Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
MCH/COX2-depend regulation of neuronal function and neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease (SynLip)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area
Programme: Widening participation and spreading excellence
Theme: Attracting and mobilising the best talents
Destination: Attracting and mobilising the best talents
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Portugal
Call: Fostering balanced brain circulation – ERA Fellowships (HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-02, 2022)
Start date: 2023-03-01
End date: 2025-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 156778.56
EU funding (EUR): 156778.56
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients stay in a prodromal phase over many years before robust cognitive decline. During this phase, complex molecular events lead to cellular alterations, resulting in aberrant synaptic activity and chronic inflammation which leads to neuronal death and cognitive impairment. My unpublished work, shows that melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) regulates synaptic function and revealed that the MCH system is impaired in a mouse model of early AD and AD patients. I showed that MCH regulates the neuronal expression of multiple immediate early genes that control neuronal activity, and more interestingly the expression of Ptgs2/COX2. COX2 catalyzes the formation of pro-inflammatory prostaglandins from arachidonic acid but upon activity change it produces specialized pro-resolving mediators. Thus, precise COX2 levels and activity are essential to regulate the synthesis of bioactive lipids involved in the initiation and arrest of inflammation. Ptgs2/COX2 is expressed in excitatory neurons and a link to synaptic function, seizure and neuroinflammation-associated to seizure has been established. My preliminary data shows that excitatory neurons from a mouse model of early AD that displays MCH-system dysfunction, aberrant synaptic activity and neuroinflammation have altered Ptgs2 expression. Together with genetic studies that place lipid metabolism as a mediator of microglia-mediated neuroinflammation, this suggest that COX2 can play a critical role in the neuron-microglia interaction during the prodromal phase of AD. I hypothesize that impaired MCH system leads to aberrant neuronal activity and increased Ptgs2 expression, increasing pro-inflammatory mediators and recruiting microglia activation. Here, I will study how MCH-system/Ptgs2 interaction affects neuronal lipid metabolism and test if it regulates neuron-microglia communication contributing to neuroinflammation and to the onset of cognitive decline.

Keywords: alzheimer s disease,neuron,microglia,lipids,synapse,neuroinflammation,cox2
Retrieval-Augmented VIsion-Language Models for Open-vocabulary LocalizatIon (RAVIOLI)

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: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Czechia,Italy
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 191918.16
EU funding (EUR): 191918.16
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The proposed research project, RAVIOLI (Retrieval-Augmented VIsion-Language Models for Open-vocabulary LocalizatIon), aims to significantly advance the field of segmentation by innovatively integrating retrieval-based predictions from a memory with the original predictions of a vision-language model (VLM) through a learnable fusion model. Addressing a critical gap in existing methods, which often struggle to adapt to new or complex classes and domains, RAVIOLI seeks to enhance the accuracy, adaptability, and granularity of segmentation tasks across various applications, from autonomous vehicles to medical imaging. Importantly, there has been no similar attempt to learn a fusion model with these properties in any open-vocabulary dense task, such as segmentation, making our approach truly pioneering. The ambitious scope of this project lies in its aim to create a tailored, flexible, robust, and scalable solution that will redefine the capabilities of vision-language models, setting a new standard in the field of open-vocabulary segmentation. The project will be hosted by the Visual Recognition Group (VRG) at the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) under the supervision of Prof. Giorgos Tolias. The fellow, Bill Psomas, with a strong background in computer vision (CV) and deep learning (DL), is well-equipped to lead this research, which will further supported by a secondment at AImageLab, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) working with Prof. Rita Cucchiara.
Development of Metastatic Organ-on-a-Chip for modelling the role of sex steroids in Bladder cancer metastasis to bone (DeMOBilise)

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: Ireland,United States
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-02-10
End date: 2028-08-09
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 328494.96
EU funding (EUR): 328494.96
Participants: 4
Project status: SIGNED

Bladder cancer (BCa) is the 5th most common cancer in Europe, with an annual economic burden of €5 billion. Despite efforts aimed at early detection and targeted therapies, the development of metastatic BCa (5%) remains a major cause of mortality (patient survival rate of only 21 %). Recent evidence has strongly implicated a role of Bone Morphogenic Proteins (BMPs) in BCa progression. However, their regulation remains poorly understood and their role in metastatic BCa remains to be elucidated. Moreover, there is paucity of understanding regarding the gender disparity in BCa, whereby men are 4 times more likely to be diagnosed, compared to women, who have worse prognosis. DeMOBilise seeks to address this critical gap in the knowledge by investigating the synergistic role of sex steroids (SS) and BMPs in BCa bone metastasis. This will be achieved by using single cell multiomics and CRISPR gene editing, coupled with state-of-the-art Organ-on-a-chip (OoC) technology and spatially resolved imaging of the bone perivascular niche within the OoC. This study will thereby investigate, at an unprecedented level of detail, the functional role of BMP signalling and its synergy with SS in BCa metastatic processes. I will spend 2 years at Columbia University (USA) expanding my skills in cancer models and single cell sequencing and also acquiring a new skillset in OoC fabrication. I will return to the University of Limerick (Ireland) and receive training in steroidogenesis, high-dimensional imaging and mass spectrometry. Additionally, I will have a 6-month Non-Academic Placement in the start-up company Hooke Bio, who specialize in the development and utilisation of high through-put microfluidic systems for 3D microtissue drug screening. I will be immersed within a multidisciplinary team with expertise in OoC fabrication, bone metastasis, and 3D cancer modelling that will support me in meeting my research/training objectives and prepare me for a career as an independent researcher.

Keywords: bladder cancer,metastasis,bone perivascular niche,organ on a chip,sex steroids
European Network on the Supramolecular Chemistry of Carbohydrates (ENSCC)

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: Chemistry
Countries involved: Italy,Netherlands,Spain,United Kingdom,France,Germany,Denmark
Call: MSCA Doctoral Networks 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-DN-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-03-01
End date: 2028-02-29
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2895192.0
EU funding (EUR): 2676016.8
Participants: 14
Project status: SIGNED

Carbohydrates are nature’s most abundant and versatile molecules and are involved in several diseases (e.g. diabetes, infection, and cancer metastasis) and other regular processes (e.g. fertilization, immune surveillance and inflammatory responses). Understanding, monitoring and intervening in these processes could be exploited in medicinal therapies, glycobiology, and biomedical research in general. Such applications are predicated on the availability of carbohydrate binding molecules (CBMs) that can selectively and supramolecularly (noncovalently) bind a plethora of carbohydrate molecules ranging from simple monosaccharides to complex oligosaccharides and glycoconjugates. Technologies that can be developed based on CBMs include: the separation and isolation of carbohydrate containing molecules; making carbohydrate sensing and detection devices; enabling selective chemistry on (unprotected) carbohydrates; and a range of bio-functional applications. While the expertise to design, synthesize, study and exploit CBMs is mostly European, the research groups active in this emerging field work independent from each other. With this doctoral network grant, we aim to unite this expertise in the ‘European Network for the Supramolecular Chemistry of Carbohydrates’ (ENSCC). With most of the world’s leading minds on the topic and three companies that are spearheading technologies in the field, our ENSCC will be a European powerhouse that will lead the academic field globally for years to come. This will be achieved by sharing expertise, key-infrastructure, molecular building blocks, and –most importantly– by together training the ten PhDs that this doctoral network grant will fund. This training by a unique network of world-leaders, experts in the field and companies with an interest in CBMs will perfectly position our PhD students to further develop the field by continuing their career in academia and/or industry.

Keywords: biomarker detection separation,isolation and selective chemistry on carbohydrates biofunctionality
Flexible and advanced Biofuel technology through an innovative microwave pYrolysis & hydrogen-free hydrodeoxygenation process (FLEXBY)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Energy
Destination: Sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Germany,Portugal,Italy,Belgium
Call: Development of next generation advanced biofuel technologies (HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02, 2023)
Start date: 2024-05-01
End date: 2028-04-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3993682.5
EU funding (EUR): 3993682.5
Participants: 10
Project status: SIGNED

Biomass-derived liquid transportation fuels have been proposed as part of the solution to mitigate climate change and many countries are providing incentives to support the growth of bioenergy utilization. Nevertheless, most biofuels currently are made from food-related sources and have a negative impact on food production. The development of cost-effective solutions to minimize carbon waste and inhibit biogenic effluent gas emissions in sustainable biofuel production processes is still at an early stage of development. FLEXBY intends to go significantly boost this development by producing advanced biofuel through an innovative, cost-efficient process that will reach TRL5. At FLEXBY we will produce biofuel using biogenic waste from microalgae cultivated in domestic wastewater as well as the oily sludge from refineries. This residual biomass will undergo a microwave pyrolysis treatment to produce three different fractions: bio-liquid, pyro-gas, and bio-char. The bio-liquid fraction will be converted to jet, diesel, and marine bio-fuels (heavy transport biofuels) through a versatile and innovative Hydrogen-free Hydrodeoxygenation. The gaseous fraction will be converted to bio-hydrogen through a steam-reforming water gas-shift process (WGS) and preferential CO oxidation (PrOx). Both liquid and gaseous biofuel will be tested and validated in fuel cells to produce electricity, along with an evaluation of their respective suitability for the transport sector. FLEXBY promotes a circular economy by recycling biomass residues and all sub-products obtained during the project. The combined expertise of the industrially-driven consortium (formed by 1 LE, 4 SMEs, 2 universities, 1 non-profit association, and 2 RTOs) from 5 different countries will be able to achieve these objectives. In terms of impact, FLEXBY will increase the use of advanced biofuels in the heavy transport sector, mitigating climate impact in key areas of the global economy

Keywords: advanced biofuel,hydrogen free hydrodeoxygenation,microwave pyrolysis,biogenic emissions,green electricity,heavy transport biofuels,water gas shift,bio hydrogen
Performance-based engineering framework for assessing and enhancing seismic resilience of fire-exposed steel building structures (PBE-FireSeismicRes)

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: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Greece,Switzerland
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 169326.72
EU funding (EUR): 169326.72
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The reusability of steel structures after fire under seismic combinations of actions is particularly important within a variety of disciplines including ecology, sociology, and engineering. The best solution is to assess the reparability and retrofit the fire-exposed steel structures for desired seismic performance on a scientific knowledge base. The proposed PBE-FireSeismicRes project will develop a performance-based engineering framework for assessing and enhancing the seismic resilience of fire-exposed steel structure that is expected to raise major international scientific and industrial interest. This framework will be sophisticated and practical. First, collaborative research efforts will be presented to develop high-fidelity computational models of fire-exposed steel structures to assess the seismic fragility of these structures with various fire and earthquake scenarios. Second, seismic protective technologies will be developed to promote the application of the technologies and design to restore and upgrade the seismic resilience of deficient fire-exposed steel structures. Following this, design criteria, design methodology, and risk-based assessment approach will be established within the performance-based engineering framework to promote the reusability of fire-exposed steel structures. Together, the research outcomes from this project bear the potential to significantly advance the state of art in better safeguarding the built environment against earthquake hazards.

Keywords: resilience,hazards,earthquake,fire,performance based engineering,steel structures,reusability,structural engineering
Exploring the expanding universe of RNA-binding proteins in bacteria (bacRBP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator 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: Germany
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2021-COG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-11-01
End date: 2027-10-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1999625.0
EU funding (EUR): 1999625.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

All organisms use diverse modes of cellular control as they cope with changing environments. Central to these processes are RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) that impact the stability, translation, or localization of bound RNAs. While RBPs typically have distinct RNA-binding domains, a growing number of proteins that lack these domains are found to interact with RNA as well. In prokaryotes, such unconventional RBPs remain largely unexplored, in part because methods for global RNA interactome capture (RIC) in bacteria are missing. My group recently made a breakthrough in developing a novel RIC approach for bacteria that relies on primary transcript capture (CoCAP). Our pilot study successfully captured known RBPs but also uncovered numerous new RBP candidates, including metabolic or cell division proteins. We also identified a pair of widespread KH-domain proteins (KhpA/B) with links to the RNA degradosome and cell division. This points towards a wealth of unexplored RBPs involved in cellular control in bacteria. My ERC CoG proposal aims to explore the identity and functional diversity of novel RBPs in bacteria. My overarching hypothesis is that a vast, unexplored universe of unconventional RBPs exists in bacteria that play crucial roles in cellular physiology. I will tackle this through three objectives leveraging two model bacteria (Salmonella and Campylobacter) with different sets of canonical RBPs. I propose to: 1) Elucidate bacterial primary RBPomes during stress- and infection-relevant conditions. 2) Identify mechanisms and cellular functions of two widely conserved KH-domain RBPs. 3) Determine how cell division RBPs influence and are influenced by bound RNAs. Our proposed work will provide a broadly applicable method for primary RBPome capture and vastly expand the set of bacterial RBPs. Their characterization in turn will reveal new layers of cellular control and establish new targets for industrial strain engineering and antimicrobial treatments.

Keywords: rbp rna binding protein,rnp ribonucleoprotein,rna protein complexes,small rnas,regulatory rnas,post transcriptional regulation,riboregulation,enigmrbp,moonlighting enzymes,bacterial cell division,pathogenic bacteria,campylobacter jejuni,salmonella
A detailed reconstruction of the early Milky Way from its most metal-poor stars (EARLYMW)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Universe Sciences
Panel description: Astro -physics/ -chemistry/ -biology; solar system; planetary systems; stellar, galactic and extragalactic astronomy; cosmology; space sciences; astronomical instrumentation and data
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2030-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1999698.0
EU funding (EUR): 1999698.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The Gaia mission is providing many details on the dynamical complexity of our Galaxy, now and in the past. However, the picture of the Milky Way history becomes very incomplete at early times. The scarcity of well-studied early generations stars throughout different environments, represented by the lowest metallicity stars, limits us severely to study the era of First Stars and early Galaxy assembly. Next generation massively multiplexed instruments will soon complement Gaia astrometry to its faint limit with crucial radial velocities and chemical abundance patterns. Specifically, the Northern WEAVE and Southern 4MOST surveys will finally provide the high-priority targeting of the most metal-poor stars in low- and high-resolution needed. The aim of this EARLYMW ERC is to use these surveys to move the known history of our Galaxy back much farther to the first billion years after the Big Bang. I am in a unique position to make this step up from analysis of scarce individual stars to population studies, as I am leading the relevant very metal-poor target selection and survey efforts. To achieve the aim, my team and I will, after careful correction for selection effects (i) compare the chemical enrichment of early generations across Galactic components, and (ii) follow up very metal-poor tails of dynamical substructures and assess their dependence on progenitor properties. We will then compare our findings with cosmological simulations varying assumptions on early chemical enrichment. This EARLYMW project will, for the first time, provide a complete census of very metal-poor stars across various Milky Way components and quantitatively assess early enrichment processes as function of environment. Our results will constrain physical parameters for early Universe enrichment and map contributions of early supernovae explosions at much smaller scales than possible at high redshift. EARLYMW will deliver a quantitative picture of the proto-galaxy that became our Milky Way.

Keywords: first stars chemical enrichment chemical abundances galactic archaeology
Reconstructing fragmented bones, reconstructing fragmented lives (RECONSTRUCT)

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: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Cyprus,United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-06-01
End date: 2025-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 164328.0
EU funding (EUR): 164328.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Human skeletal remains can offer key information on diverse aspects of past life but, like all archaeological materials, they only give a glimpse into the life of past individuals; hence, a fragmented perspective into our ancestors’ lives. Their interpretative potential is greatly inhibited by the fact that such remains are often found fragmented due to several anthropogenic and natural taphonomic agents, such as funerary treatment, animal activity, soil pressure and others. This fragmentation severely limits the information that may be extracted from human bones in terms of metric analysis, geometry and morphology. RECONSTRUCT aims at producing 3D morphable models for the main elements of the lower and upper limbs of the human skeleton, which will be then used to infer the missing morphology of fragmented or incomplete bones. In order to achieve this aim and address a major current limitation in human skeletal analysis, RECONSTRUCT will integrate approaches from osteoarchaeology, forensic anthropology, biology, engineering, and data science. The results of the project will maximize the information that may be extracted from bioarchaeological research, contributing to a more comprehensive assessment of past life parameters. RECONSTRUCT will also have major implications in forensic anthropology since the study of modern skeletal remains suffers from similar limitations in terms of partial preservation as those witnessed in archaeological bones. Finally, the source code and raw data emanating from RECONSTRUCT will be made open access, greatly enhancing the extension of this approach to zooarchaeology, palaeoanthropology, and the prosthetic implants industry.

Keywords: bioarchaeology forensic anthropology human osteology