Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Transition metal carbides decoration of 3D graphene nanostructures for enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen production [CARBODOH2] (carbodoH2)

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: Spain,Greece
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2023-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181152.96
EU funding (EUR): 181152.96
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The exhaustible nature of fossil fuels places our society in seek for alternative and renewable energy carriers. Hydrogen has attracted significant attention as it holds the highest specific energy density of any known fuel. In addition, it is a clean fuel that, whose consume produces only water, electricity, and heat. Water splitting through electrolysis is an environmentally responsible, carbon-free alternative technique for hydrogen generation. Water splitting takes place in an electrolytic cell (or electrolyzer). The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) occur at the cathode and the anode of the cell, producing gaseous hydrogen and oxygen molecules, respectively. Heterogeneous electrocatalysis is a process that can accelerate these electrochemical reactions on the surface of catalysts materials. For the production of H2, the design and development of efficient catalysts towards the HER is of fundamental importance. Up today, noble metals of the platinum group (e.g. Rh, Pt, Ru) are the most attractive electrocatalysts for HER. Nevertheless, the high cost and scarcity of these materials limit their potential applications. Earth-abundant transition metals (TM) based catalysts also show great potential for the HER. Especially transition metal carbides (TMC) are very promising materials for this application, thanks to their performance and availability. In order to increase H2 generation per electrode surface area, it is beneficial to engineer catalysts with high active surface area (offering an increased amount of active sites). The present project is prepared placing this necessity in its core and aims towards the design of novel nanostructured TMCs which can exhibit a very efficient activity towards the HER. To address this challenge, we propose a novel synthetic approach which promotes the preparation of nano-engineered TMCs films standing on graphene-based highly conductive templates that exhibit very high active surface area.

Keywords: hydrogen evolution reaction,plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition
Mending sex differences: Unravelling the female predominance in pulmonary hypertension (FEMALE-PH)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Panel description: Medical technologies  and tools for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases, therapeutic approaches and interventions , pharmacology, preventative  medicine, epidemiology and public health , digital medicine
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2022-STG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-03-01
End date: 2028-02-29
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499999.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499999.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a rare but progressive fatal disease characterized by accumulation of persistently activated cell types in the pulmonary vascular wall exhibiting abnormal expression of genes driving proliferation, inflammation, and metabolism. The currently used vasodilatory therapies have little or no impact on this activated phenotype and therefore offer no cure or even substantial survival benefit. PH has a high female predominance (3:1 to 9:1). This proposal aims to understand the mechanism behind the high female predominance to identify novel therapeutic targets to attenuate disease progression in male and female PH patients. Female predominance can be linked to sex hormones and/or incomplete X chromosome inactivation (XCI) leading to biallelic expression of immunoinflammatory and metabolic genes. To understand the impact of oestrogen and androgen signalling on abnormal vascular remodelling in PH, I will develop a unique opposite-sex lung transplantation rat model, identify oestrogen metabolites in a large set of patient serum samples and explore their biological relevance using pulmonary vascular cells from male and female PH patients in cell-based assays. Preliminary experiments suggest there is incomplete XCI in PH. I propose to combine sequencing and molecular studies to extensively characterize the impact of incomplete XCI on the physiology of male and female PAH cells and identify genes and druggable targets regulating incomplete XCI in PH. Finally, I will explore a novel pulmonary endothelium-specific drug delivery method to deliver identified promising genes/compounds to selectively inhibit the activated pulmonary vasculature thereby minimalizing side effects compared to current delivery methods. Together, this high risk-high gain study will dissect the molecular mechanisms underlying the unresolved female predominance in PH and offer novel pulmonary endothelium-specific therapies for both male and female PH patients.

Keywords: pulmonary hypertension,vascular remodelling,pulmonary artery endothelial cells,sex differences,x chromosome inactivation,endothelium specific drug delivery
The well-being of the sensitive: indoor environment and well-being of people with autism (SENSEwellbeing)

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: Denmark
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-08-08
End date: 2024-08-07
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 230774.4
EU funding (EUR): 230774.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

People with autism deserve more attention to their needs for indoor comfort and well-being. Due to their sensitivity to the 5-senses stimuli, they might perceive the environment differently. Moreover, some individuals with high-severity autism might have difficulties to properly respond to environmental stimuli, and therefore to adapt to the environmental conditions. Nevertheless, standards and guidelines typically address average standard populations, and little knowledge is present in the literature about how the indoor environment affects the well-being of people with autism, especially from the indoor environment and comfort engineering perspective. This knowledge gap has motivated SENSEwellbeing, in which we aim to perform an extensive study on indoor well-being of people with autism. Objective measurements of environmental parameters, behavioral monitoring and subjective questionnaire surveys will be conducted in a living lab and in field studies, allowing to: 1. Compare the perception of multi-domain environmental exposures of adults and adolescents with low-severity autism with a control group, in a living lab; 2. Verify the results conducted in the laboratory in every-day life environments and with individuals with a higher severity of autism; 3. Study adaptive strategies, depending on autism severity and co-morbidities; 4. Apply and validate a methodology based on third-party observations, to survey the environmental well-being of people with communicative difficulties; 5. Associate the responses to individual characteristics (gender, age, cultural background, health-status). SENSEwellbeing will be significant for the scientific community, designers and industry: it will offer inputs to extend and refine models, standards and guidelines to be used for the design of comfortable environments for people with autism, as well as to develop home automation systems to improve well-being, safety and autonomy of people with autism and special needs in general.

Keywords: comfort well being autism indoor environment health multi domain combined effects occupant behavior
Quantum Optical Physics with Neutral-Atom Waveguide-QED (NanoAtom)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Panel description: Particle, nuclear, plasma, atomic, molecular, gas, and optical physics
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2022-ADG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-10-01
End date: 2028-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2498750.0
EU funding (EUR): 2498750.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The coupling of cold atoms to nanophotonic devices has recently opened a variety of novel opportunities for controlling light-matter interactions. Tailored dispersion relations offer unique features beyond conventional settings. In particular, photonic-crystal waveguides enable tight transverse confinement of the propagating light, strong atom-photon coupling in single pass and tunable long-range atom-atom interactions. While this research area is extensively studied theoretically, experimental progress has been much more modest. This project aims at turning the emerging neutral-atom waveguide-QED paradigm into a mature field. The primary challenge will be to develop a versatile apparatus where ensembles of cold atoms can be trapped in the proximity of slow-mode photonic-crystal waveguides, using a specific material, original structure designs and novel atom-delivery techniques. The main project objectives are then threefold: - The demonstration of deterministic photon-photon interaction in a lossless single-pass configuration and its application to efficient quantum state engineering - The realization of multiphoton-state engineering via atomic entangled states and subradiant and superradiant dynamics. - The exploration of a novel “bandgap physics” uniquely accessible with the developed photonic-crystal platform for strong atom-atom and photon-photon interactions. The successful realization of the project based upon the interdisciplinary interface of cold atoms and nanoscale waveguides could elevate this approach to a new route for strongly interacting photons and atoms, with unique possibilities for integrated quantum technologies, quantum non-linear optics as well as for many-body quantum physics.

Keywords: waveguide qed,quantum non linear optics,cold atoms,atomic ensembles,quantum nanophotonics
Inhalable therapeutic nanoformulations for non-invasive and selective treatment of HFrEF (NP-MP1)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Other destinations
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Italy
Call: EIC Accelerator 2024 - Short application (HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATOR-01, 2024)
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

An alarming 64 million people globally are affected by HFrEF (Heart Failure with reduced Ejection Fraction), leading to high mortality rates among patients. Existing solutions rely on a “four pillar” drug therapy that, while proven to benefit HF patients, only counteracts the HFrEF symptoms and does not cure the molecular defects underlying the disease. Therefore, these therapies have a very low rate of success leading to frequent hospitalisations and additional burden on the healthcare expenditure. To address the shortcomings of current treatments, Nanophoria has developed NP-MP1, a lung-in-heart nano-in-micro technology with a unique, first-in-class natural peptide that offers valuable benefits to users and promises improved outcomes in HFrEF patients. The innovation lies in the 11 amino acid peptide that, when delivered by inhalation with our unique highly biocompatible delivery platform, directly targets a key molecular player underlying HFrEF and restores cellular functionality. With our innovation, we have improved drug specificity, regulated the overall dosage, provided a non-invasive treatment method, and reduced the overall healthcare expenditure of Europe. We present a disruptive treatment option that will improve the lives of millions of people and enhance their quality of life. The EIC accelerator program is crucial for our solution to complete clinical trials and validation studies that will ensure our partnership with pharma companies and effectively bring this solution into the market

Keywords: drugs,patient care,respiratory systems
Turning off the furnace: the intracellular brake systems for brown fat thermogenesis (BATOFF)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Panel description: Organ and tissue physiology, comparative physiology, physiology  of ageing , pathophysiology, inter - organ and tissue communication, endocrinology, nutrition,  metabolism, interaction with the microbiome, non -communicable diseases including cancer (and except disorders of the nervous system  and immunity -related diseases)
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2022-STG, 2022)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2028-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499526.25
EU funding (EUR): 1499526.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Free-ranging animals are continuously exposed to fluctuating ambient temperature, therefore rapid fine-tuning of thermogenesis to maintain core temperature homeostasis is critical for survival. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) evolves as a thermogenic organ, the rapid switching on and off is essential for thermal regulation. Of note, thermogenesis inevitably comes at high energetic cost and BAT ultimately is an energy-wasting organ. A constrained strategy that minimizes BAT activity unless obligate will have been favored during natural selection to safeguard metabolic thriftiness. However, this tenet and the molecular basis that constrain BAT activity remain unappreciated, unexplored and unexploited. Filling this fundamental knowledge gap will unlock endogenous constraints and allow efficiently and fully harness the energy-consuming potential of BAT for therapeutic interventions. To this end, I identify that a phase separation-aided molecular event, a lipolysis-stimulated feedforward regulatory circuit with negative feedback loop, and a purinergic nucleotides flux-based inhibitory mechanism, are synergistically involved in rapidly terminating heat production. BATOFF aims to study: 1) how these previously unappreciated mechanisms allow mammals to effectively orchestrate dynamics of BAT activity; 2) whether these constraining brake systems are malfunction under pathophysiological conditions; and 3) the translational potential of targeting these brakes. I will address these questions using state-of-the-art gain and loss-of-function in vitro and in vivo studies, newly-generated mouse models, high-resolution cellular respirometry, live cell imaging, and cutting-edge 'omics'. Results of BATOFF will not only provide a transformative molecular understanding of the cellular processes enabling physiological adaptation to thermogenic demand, but also with translational potential for prevention and treatment of obesity and diabetes by harnessing the calorie-burning potential of BAT.

Keywords: brown fat,metabolism,body temperature homeostasis,molecular brakes,lipolysis,energy balance,ucp1,thermogenesis
Federated Digital Twins for Wind-Offshore (DTWO)

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: Denmark,Belgium,United Kingdom,Poland,Italy,Germany,Netherlands,France,Türkiye
Call: Digital twin for forecasting of power production to wind energy demand (HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02, 2023)
Start date: 2024-06-01
End date: 2027-05-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 6860545.81
EU funding (EUR): 6155052.95
Participants: 13
Project status: SIGNED

The objective of DTWO is to develop a federated digital twin (DT) integrating existing simulation assets and real-time data to transform them into virtual power plants delivering up-to-date energy system powered by offshore wind. The core innovation of DTWO is to build the first-of-kind functional DT that does not require users to share commercially valuable data centrally, but instead offers them a customisable platform where users can spin up bespoke DTs drawing from a range of validated models and datasets to provide better decision support for complex investments decisions. The fast offshore wind energy (OWE) development challenges our knowledge and tools, which were developed and tested for onshore conditions, smaller wind turbines (WT) and wind farms (WF), and energy system over smaller regions. It urges us to revisit theories and improve models of the OWE production system. DTWO engages with existing EU digital initiatives, combines advanced research institutes and most influential industry partners, to update theories and improve modeling systems, with feedback loops between virtual and real-world systems. This includes integrating DestinE, considering weather with air-sea interaction in the presence of WF wakes, implementing full-scale turbulence models suitable for WTs taller than 200 meters, for both normal and extreme weather conditions. This feeds into calculation for siting conditions and energy yield, turbine health state and reliability predictions, grid interconnectivity and energy system, for both bottom-fixed and floating WTs and WFs of both historical and future scenarios. DTWO builds a software architecture with data and tool hubs integrating modules: Earth, Wakes, Siting, Turbines and Grids). DT modules and components are tested with use cases defined by Ørsted, Simens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Enfor, Vestas and TSO. DTWO allows coordinated assessment of energy yield, WT performances, sector-coupled energy market suitable to large pan-Europe system.

Keywords: digital twin,destination earth,weather to energy,offshore wind farm wakes,siting,energy yield,grid interconnection,energy integration,structural health,conditional monitoring,extremes
Decoding the Biochemistry of Terpene Synthases (TerpenCode)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Biotechnology and Biosystems E ngineering
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: Czechia
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-04-01
End date: 2030-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2158732.5
EU funding (EUR): 2158732.5
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Enzymes are biological catalysts indispensable for biotechnology. Conventional approaches to enzyme design and optimization, relying on biochemical intuition and combinatorial mutagenesis, have yielded significant success over decades. Building on these foundations, the TerpenCode project aims to instantly elucidate and engineer enzymatic reactions by designing a new generation of deep learning models that (1) incorporate biochemical principles as inductive biases and (2) model all intermediate biochemical transformations that occur sequentially in the active site of each enzyme. We will focus on terpene synthases, which produce the core hydrocarbon scaffolds of terpenoids, the largest and most diverse class of natural products. My group has already curated a comprehensive training dataset comprising thousands of terpene synthase reaction mechanisms. In Objective O1, we will develop deep learning models for predicting the substrates, products, and reaction mechanisms of terpene synthases directly from their amino acid sequences. In Objective O2, we propose to engineer a generative machine learning algorithm for designing new variants of terpene synthases with altered quantitative product distribution, adjusted product stereochemistry, or new reaction cascades that lead to novel terpene products. We will experimentally validate these models by yeast expression experiments, including complete chemical structure elucidation of the detected reaction products. Breakthrough progress on these objectives would be a key important step towards the holy grail of biotechnology: providing a computational prediction of the exact enzyme function from its amino acid sequence and instant de novo generation of new enzymes for catalyzing desired biochemical reactions for an important class of enzymes. Generalizing our solutions further to other classes of enzymes would enable sustainable biotechnological production of a broad spectrum of new-to-nature chemicals and bioactives.

Keywords: terpene synthase,biosynthesis,enzyme function,enzyme design,machine learning,deep neural network,stable diffusion
Expanded genetic alphabets for orthogonal encoding of genetic information (OrthoScript)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Panel description: New materials and new synthetic approaches, structure -properties relations, solid state chemistry, molecular architecture, organic chemistry
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2024-ADG, 2024)
Start date: 2026-01-01
End date: 2030-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1497496.0
EU funding (EUR): 1497496.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

In OrthoScript, we aim to build a technology platform for the efficient synthesis, replication and evolution of DNA and RNA comprising alternative genetic alphabets that are either orthogonal to the natural alphabet or expand its combinatorial potential and information density. Our approach involves the leveraging of protein design and evolution approaches to generate bespoke DNA and RNA polymerase enzymes for the encoded synthesis and sequencing of expanded genetic alphabets with high efficiency and fidelity. If successful our approach unlocks the potential of these new alphabets for information storage and enables a systematic investigation of the relationship between complexity (informational density), evolvability and phenotypic diversity in informational biopolymers. The same polymerases are critical for the scalable integration of an expanded alphabet into an orthogonal replisome in a living cell. If realised, we provide a technology platform for the encoding of information in expanded, orthogonal genetic alphabets both in vitro and in bacteria with transformative potential in applications like molecular information storage and genetic code expansion.