Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Fabrication and development of nanotoxicology-test bacterial arrays for the investigation of antibiotics against multi drug-resistant bacteria. (NANOTESTS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IOF, 2010)
Start date: 2012-03-01
End date: 2015-02-28
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 223669.6
EU funding (EUR): 223669.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is one of medicine's most vexing challenges. Most antibiotics initially work really well, killing more than 99.9% of microbes they target. But through mutation and the selection pressure exerted by the antibiotic, a few inevitably manage to survive, and flourish as antibiotic-resistant strains. Hence, new strategies to design antibiotic to combat drug-resistant bacteria are required. Many drug delivery systems based on nanomaterials have been developed during the last decade, being the toxicology of these materials into single bacteria still not thoroughly evaluated due to the lack of reliable techniques to confine individual microbes. Prof. Whitesides' group in Harvard University (USA) is undoubtedly a world leader in this area, as it has a high international profile earned through many key contributions about novel nanofabrication methods for microbiological applications during the last 20 years. Prof. Miranda and Prof. Carrascosa (both from IMDEA Nanoscience-Spain) are the leaders of research groups working in collaboration for (i) the development of novel antibiotic strategies based on drug delivery nano-systems and (ii) biophysical aspects of cell mechanics, self-assembly properties of organic heterostructures and supramolecular nanomachines. The time is ripe to integrate the various strategies developed by Prof. Whitesides’ group to confine single living bacteria with the novel strategies for drug delivery that are being developed at IMDEA Nanoscience-Spain. The aim of the present OIF includes consolidating IMDEA expertise in the toxicological effect of nanoparticle based drug carriers into individual bacteria in order to develop a novel set of antibiotics for treatment of multi drug-resistant bacteria and to contribute to fundamental questions about bacterial biology, such as cell wall biophysics, chemical bonding and DNA conformational dynamics.

Keywords: nanobiotechnology,nanotechnology,nanosystems,biomedical materials,toxicology,pharmacological sciences
The Role of Microbial Metabolites in Pb-Calcite Surface Interactions (MIME)

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: Denmark
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IIF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2013-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 230627.2
EU funding (EUR): 230627.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The behavior of metals, many of which are toxic even in trace quantities, is an important topic as population growth puts pressure on the world’s drinking water resources. Relatively little is yet known about the interdependencies between the biotic and abiotic aspects of metal sorption. The overall aim of my project is to define the processes by which microbial metabolites mediate Pb sorption on calcite. I will use a combination of surface sensitive techniques, including X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), and Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation Monitoring (QCM-D) to extend current understanding of the biogeochemical controls on Pb behavior to the molecular scale. My study lies at the intersection of geoscience, surface physics and biointerface science and uses an interdisciplinary approach to answer questions at the crossover of environmental bio- and geochemistry, that are critical for society. The results will provide insights for the water industry, so treatment can be improved by providing criteria for selecting bacteria that can synthesize particular metabolites to immobilize specific toxic metals. Internal corrosion of Pb pipes in water distribution systems is currently an immediate, world-wide public health concern. A recent study estimated that 25% of houses in the EU have at least one Pb pipe, putting 120 million Europeans at risk. My background in drinking water treatment, the new expertise I will gain and the results from the MiMe project will address this concern. I bring my experience and motivation to the members of the Nano-Science Center, to exchange for the opportunity to learn new skills on a set of unique instruments that can “see” at the molecular-level. This new knowledge will form the base for my future research. Indeed, my host, Prof. Stipp’s expertise in the nano-scale processes on mineral surfaces is at the top of the field; I will benefit tremendously from my time at the University of Copenhagen

Keywords: microbial metabolites,calcite,sorption,xps,afm,qcm-d
Structural studies of the interaction between Hsp70 and alpha-synuclein (HSP70ASYN)

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-2010-IEF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-08-01
End date: 2012-01-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 209592.8
EU funding (EUR): 209592.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Protein misfolding and aggregation are associated with a wide range of severe, and so far incurable, neurological and systemic disorders, which include Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and type II diabetes. As these conditions are the consequence of the impairment of protein homeostasis, a variety of cellular natural defenses have evolved to eliminate protein aggregates as they form. In this application we are concerned with the problem of understanding the molecular basis of such defense mechanisms, by focusing on the specific case of the interaction between alpha-synuclein, a protein closely involved in Parkinson's disease, and Hsp70, a molecular chaperone with a variety of cellular functions, including the ability of recognising misfolded or aggregated proteins. We are going to address this problem using a wide arsenal of biophysical, biochemical and computational methods, including FRET and NMR spectroscopy, fluorescence methods, dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, isothermal titration calorimetry and molecular dynamics simulations. The outcome of this study will provide relevant structural information at atomic level on the binding modes of Hsp70 with diverse molecular forms of alpha-synuclein related to neurotoxicity. The results of this project are expected to increase our understanding of the molecular basis of the interactions between molecular chaperones and unstructured states of proteins, as well as to provide insights for the development of novel strategies for the rational design of therapeutic approaches against protein aggregation.

Keywords: structural biology,molecular biology,computational biology,parkinson's disease,alpha-synuclein,hsp70,molecular chaperones,protein homeostasis
Railway Stations as Interface between The Global and The Local (PORTA)

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: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-05-01
End date: 2013-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 240205.0
EU funding (EUR): 240205.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

PORTA proposes to study the social dynamics of mobility environments associated with inner-city high-speed rail stations. Previous related studies point at a tension between everyday life rhythms, and the development choices of railway stations. In PORTA I argue for the inclusion of the provision for social life in decision making processes for railway stations development, as a measurable parameter of spatial quality that indicate city’s potential success in the global marketplace. Based on my research experience on public space quality within the globalization process, I assess the role of mobility environments as interface between global and local scale by using the field research method of rhythm-analyses in which I compare and contrast the associated social life of railway stations in Paris, Zurich, and Bucharest. Rather than examining land use and urban morphology as mostly in the state of the art, I identify sustainable ways for future development in the surrounding areas of railway stations concerning a model of social life that is diverse, civil and convivial. Out of this original empirical research I structure a theoretical framework that lays out mutual relationships between design and planning processes, and everyday life rhythms of mobility environments, to facilitate future choices for location and railway networks development. For the challenge to bridge planning theory and practice, my collaboration with ETH Zurich provides critical feedback of practical expertise, including the organization of a test planning process to verify the study’s theoretical findings against real-world projects like CODE24. Through exposure to technical rationality and practical wisdom I will gain organizational skills, improve my capabilities to design solid empirical research and to advance theory with realistic feedback. Moreover, I will train how to progress from knowledge into action, which will enable me to reach an independent position as a planning professional.

Keywords: sustainable development,rail networks,high-speed-trains,urban networks,railway stations,public spaces,everyday life
Catalytic Foldamers: Engineering a Second Coordination Sphere Around a Hydrogenase Mimic (CATAMERS)

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-2010-IIF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-03-01
End date: 2013-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 195064.0
EU funding (EUR): 195064.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The protein environment that surrounds metalloenzyme active sites imparts a wide range of effects that facilitate catalysis. Supramolecular supports for homogenous catalysis may model a number of these effects. However, the use of dendrimers or polymers to provide directed second coordination sphere effects is limited by their unpredictable/unstable structures. Foldamers, based on aromatic amide units, have structures that are both highly stable and predictable in a wide range of solvents. These qualities and the modular approach to their synthesis allows for engineering of cavities of defined size with an organized array of functional groups. This project plans to explore the application of foldamers as supramolecular supports for small molecule mimics of metalloenzyme active sites, specifically [FeFe]-hydrogenase, and in doing so develop a new generation of hydrogenase models with a well defined and tunable second coordination sphere. The research involves the in silico design, and chemical synthesis of foldamers that incorporate small molecule models of [FeFe]-hydrogenase. Through electrochemical and variable temperature NMR studies, the effect of the support on the fluxional and electrocatalytic properties of the model complex will be studied. The applicant has experience in the synthesis and characterization of biomimetics of [FeFe]-hydrogenase and the use of supramolecular supports (cyclodextrins) for their encapsulation. Through joining a host lab in France that specializes in the synthesis and structural characterization of aromatic amide foldamers, this expertise in bioinspired catalysts will be transferred via the proposed cooperative work. Additionally the applicant would act as an envoy between the host lab and a group in Germany, with whom the host lab has an established collaboration, for the spectroelectrochemical study of the foldamer complex systems, thus expanding the transfer of knowledge.

Keywords: foldamers,biomimetics,hydrogenase,hydrogen production,enzyme mimics,supported catalysis,structural chemistry,macromolecular chemistry
In Operando Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Studies of Anionic Conductors for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (NMRSOFC)

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: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IIF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-03-01
End date: 2013-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 210092.8
EU funding (EUR): 210092.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Energy consumption and production that rely on fossil fuels is forecast to have a severe future impact on world economics and ecology. Electrochemical energy production is under serious consideration as an alternative energy/power source. Systems for electrochemical energy storage and production include batteries and fuel cells, the latter being of greater interest due to the higher availability. Fuel cells are typically classified by the type of electrolyte. The Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC), where the electrolyte is a solid, has been proposed as the most effective choice due to its versatile choice of fuel, almost quantitative thermodynamic efficiency and tolerance to most impurities. Nevertheless, limitations and problems arise from the high operating temperatures (700 °C) and very humid atmospheres (pH2O = 0.5), which are largely due to the low anionic O2- and protonic H+ conductivities of anionic conductors electrolyte materials. Overall SOFC improvement relies on increasing the conductivities of the electrolyte, which could only be obtained from a mechanism understanding of how O2- and H+ propagate through the electrolyte. We proposed here to tackle these issues by studying the structural chemistry and O2- / H+ dynamics of electrolyte materials under in operando SOFC conditions using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, the most powerful structural determination technique available. The approach will rely on the combined use of state of the art very high field NMR spectrometers, robust solid state NMR probes capable of performing NMR experiments up to 800 °C and endless lists of NMR experiments to obtain structural data and dynamics models covering all timescales. In combination with other in operando techniques (XAS, AC), we aim to obtain mechanisms of conduction subsequently used to design better electrolytes materials with higher conductivities properties compatible with the manufacturing of fuel cells operating at lower temperatures.

Keywords: physical sciences,inorganic chemistry,reaction mechanisms ands dynamics,structural chemistry,technological sciences,high temperature fuel cells
Spark Plasma Sintering Nanostructured Thermoelectrics (SPARKNANOTE)

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: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IIF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-10-15
End date: 2013-10-14
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 210092.8
EU funding (EUR): 210092.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

There is an increasing demand for alternative energy technologies to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. One approach is to use thermoelectric (TE) materials to scaving waste heat energy and to convert it into useful electrical energy. Thermoelectric materials have the additional potential advantages that they could be: small, inexpensive, lightweight, quiet and pollution-free. These applications call for thermoelectric materials with high zT which requires higher Seebeck coefficient, higher electrical conductivity, and lower thermal conductivity. In this project, two strategies are used to reduce lattice thermal conductivity and then improve the zT: one is phonon-glass substitution within the unit cell by creating point defects such as interstitials and vacancies; another is the introduction of more interfaces on the nanometre scale. Using these approaches, we will identify promising optimised compositions, control the grain morphology and size, and sinter plate-like powders by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS), to produce (Ag, Se, Ba, Yb, et al) doped Bi2Te3 and CoSb3-based bulk layer-textured nanomaterials. Through the optimization of the compostion, sintering process and microstructure it may be possible to significantly enhance zT. The main objective of this work is to develop thermoelectric nanomaterials and devices with zT values >2 to replace current commerical materials. Meanwhile, The research will also improve the fundamental understanding of these materials. At the microscale, stress and size effects on the thermal conductivity and zT properties will be studied and the mechanisms involved will be established.

Keywords: spark plamsa sintering,thermoelectric,nanomaterials
Philosophy of the Web: From Hypertext Representations to Collective Intelligence (PHILOWEB)

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: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-08-01
End date: 2013-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 178548.0
EU funding (EUR): 178548.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In the wake of its technological success and the structural change the World Wide Web has effected on the world, Web designers and researchers are being forced to confront a range of foundational issues with clear philosophical dimensions. These include old philosophical issues in modern guises – issues concerning knowledge, identity and language – as well as new questions raised by the increasingly complex ways in which the Web is embedded in the larger world, as embodied in the Semantic Web and Internet of Things initiatives. In an world increasingly dominated by information technologies like the World Wide Web, our very nature as individuals is gradually changing as our cognitive and social capacities seem increasingly externalized. However, philosophers has only just begun to connect the information technology like the Web to both a French tradition of systematic philosophy that explores the historical origins of conceptual structures and the rigorously analytic Anglo-American approach that requires all claims to be grounded in logic and empirical evidence. By virtue of this fellowship, we hope to begin a wider project that in an innovative manner that binds both these philosophical traditions to a common empirical object of study: the World Wide Web. What is required is a strictly interdisciplinary approach that seeks to place the emerging work in information science on the Web within a larger framework that includes cognition and embodiment, and likewise have that framework be shaped by the latest scientific and technological development of the Web. This fellowship aims to facilitate and structure this goal by by having the work of renown French philosopher of technology Bernard Stiegler serve as the foundation for an analysis of the Web. The eventual goal of the project will be to produce a book-length foundational manuscript, tentatively entitled The Open World: A Philosophy of the Web. The fellowship will take place under Bernard Stiegler of lRI.

Keywords: internet technology,information technology,systematic philosophy
Inorganic-Organic Hybrid Materials through Controlled Self-Assembly of Nano-Building Blocks (HYSOL)

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: Belgium
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-04-01
End date: 2011-12-31
Duration (months): 9.0
Total project cost (EUR): 163800.0
EU funding (EUR): 163800.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

There have been major advances in the efficiency and efficacy of flexible electronic devices such as Organic Photovoltaics (OPV’s) and Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDS). Premature failure of the devices will occur through ingress of moisture and oxygen. Today there is however no simple, low cost process to create a “barrier” to such ingress and extend device lifetimes. This project will investigate the structure–barrier property relationships in inorganic-organic hybrid coatings. The structures will be formed through the controlled self-assembly of nano-scale inorganic building-blocks synthesized through adaption of sol-gel chemistry. A variety of characterization methodologies including NMR, GPC, LC-MASS, DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimetry), WAXD (wide-angle X-ray diffraction), SAXS (small-angle X-ray scattering) will be used to assess the structures formed. Focus will be directed toward regimes of hybrid composition where the inorganic self-assembles as lamellae. Such structures offer the prospects of coatings which give both the high “barrier” and the high optical transparency required in targeted applications. Cytec Surface Specialties, a chemical company, is the world leader in the supply of radiation curing resins for coatings and has the capabilities to formulate, apply, cure and test these hybrid coatings. The prospective fellow, Dr D Kogelnig, will have ample potential to expand his chemical skills from his previous work on the P/O/C based inorganic chemistry of ionic liquids to Si/O/C based chemistry required here and broaden his technical competences in polymer chemistry. His geographic transfer (Austria to Belgium) and from academia to industry is an example of genuine mobility. The training available would help him establish a career in Industry, but should he return to academia his experience will make his potential contribution from an academic environment all the more valued by industrial partners.

Keywords: organic chemistry,polymer chemistry,photochemistry,sol-gel chemistry,inorganic-organic hybrid materials,self-assembly,barrier properties