Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Phagosomal LC3's Alternative Role (POLAR)

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: Greece
Call: ERA Fellowships (HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-TALENTS-02, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 153486.72
EU funding (EUR): 153486.72
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The opportunistic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus is an emerging cause of life-threatening respiratory infections in an expanding group of patients with acquired innate immune defects. Dissecting the molecular dynamics of fungal-host interplay mediating sterilizing immunity against A. fumigatus is crucial to gain insight in disease pathogenesis and develop novel immunomodulatory therapies. Physiologically, Aspergillus fumigatus conidia are eliminated inside Alveolar Macrophages (AMs) via activation of the LC3 associated phagocytosis (LAP) pathway. A. fumigatus cell wall melanin blocks LAP to promote pathogenicity. Intracellular germination of A. fumigatus conidia results in exposure of immunostimulatory fungal molecules concomitantly with melanin removal and triggers NADPH oxidase-dependent activation of LAP. The molecular mechanism of LC3 conjugation on A. fumigatus phagosome membrane and the physiological function of LAP on AM biology and antifungal host defense remain elusive. Of interest, pilot studies in the host lab demonstrate that infection of AMs and other types of macrophages with live conidia of A. fumigatus results in a unique pattern of pulsatile LC3 recruitment on the phagosome membrane, which is accompanied by waves of increased phagosome permeability. These findings imply for a novel mechanism of LC3+ phagosome (LAPosome) formation via cytosolic sensing of fungal vita-PAMPs and suggests for an unconventional function of LAPosomes in regulation of membrane repair mechanisms in response to damage induced by Aspergillus infection. This research project aims to understand the precise host and pathogen molecular determinants of LAPosome formation and exploit the intriguing role of LC3 on regulation of phagosomal membrane repair during A. fumigatus infection. Using A. fumigatus as a model pathogen, this project with provide fundamental insights on the role of LAP in macrophage biology paving the way for new host-directed strategies.

Keywords: fungal immunity,non canonical autophagy
A Novel Transdermal Patch for non-invasive and pain-free delivery of Insulin and Semaglutide (MTC-Y)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Other destinations
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Poland
Call: EIC Accelerator 2024 - Short application (HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATOR-01, 2024)
Duration (months): 41.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499999.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499999.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Injections have been a longstanding staple for drug delivery, despite facing substantial challenges such as health risks, poor patient compliance, and environmental concerns associated with biomedical waste. In response to these limitations, Biotts is pioneering a paradigm shift in patient care by advancing needle-free transdermal drug delivery for large biomolecules, through its revolutionary Multifunctional Transdermal Carrier Y (MTC-Y) carrier. This innovative platform technology is the first to allow for the transdermal delivery of large molecules such as insulin in a non-invasive, pain-free manner. With this technology, Biotts is leading a transformative era in pharmaceutical applications, characterized by enhanced bioavailability and a rich diversity of active ingredients. Over the past year, Biotts has expanded the MTC-Y range of transdermally delivered molecules from 500 Da. to an unprecedented 6,000 Da, and demonstrated its efficacy with various large molecules, including insulin and GLP-1 peptides. The first applications of the MTC-Y technology (our Insulin and Semaglutide patches), can redefine therapeutic approaches by offering non-invasive, painless alternatives to daily injections, coupled with improved bioavailability, cost-competitiveness, and unparalleled patient convenience compared to traditional injectable and oral alternatives. Building on the success of our phase 1 clinical trial in November 2023, which affirmed the safety and efficacy of the MTC-Y carrier, Biotts is now poised to advance towards human clinical trials for insulin and semaglutide transdermal delivery, with an expected completion by 2026/2027. As the sole provider of needle-free and pain-free transdermal patches for large molecules, Biotts is uniquely positioned to target the growing market for diabetes management and weight loss. With projected revenues exceeding €90M by 2029, Biotts is not merely offering a solution but is set to shape the future of transdermal drug delivery.

Keywords: transdermal patch
QPC – INNOVATIVE CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL – LET’S FREE THE WORD FROM PLASTIC (QPC)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Other destinations
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Poland
Call: EIC Accelerator 2024 - Short application (HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATOR-01, 2024)
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 17500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 17500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The main goal of the project is to introduce QPC products to the European and then global market. As part of the project, the applicant wants to develop a fully automated QPC production technology and then launch the first model full-scale QPC product factory that will be able to process at least 4 tons of post-recycling residues per hour. Quartzite-polymer composite – QPC is an innovative building material that can be used to produce roof tiles, paving tiles, monuments, cubes, manholes, sewage grates and many other products. It was created as part of a project that ended on May 31, 2023 with the support of the ERDF. QPC will help solve the global problem with plastic waste. QPC is made from non-recyclable waste from the recycling of plastics (30%) and quartzite (70%). Additionally, QPC will reduce the problem of water scarcity because it does not require water in the production process. Products made of QPC are characterized by much better parameters than other products currently leading on the market, such as concrete or ceramic products. The raw materials for the production of QPC come from recycled residues, which makes QPC products much cheaper than concrete or ceramic ones. Products made of QPC are marked with the ITB "B" and EKO-ITB symbols.

Keywords: building material plastic and quartzite water scarcity
Immunometabolic regulation of the host response to viral infection in the context of obesity (Virobe)

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: Denmark
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2024-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 214934.4
EU funding (EUR): 214934.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Chronic viral diseases are of significant concern to the public health due to lack of effective vaccines and paucity of potent anti-viral medication. Notably, individuals with obesity exhibit higher morbidity and mortality due to viral diseases. However, what specific mechanisms underlie the confounding effects of obesity on the overt outcome of viral infections remains poorly understood. In pre-clinical studies, I found that obese mice developed profound and progressive loss of fat and muscle in response to chronic viral infection, while metabolically healthy animals showed only transient and significantly milder manifestation of tissue wasting in response to the virus. In this proposal, I aim to identify the mechanisms driving this marked and progressive tissue wasting in infected obese mice. Inflammation and disrupted glucose homeostasis have been implicated to play a role in tissue wasting. I hypothesize that the profound tissue wasting during viral infection results from uncontrolled glucose homeostasis, perturbations in macrophage functions and from abnormal cytokine profiles observed in the context of obesity. I will test my hypothesis using high-fat diet-induced mouse model of obesity infected with chronic strain of the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus. I will test the involvement of cytokines, macrophages as well as of glucose homeostasis in the progressive wasting in infected obese animals and evaluate if there is a crosstalk between these three factors during infection in an obese host. This project will generate critical knowledge to address why host response to virus is disrupted in the context of obesity and identify potential therapeutic strategies for improving the outcome of viral diseases such as tissue wasting in this metabolic disease. Moreover, this study will highlight the crosstalk between the immune system and body metabolism during infection and will help to better understand the processes underlying immunity to pathogens.

Keywords: viral infection,obesity,metabolism,immunology
AI-based long-term health risk evaluation for driving behaviour change strategies in children and youth (SmartCHANGE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Health
Theme: Health
Destination: Staying Healthy in a rapidly changing society
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Slovenia,Greece,Netherlands,Finland,Italy,Belgium,Portugal,Switzerland,Taiwan, Province of China
Call: Trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) tools to predict the risk of chronic non-communicable diseases and/or their progression (HORIZON-HLTH-2022-STAYHLTH-01-two-stage, 2022)
Start date: 2023-05-01
End date: 2027-04-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5967395.0
EU funding (EUR): 5967395.0
Participants: 14
Project status: SIGNED

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of death and healthcare expense. Common risk factors for many of them are obesity and low physical fitness resulting from an unhealthy lifestyle. Targeting children and youth for lifestyle interventions has been suggested because (1) early precursors of most NCDs are already present at this age, (2) childhood and adolescence are critical periods for the acquisition of healthy lifestyle habits, and (3) unhealthy lifestyle in this age group is prevalent. We propose to develop long-term risk-prediction models for cardiovascular and metabolic disease for people aged 5–19. We have already identified 15 datasets with data on behaviour, fitness, biomarkers and actual NCDs spanning various ages. We will develop machine-learning methods that can train models on such heterogeneous datasets, enabling the prediction of risk for people of various ages for whom different data is available. We will employ federated learning for data privacy, carefully curate and balance the data to ensure it is bias-free and representative of the target group, and employ methods for explanation and visualisation of the data, models and predictions. Participatory design involving explanation of the AI will be used to design two applications: one for health professionals and the other for citizens. Both will show the risks broken down by risk factors, and the recommended behaviour changes to reduce them, in a manner appropriate for each user group. The developed solution will be validated in a large proof-of-concept study in four countries involving different health settings (family, school, primary care, integrated care …). To facilitate practical use of the developed solution, we will prepare recommendations for their implementation, and a realistic exploitation plan. These activities will be supported by dissemination and communication activities specifically tailored to the target groups (e.g., involving science museums).

Keywords: children,youth,long term risk prediction,chronic ncd,behaviour change,artificial intelligence,federated learning,explainable ai,robustness,bias,participatory design,proof of concept study
The subsequent lives of Arab revolutionaries (LIVE-AR)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Panel description: Political science, international relations, law
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499930.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499930.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

What are the biographical consequences and the social outcomes of revolutionary activism when the revolutionary moment turns into a civil war, an authoritarian restoration, a fragile democratic transition, or a return to the former 'years of lead'? LIVE-AR will develop a novel and ambitious analytical approach that will focus on the 'subsequent lives' of ordinary revolutionaries in four contrasted case-studies: Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria. By articulating the micro and meso levels, it will propose a groundbreaking three-fold shift from the usual viewpoint: a) from the revolutionary moment to the 'subsequent lives' of the women and men who participated in these events and a longitudinal analysis; b) from political and state institutions and macro-political transformations to the ordinary activists and the individual level; and c) from national studies to cross-national comparisons in order to comprehend patterns and variations depending on the political context. This analytical framework will unfold along four intertwined lines of research: 1) activist careers and biographical consequences, 2) 'emotional legacies', 3) revolutionary interpersonal networks, 4) revolutionary organizations. In so doing it will not only contribute to the literature on social movements, activism and contentious politics, by providing if not a collective biography at least a detailed 'mosaic of life-stories' of activists from the Global South, but also to the field of comparative politics to which it will offer original and empirically-grounded data to document the multiple possible social outcomes of revolutionary processes as they unfold in non-democratic contexts. The project will rely on a multidisciplinary skilled team and devise a diversified qualitative methodological 'toolkit' combining life story interviews with life calendars, an analysis of digital social networks and internet archives, ethnographic observations of daily life practices and encounters, and secondary sources.

Keywords: collective action revolutionary processes activism political commitment biographical consequences of activism social outcomes of revolutions comparative politics arab spring morocco tunisia egypt syria
Nigerian Practices of Male-to-Female Cross-Dressing: Exploring Gender Transgressions in Digital Youth Culture (CROSSING)

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: Austria
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-11-01
End date: 2027-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 230184.72
EU funding (EUR): 230184.72
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This research examines how selected Nigerian youths adopt cross-dressing and concomitant expressions to transgress normative gender roles on social media. In most parts of Africa, gender non-conformance is criminalised. As a result, transvestism is shunned and Nigerian scholars have largely failed to study the un/framing of gender beyond the binary structure. In the few instances in which they have studied acts of transvestism, they have assessed them in line with governmental viewpoints, as acts of derisory subjects. Focusing on male-to-female cross-dressing (MCD) and transvestism on online platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, this study aims at filling a blatant research gap and at countering partial research perspectives. Focusing on the social media performances of Idris Okuneye (Bobrisky), James Brown (Princess of Africa), and Daniel Anthony Nsikan (Jay Boogie), I argue that these characters cross-dress and adopt gender non-conforming identities to construct new selves and challenge the political status quo. By way of online performances, they counter legal constraints and contest their social and cultural exclusion. Using an interdisciplinary methodology – methods of performance studies and digital humanities are combined with those of literary and cultural analysis, I examine the kinds of non-binary genders they perform. I discuss how they realise their acts, deploying, exaggerating, and dismantling theatrical elements and hegemonic gender stereotypes of Nigerian culture and other African societies. I also enquire how digital media are used to construct gender beyond binary structures. Adding qualitative research methods, I also analyse the ways different online/offline groups receive these performances. Finally, I gauge the potential effects of these gender-challenging online performances on an individual, communal, and cultural level. By so doing, I will become an expert on online performances and gender non-binaries in Africa.

Keywords: cross dressing,performance,nigeria,digital humanities,gender,africa
The Only Free Science: Philosophy Without Presuppositions From Classical German Philosophy to Contemporary Philosophy (TONES)

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: Italy,Belgium,United States
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 172750.08
EU funding (EUR): 172750.08
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

TONES aims to explore the idea of philosophy as a presupposition-free science and to develop this idea as a new metaphilosophical paradigm that provides a theoretical underpinning for value-free science and prejudice-free judgment and. The idea of philosophy as a presuppositionless science (PLS) has a significant history: it is traditionally associated with the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel and is originally developed both to show the uniqueness of philosophy and to ensure the neutral-objective standpoint of philosophy. Growing number of scholars have noticed the significance of PLS mainly to understanding Hegel’s philosophy. Despite this interest, scholars have largely overlooked the pre-Hegelian tradition of PLS in classical German philosophy (CGP), the metaphilosophical significance of PLS and its distinct potential to contribute to contemporary theories that seek freedom from presuppositions. TONES aims to fill this gap. The project is motivated by the following key questions: (1) What are the origins of PLS, and how was it developed in CGP? (2) What are the metaphilosophical implications of PLS for the uniqueness of philosophy compared to other sciences? (3) How the unique standpoint of PLS can fruitfully contribute to contemporary fields that strive for presuppositionlessness or value neutrality, such as implicit bias and value-free science?

Keywords: history of philosophy metaphilosophy implicit bias philosophy of science
Mass Manufacturing Augmented Reality (AR) Waveguides via Roll-to-Plate Nanoimprinting (AR-R2P)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Open to supporting projects in all areas of science, technology,...
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: EIC Accelerator Open 2023 (HORIZON-EIC-2023-ACCELERATOR-01, 2023)
Start date: 2023-10-01
End date: 2026-03-31
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3512375.0
EU funding (EUR): 2458662.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Morphotonics has developed and patented a novel technology called Roll-to-Plate (R2P) nanoimprinting that can produce high-quality and low-cost waveguides used in the Augmented Reality (AR) glasses. Our technology is protected by 90 patents (26 already granted). Augmented Reality (AR) smartglasses are not yet mass manufactured for the consumer market especially because the AR industry struggles to mass produce low-cost high-quality waveguides. Our technology is very promising, as confirmed by our prestigious sampling customers (Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Vuzix etc.). With the EIC project, we want to fully mature our equipment and technology, and prove (via an external validation with a customer) that it meets the market specifications. Furthermore, we plan to request a 10 M€ equity component to set up a European foundry to mass manufactur AR waveguides. We expect that the foundry will be used mainly by European customers, who will then regain sovereignty over the AR hardware production.

Keywords: nanotechnology