplinary and intersectoral environment keeping in mind the importance of a combined data-model approach and with an active participation in science mediation in the field of climate change. The DEEPICE project will set up an innovative training program allowing the trained ESRs to acquire essential core and additional skills in instrumentation, ice core analysis, statistics and modeling, as well as a wide range of soft skills fostering their career perspectives. Especially, a thematic school will allow students to get in touch with different scientific mediators, publishers, journalists and political advisers. The research and training program gives an important place to scientific mediation and communication of obtained results to the general public and more specific stakeholders. After having completed the training, DEEPICE’s ESRs will be fully equipped for engaging in academic and non-academic careers related to glaciology, climate change, geophysics and instrumentation in geoscience.

Keywords: antarctic deep ice cores,innovative instrumentation techniques,statistical and modeling tools
Reconstitution of a Minimal Signaling-Active Plant Receptor Kinase Complex - Towards the Structural Determination of Ligand-Induced Activation Mechanisms (MINIREX)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2021-01-01
End date: 2022-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 203149.44
EU funding (EUR): 203149.44
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Plasma membrane-localized receptor kinases (RKs) perceive diverse extracellular ligands, allowing plants to react to various stimuli. They function in signaling processes during all aspects of plants’ life, including development, biotic and abiotic stress responses as well as reproduction. In the last decade, a major paradigm has emerged that individual RKs have different biochemical functions. There are e.g. ligand-binding RKs, which require the formation of stable complexes with RK co-receptors in order to initiate signaling. In addition to this common mode of activation, it has been revealed that additional RKs can have regulatory functions within RK complexes, and that in planta several other proteins are part of these complexes to regulate – either positively or negatively – complex formation and initiation of downstream signaling. The proposed project aims to understand what the minimal components linking ligand binding to receptor activation and to the initiation of cellular outputs are. Furthermore, it has the goal to elucidate the structural mechanisms of receptor complex activation. To achieve this, two interconnected approaches will be pursued. The first will utilize protein expression in cell-culture to reconstitute the signaling pathway from ligand perception to activation of downstream targets. The second approach will use a cell-free in vitro expression system to reconstitute the complete RK complex in synthetic, membrane-mimicking nanodiscs. This will ultimately allow the analysis of ligand induced structural changes by cryo-electron microscopy within full length, membrane embedded RK complexes. The well-characterized RK FLAGELLIN SENSING 2 (FLS2) and its co-receptor RK BRI1-ASSOCIATED KINASE 1 (BAK1), which are core elements of the receptor complex mediating the perception of bacterial Flagellin and function in the induction of antibacterial immune responses, will be to this end employed as a model for the proposed project.

Keywords: plant signal transduction,plant immunity,receptor kinase,protein complex
Enforced ATP wasting as a general design principle to rationally engineer microbial cell factories (StrainBooster)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
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: Germany
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2016-COG, 2016)
Start date: 2017-05-01
End date: 2022-12-31
Duration (months): 68.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1998750.0
EU funding (EUR): 1998750.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

One global challenge of humanity in the 21st century is the shift from a petrochemical to a bio-based production of chemicals and fuels. An enabling technology towards this goal is metabolic engineering which uses computational and experimental methods to construct microbial cell factories with desired properties. While it has been shown that genetically engineered microorganisms can, in principle, produce a broad range of chemicals, novel approaches to improve the performance of those strains are urgently needed to develop economically viable bioprocesses. To this end, we propose a new metabolic design principle to rationally engineer cell factories with high performance. Supported by a recent pilot study, we postulate that suitable genetic interventions combined with mechanisms that burn (waste) an extra amount of ATP (e.g., by artificial futile cycles) will increase product yield and productivity of many microbial production strains. Key objectives of StrainBooster are therefore: (1) to use computational techniques and metabolic models to identify gene knockout strategies whose coupling with ATP wasting mechanisms can boost the performance of microbial strains and to prove in silico that those strategies exist for many combinations of substrates, products, and host organisms; (2) to develop genetic modules that can robustly increase ATP dissipation in the cell; and (3) to experimentally demonstrate the power of the proposed strategy for selected production processes with Escherichia coli. To reach these ambitious goals, an interdisciplinary approach will be pursued combining theoretical and experimental studies and making use of innovative methods from systems and synthetic biology. If successful, StrainBooster will not only establish a new and ground-breaking strategy for metabolic engineering, it will also deliver novel computational tools and genetic parts facilitating direct application of the approach to design and optimize industrial fermentation processes.

Keywords: metabolic engineering,computational strain design,microbial cell factories,metabolic networks,stoichiometric modeling,constraint based modeling,bio based production
Disrupting Logistics in Smart Cities and Regions through an Advanced Logistics Platform. (LOOP)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Smart, green and integrated transport
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Portugal
Call: Small business innovation research for Transport and Smart Cities Mobility (H2020-SMEINST-1-2016-2017, 2016)
Start date: 2016-09-01
End date: 2017-02-28
Duration (months): 6.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Urban logistics are growing every year, pressed by new eCommerce business, namely in the retail sector and requiring high service levels for logistics, and at the same time, public authorities strive to ensure the sustainability of urban mobility. LOOP is a disruptive new way of planning and managing last-mile logistics in smart cities, bringing Suppliers, Logistic Service Providers and Public Authorities together in the same platform, by de-coupling goods from last-mile logistic service providers. LOOP creates a multi-brand Logistic Service Provider federation based on Pick up and Drop off Delivery Points (PUDOs), Aggregation Boxes (AB) and pre-determined urban ring circuits that can be dynamically changed in real-time to address logistic requests on the fly and physical or regulatory constraints (traffic, municipal restrictions, etc.). Our objective is to demonstrate LOOP in European smart cities, and prove that this is a new, disruptive way to reduce operation costs for logistic operators, while increasing service level for Suppliers and Shoppers, while respecting municipal regulations. By paying a small transaction fee per delivery, Logistic Service Providers can tap in a federated client pool based on their fleet availability and location. We estimate that in 2020 this new market will be worth 250M € in Europe alone, and our clients are they logistic operators, that will pay a fee per delivery/pick-up service. By being a multi-brand platform, LOOP allows local SMEs to be part of the last-mile logistics, mitigating risks (large client base from LOOP) and increasing their fleet in a commercially sustainable way (no need for critical mass fleet size). Logistema has developed LOOP as the results of over 20 years of consultancy experience on logistics for public and private entities, and we consider this to be a strategic solution and a new business line for us and the European market of urban logistics in smart cities.

Keywords: advanced logistics systems,smart city,logistic operators federation,multi brand
Measuring, monitoring and data handling for railway assets; bridges, tunnels, tracks and safety systems (Assets4Rail)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Smart, green and integrated transport
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: European rail initiative
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: Shift2Rail (Art-187)
Countries involved: Germany,Italy,Austria,Spain,Austria,Spain,Germany,Spain,Spain,Lithuania,Finland,Greece,Slovenia,Serbia,Finland,Czechia,United Kingdom
Call: Measuring and monitoring devices for railway assets (H2020-S2RJU-OC-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2018-12-01
End date: 2021-12-31
Duration (months): 37.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5506631.25
EU funding (EUR): 4710167.25
Participants: 24
Project status: CLOSED

Assets4Rail shares the Shift2Rail view of having an ageing European railway infrastructure that needs to cope with the expected increased traffics in the future. Likewise, reliable rolling stock will be required to crystallize the desired modal shift to rail. Both goals relay on a proactive and cost-effective maintenance and intervention system in the assets. Assets4Rail aims to contribute to this modal shift by exploring, adapting and testing cutting-edge technologies for railway asset monitoring and maintenance. To achieve that, Assets4Rail follows a twofold approach, including infrastructure (tunnel, bridges, track geometry, and safety systems) and vehicles. A dedicated information model (BIM) will be the keystone of the infrastructure part of the project. This model with integrated algorithms will gather and analyze the information collected by specific sensors which will monitor subsurface tunnel defects, fatigue consumption, noise and vibrations of bridges as well as track geometry. On the other hand, train monitoring will include the installation of track-side and underframe imaging automated system to collect data for detecting specific types of defects that have non-negligible impacts on infrastructure. The additional use of the RFID technology will enable the smooth identification of trains and single elements, associated with the identified rolling stock failures. The combination of mentioned real-time collected data with existing data along the implementation of deep learning techniques for assessing large data volumes will pave the way towards a cost-effective and proactive maintenance process of infrastructure and rolling stock. In addition, two innovative intervention methods, noise rail dampers and the cleaning of long tunnel drainage pipes, will be validated on field. Assets4Rail will benefit from a strong multidisciplinary consortium committed to concrete exploitation activities aligned towards the achievement of the challenging project objectives.

Keywords: railway assets,bridges,tunnels,tracks,safety systems,measuring,monitoring,data handling
Targeting hMGL-GalNAc interactions to reverse immune suppression in cancer (MGLycan)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Chemistry
Countries involved: Spain
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2019-06-01
End date: 2021-10-08
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 172932.48
EU funding (EUR): 172932.48
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The appearance of aberrant glycans on the tumor cell surface is one of the emerging hallmarks of cancer. Tumor growth is accompanied by tumor evasion of the immune system which limits the efficacy of cancer vaccines. However, and despite the fact that aberrant tumor glycosylation alters how the immune system perceives the tumor and, can also induce immunosuppressive signaling through glycan-binding receptors, the role of tumor glycosylation in immune evasion has mostly been overlooked. It is clear that new strategies to avoid the immune escape mechanisms generated by tumor cells are required. The interaction between the immune system and Tumor-Associated Carbohydrates Antigens (TACAs) is facilitated by a diverse set of carbohydrate-binding receptors, as the C-type lectin receptors (CLRs) which mediate specific interactions with TACAs controlling many features of the immune response. The immune escape mechanisms generated by truncated O-glycans, such as Tn antigen (αGalNAc-Ser/Thr) are still poorly understood. Human macrophage galactose-type lectin (hMGL) is a CLR that recognizes terminal GalNAc moieties, and is, therefore, a prime receptor for the aberrant O-glycans in cancer. MGL is upregulated in tolerogenic and immature dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages playing an important role in immunosuppression. It interacts with effector T-cells, resulting in reduced proliferation, cytokine secretion and induction of T-cell apoptosis. In this project, we propose the design and synthesis of multivalent MGL ligands mimetics with an improved affinity toward this receptor, that will serve as selective inhibitors to reverse GalNAc-mediated immune suppression for cancer immunotherapy.

Keywords: carbohydrate,lacdinac,galnac,hmgl,enzymatic synthesis,glycomimetic,click chemistry,microarray,binding assays,multivalency,neoglycoprotein based nanoparticle,dendritic cell,immunoresponse
Molecular mechanisms of presynaptic plasticity (PreSynPlast)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Panel description: Nervous system development, homeostasis and ageing, nervous system function and dysfunction, systems neuroscience and modelling, biological basis of cognitive processes and of behaviour, neurological and mental disorders
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2019-COG, 2019)
Start date: 2020-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1609937.0
EU funding (EUR): 1609937.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The ambitious goal of this project is to reveal the molecular mechanisms of presynaptic plasticity in the vertebrate brain. Synaptic plasticity occurs in the form of alterations in both presynaptic neurotransmitter release and postsynaptic receptor function. However, due to technical reasons and in contrast to intensely studied postsynaptic plasticity, the presynaptic half of the brain’s synaptic plasticity remains enigmatic. This is a crucial knowledge gap for our understanding of learning and memory. My ambitious aim is therefore to uncover the molecular and biophysical mechanisms of presynaptic plasticity. Building on my strong track record in presynaptic research, my group made a technical breakthrough by establishing patch-clamp recordings from small nerve terminals of cultured neocortical neurons with unprecedented high resolution. In addition, we use an innovative super-resolution-microscopy approach resolving the rearrangement of proteins within the presynaptic neurotransmitter release site, which allows high-throughput screening of all major classes of synaptic genes for their involvement in presynaptic plasticity. To reveal the neuron- and plasticity-type specificity, the identified molecular pathways will be analysed in different types of neurons in culture and acute brain slices. Building on these unique abilities, I will also investigate physiological and pathophysiological modulations of presynaptic plasticity. Specifically, I will test the hypothesis that metabolic constraints regulate presynaptic plasticity and that the amyloid pathology of Alzheimer’s disease impacts presynaptic plasticity. Thus, for the first time in the history of neuroscience, neocortical nerve terminals can be investigated with direct electrophysiological recordings and super-resolution microscopy providing unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution for the analysis of presynaptic plasticity. The results could pave the way for new approaches treating neurological diseases.

Keywords: presynaptic function and plasticity,presynaptic patch clamp recordings,super resolution microcopy,biophysical and molecular mechanisms
Boosting Performance of Phase Change Devices by Hetero- and Nano-Structure Material Design (BeforeHand)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Italy,Italy,Italy,Germany,France,France,Netherlands
Call: Electronic Smart Systems (ESS) (H2020-ICT-2018-2, 2018)
Start date: 2019-01-01
End date: 2022-06-30
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3999451.25
EU funding (EUR): 3999451.25
Participants: 9
Project status: CLOSED

This proposal aims at establishing the foundations of a new technology, suitable for the implementation in networks of Electronic Smart Systems (ESS) exploiting the capability of phase-change materials to process and store data in the very same physical place, with particular focus on automotive applications. The ESS of the future should be able to sense its environment, locally store and process the information, as well as communicate with other objects in a network. Within our project the realization of processing/storage devices will be achieved through the development of new material combinations with the best material trade-off benchmarked for automotive applications. We will make use of a test vehicle to allow the comparison among different materials. After successful evaluation of the best material combination, a demonstrator with processing/storage ability will be implemented. At the end of the project a full evaluation of the demonstrator will be performed. Furthermore, integration in an embedded chip environment for automotive application, as well as scalability and reliability issues, will be evaluated. The results are going to be made public and used to plan the first chip with embedded state of the art technology to be implemented in the automotive sector, with an expected direct impact on the Internet of Things (IoT) market. BeforeHand will provide a practical realization of such a novel technological computing paradigm. BeforeHand is a project with a strong involvement of material development, device preparation and functionality in terms of memory devices, as well as data processing devices, in order to address the call requirements. Chalcogenide heterostructures developed in BeforeHand for processing/storage devices to be embedded in automotive IoT smart devices have a disruptive future innovative potential, which might lead to breakthroughs at different technology levels: from basic research beyond the state-of-the-art, to products.

Keywords: novel smart technologies,processing,storage devices,embedded memories for micro controller units,automotive applications,phase change materials