Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Titan Atmospheric Composition: Tholins and Ionospheric Chemistry (TACTIC)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IRG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-09-01
End date: 2012-08-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 75000.0
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is a fascinating object, with its dense atmosphere, mostly constituted of nitrogen and methane. Solar radiation and energetic particles from Saturn’s magnetosphere induce a complex chemistry in this atmosphere, leading to the formation of hydrocarbons and nitriles. Very recently, the Cassini-Huygens space mission has revealed the presence in the ionosphere of negatively charged ions of the type CxHyNz-, with a mass-to-charge ratio up to 10,000. This is an exceptional discovery, as negative ions had not been predicted. Negative ion production and chemistry is poorly known. In order to understand the ionospheric processes leading to the ions, complex kinetic models of Titan’s ionospheric chemistry have to be developed. The models require ion molecule reaction rates and product branching ratios that are determined by laboratory experiments. However, kinetic data about negative ions are often outdated or even lacking. I propose to measure reaction rate constants, and to obtain structural information concerning ionic species of the type CxHyNz-. A commercial high-resolution mass spectrometer of a new type (LTQ-Orbitrap) has recently been acquired at the Laboratoire de Planétologie de Grenoble in order to study positive ion chemistry. I will take advantage of the fact that the Orbitrap is perfectly adapted for the study of negative ions. This experimental work will be guided by kinetic modeling of Titan’s ionosphere conducted in close collaboration with planetary scientists. Another part of the project will be to gain some insight on the haze that surrounds Titan. Laboratory synthesized analog compounds, the so-called « tholins », are produced in plasmas of nitrogen/methane mixtures. We plan to use the high-resolution mass spectrometer to perform structural analysis of their volatile fraction, and also to investigate the processes underlying their nucleation and growth.

Keywords: ion-molecule reactions,ionosphere,high-resolution mass spectrometry,titan
P2P middleware for the deployment of an innovative business model for the provision of a QoS_aware video multicast transport service over the Internet (P2P-PROVIDEO)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IRG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2008-11-03
End date: 2011-11-02
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 75000.0
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In the last few years, P2P communications has emerged as the innovative paradigm for the provision of new services. Will P2P architectures have a role in adequately serving a significant fraction of all multimedia application’s wealth? Will a new role for telecommunication operators be possible within the P2P framework? These questions imply the profitable provisioning of a P2P multicast delivery service to any application-service-operator that requests it; to bring multicast to the masses by exploiting the P2P paradigm is in fact a challenging and new business opportunity. It is the purpose of this project to provide technical guidelines that will implement P2P multicast transport services in an economical and profitable manner as well as scientific conclusions about the technical choices that warrant scalability and stability to P2P multicast applications. First, a business model for the P2P paradigm will be provided. A number of roles reflecting the major business separations of the telecommunications and information markets will be pointed out to identify the new actors involved in P2P systems providing multicast services. Second, a definition of proper pricing policies will be defined. The adoption of a successful pricing model for video and voice services in a paid peering modality is a key driver for the evolution of these services. Third, a design of a structured P2P protocol layer stack providing multicast data transfer to any application will be considered. Finally, models of multicast live streaming applications based on a P2P overlay network that provides for multicast connectivity will be developed in order to evaluate the effects on the quality perceived by the P2P system end-user of the interactions between real time and best effort traffic.The realization of the project will allow the researcher to be reintegrated within the host institution, skills acquired in US will be promoted, and connections between American institutions and the host maintained

Keywords: computer engineering,broadband technology,traffic telematics
Construction of Well- defined Ubiquitin Conjugates (UB)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: European Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-ERG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2008-10-15
End date: 2011-10-14
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 45000.0
EU funding (EUR): 45000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Ubiquitination and deubiquitination of proteins has emerged as an important biological regulatory process. For any investigational and therapeutical purposes, well-defined ubiquitin(-like) conjugates are of prime importance and to date, these have mainly been constructed by enzyme based strategies. However, besides the general potential problems of enzymatic transformations (e.g. yield, isolation, expression), the promiscuous nature of ubiquitination severely limits their general applicability. Despite this and the growing evidence that structural organization of ubiquitin chains is more complicated and important than anticipated, the development of synthetic strategies towards well-defined Ub(ls) has received little attention. This proposal will present synthetic strategies which I believe hold great potential as general approaches towards well-defined ubiquitin conjugates. Chemical approaches and resulting reagents are not only desired for their analytical value but will also assist future developments of targeted therapeutics.

Keywords: ubiquitin,chemo- and siteselectivity,deubiquitinating enzymes,chemical probes,dehydroalanine
Computational methods for biological sequence analysis with application to evolution of yeast mitochondrial genomes (BIOSEQANALYSIS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Slovakia
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IRG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-01-01
End date: 2012-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Modern molecular biology relies on high-throughput technologies to generate large quantities of data about components of living cells and on sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques for analyzing this data. We will develop new algorithms and probabilistic models in areas of comparative genomics, gene finding, and homology search. In particular, we propose a new class of evolutionary models for modeling changes in exon structure of protein coding genes. These models have applications in gene finding and ancestral sequence reconstruction. We will also develop more efficient methods for homology search in large databases containing families of related sequences. Finally, we will apply both existing and new methods to comparative analysis of mitochondrial genomes in Candida genus. Some of these genomes have linear chromosomes terminated with telomere-like structures similar to eukaryotic nuclear chromosomes, yet of independent evolutionary origin. By studying these sequences, we aim to address fundamental questions of evolution of linear genomes and telomeric regions, and evolution of binding specificity in DNA binding proteins. This interdisciplinary project will be carried out in cooperation with researchers from both computer science and biology at Comenius University in Bratislava.

Keywords: computational biology,molecular evolution,algorithms,probabilistic modeling,comparative genomics
Conformational Dynamics of Proteins by Solid-State NMR (PROTEIN DYNAMICS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IRG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2008-09-22
End date: 2011-09-21
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 75000.0
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Conformational dynamics are intimately linked to the biological activity of proteins, thereby regulating the essential processes of life. In particular protein motion plays an essential role in catalysis, allowing conformational rearrangements to align key catalytic amino acids and in ligand binding allowing the entry of co-factors into areas that would otherwise be inaccessible. Mobility also plays a major role in the thermodynamic stability of functional states; in molecular recognition processes that often involve disorder-to-order transitions; and in allostery and molecular signalling, where correlated molecular motions can transmit information between distant sites in a protein. Dynamic transitions also mediate the onset of pathological malfunction and disease. NMR spectroscopy is uniquely suited to study a large number of these dynamic processes, resolving detailed and important site-specific information about motions spanning a vast range of time scales in both folded and unfolded proteins, and in both the liquid and the solid phase. We believe that the key to understanding the complex relationship between protein dynamics and molecular function and malfunction requires an accurate description of the behavior of proteins in their different phases and forms, and an understanding of the transition between different states. In this study we are interested in developing a self-consistent framework for measuring and describing protein dynamics in the solid state. To this end in this project we propose to develop a number of NMR methods extending substantially the scope of accessible protein motions in solids. This work is a part of concerted collaborative effort that couples for the first time NMR data from both solid and solutions with complementary data from elastic incoherent neutron scattering and molecular simulation in order to provide a general consistent picture of dynamical processes in proteins.

Keywords: structural biology,nmr,ssnmr,proteins,molecular dynamics,structure,local motions
Computational neuroimaging: quantitative models of human visual neurons (PRF MODELS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IRG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2009-02-01
End date: 2013-01-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

One of the most complex systems, often referred to as science’s last frontier, is the human brain. However, human neuroscience research is constrained; it has no or rarely access to invasive procedures that are widely used in animals. Invasive procedures allow measurements at much smaller scales, e.g. at level of individual neurons. Consequently, most knowledge of human neurons is extrapolated from animal experiments. Ultimately, at least some human and animal neuronal properties will differ, making human measurements at comparable scales essential. We propose to bridge this gap by coupling non-invasive human neuroimaging signals, measured at the millimetre scale, with neuronal properties, measured at the micron scale. We will use a new computational neuroimaging method, which measures human neuronal population properties that are close to those derived from invasive animal experiments (Dumoulin and Wandell, 2008). The utility of these methods extends from basic to applied neuroscience, as supported by initial observations in both rare, i.e. achiasma, and common disorders, i.e. macular degeneration a leading cause of visual impairment. Thus, this method has both fundamental and clinical applications. We will extend this method in three ways. First, we will extend this method from human population to single neuron estimates. We require that our estimates replicate well-established animal experiments and human behavioural data. Second, we will validate the measurements with predictions derived from an established theoretical framework. The ability to confirm basic observations is crucial for correct interpretations of potential differences. The current theoretical framework was established using artificial stimuli that are supposed to extrapolate to natural conditions. However, recent studies suggest that this extrapolation capability is limited. Third, we will extend this method to build more complex models of neuronal properties under natural viewing conditions.

Keywords: neurosciences,brain research,cognitive science,experimental psychology,neurophysiology,neurobiology,neuroimaging,fmri,vision,visual cortex,functional biology,neuron,human
Global biodiversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi: taxonomic and functional patterns (GLOBAM)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: European Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Estonia
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-ERG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2008-10-01
End date: 2011-09-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 45000.0
EU funding (EUR): 45000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The project has three objectives: (1) Describe the biodiversity patterns of Glomeromycota in plant roots in selected global biodiversity hotspots. Current information about the global biodiversity patterns indicates major gaps in several types of ecosystems and geographic regions. We will focus on two contrasting geographic ecosystems: tropical forests and deserts. Descriptive biodiversity surveys of Glomeromycota will be implemented using existing methodological approach of PCR, cloning and sequencing. (2) Develop global database of Glomeromycota identified in plant roots. The database will include all published environmental sequences and relevant related information. As a critical part, synonymy of researcher-created operational taxonomic units will be created in order to progeress comparability of independent data. This will enable to create distribution maps of molecular AM fungal taxa, which will be provided online. This publicly accessible and searchable database will further generate understanding of worldwide biodiversity of Glomeromycota. (3) Identify the functional diversity patterns of Glomeromycota in an ecosystem that is well described in terms of Glomeromycota biodiversity patterns – boreo-nemoral forest - and the ecosystems studied for biodiversity in Obj.1. The interpretation of biodiversity patterns in terms of their functional significance is pivotal in order to understand ecosystem functioning and to predict the impact of management/disturbance and climate change on soil microbial communities. The experimentation complementing biodiversity surveys will use both native fungal inoculum and pre-existing isolates, in order to specify the functional profiles of fungal assemblages at locations. We will focus on description of functional properties of individual fungi and their assemblages in single plant and plant community conditions. Fungal growth (biomass) will be assessed in these conditions, and under different nutrient and water availability.

Keywords: anthropogenic impact on ecosystems,tropical ecosystems,forest biodiversity,soil biodiversity,computational biology
Characterization of membrane protein dynamics by hydrogen/deuterium exchange and time-resolved infrared spectroscopy, assisted by maximum entropy and Bayesian methods of analysis (NAGOYA2BCN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-IRG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2008-09-01
End date: 2010-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 50000.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Protein dynamics is essentially linked to protein function, aggregation, and folding. Time-resolved spectroscopy is specially suited to reveal these dynamics, counterbalancing the static pure-structural information provided by X-ray crystallographic structures. In equilibrium, protein conformation fluctuates, eventually visiting all possible higher-energy states in equilibrium with the ground state conformation. For soluble proteins the dynamics of such fluctuations have been successfully detected and characterized by hydrogen/deuterium exchange (HDX) combined with NMR spectroscopy. However, experimental limitations of NMR spectroscopy have precluded a similar level of understanding of the dynamics of membrane proteins. Proteins dynamics manifest themselves also when a fast perturbation is applied, such as when a laser pulse is applied to proteins with photocycles. Both in HDX and in perturbation experiments the time-resolved response of the system is a multi-exponential relaxation process. However, the relevant information to characterize and understand the protein dynamics is not the relaxation process itself, but the number, value, and nature (discrete/distributed) of the rate constants of the relaxation process. In this project our first goal is the improvement, development and application of maximum entropy and Bayesian methods to analyze the multi-exponential data arising in the HDX of membrane proteins, and in the photocycles of membrane proteins. Simultaneously, we will implement new experimental approaches of HDX to obtain dynamics information of membrane proteins by infrared spectroscopy, and apply them to at least three membrane protein systems: the melibiose transporter, bacteriorhodopsin, and a G-protein coupled receptor chimera. The combined success of both interdisciplinary goals should provide unique and fundamental information for a better understanding of membrane protein dynamics.

Keywords: membrane proteins,dynamics,h/d exchange,photocycles,time-resolved infrared spectroscopy,maximum entropy,bayesian inference,rhodopsins,melibiose transporter,g-protein coupled receptors
Study of the functional role of microRNAs in the eye (EYE MICRORNAS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: European Re-integration Grants
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-ERG-2008, 2008)
Start date: 2008-10-01
End date: 2012-02-29
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 45000.0
EU funding (EUR): 45000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The eye is a highly specialized organ whose development and function requires a precise coordination and timing of morphogenetic and cell differentiation events. However, in spite of the recent significant advances in the field, also facilitated by the human and the mouse genomic sequencing efforts, the transcriptional control of this complex network of events is still poorly understood. This project aims at gaining further insights into the control of gene expression in eye tissue and cell types, by identifying novel microRNA-mediated mechanisms that may greatly contribute to this complex function. microRNAs are 21-25 nucleotide small RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression. Although several microRNAs are reported to be expressed in ocular tissues, their role in the eye transcriptome is completely unknown. In this project, we aim at the identification, detailed characterization and functional analysis of microRNAs expressed in the non-retinal parts of the eye, such as lens, cornea and ciliary body. In particular, we will select and characterize microRNAs with a presumptive role in eye development and function, by first carrying out detailed expression analysis in mouse by RNA in situ hybridization to establish their spatiotemporal localization. The selected eye-expressed miRNAs will be further evaluated to identify, by bioinformatics approaches, followed by in vitro experimental validation procedures, their putative target genes. Finally, these miRNAs will be analyzed from a functional point of view, by means of overexpression and loss-of-function studies, both using in vitro (cell cultures) and in vivo (medaka) systems. We believe that this effort should lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms controlling gene expression in the eye and may also contribute to the identification of novel pathogenetic mechanisms for eye pathological conditions.

Keywords: micrornas,eye,gene regulation,gene expression,lens,cornea,eye development,eye disease,vision