Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Novel Molecular Mechanisms of Neuron Migration in the Developing Cortex and their Contribution to Related Diseases (NEUROMIGRATION)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2012-01-01
End date: 2015-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Understanding the molecular principles of nervous system connectivity is the biggest challenge in biomedical research for the XXIst century. Nervous system connectivity is regulated by two fundamental processes: cell migration and axon guidance. The cerebral cortex is the region of the brain that has undergone the biggest expansion in primates and is the responsible of our cognitive abilities. The mature cortex is formed by excitatory pyramidal neurons and inhibitory interneurons that arrive to the cortex by two different migratory pathways: radial migration and tangential migration, respectively. The so-called basal progenitor (BP) cells are especial pyramidal cell progenitors that increase the number of differentiated neurons and play a key function in increasing cortex size during primate evolution. In humans, mutations that affect neuron migration result in severe mental diseases. The characterization of these mutations has revealed many genes involved in cytoskeleton dynamics. Surprisingly, little is known about the extracellular factors that control neuron migration. Fibronectin and Leucine-Rich Transmembrane proteins (FLRT1-3) are expressed in the developing cortex and ventral telencephalon. My previous data revealed that FLRT2 and the axon guidance receptor Unc5D play a role in regulating the migration of the BP cells in the developing cortex of the mouse. In the present proposal I will use FLRTs as molecular entry points to analyze basic aspects of neuronal migration in the developing brain. I will address the exact mechanisms by which FLRT2 regulates the behaviour of the migrating BP cells and the contribution of FLRTs to the tangential migration of interneurons. I will also study the expression of FLRTs in human samples in order to extrapolate our observations to human cortex development and disease. The present proposal will provide novel molecular insights on neuron migration with a direct impact on human brain development, evolution and disease.

Keywords: health sciences,pyramidal neuron,interneuron,flrt,migration,lysencephally,brain cortex,signalling
Microbubble-mediated transfection of Peptide Nucleic Acid conjugates targeting mRNA quadruplexes to modulate gene expression in vivo (RNAG4)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2015-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The regulatory functions of RNAs rely on their propensity to adopt defined secondary structures. G-rich nucleic acid sequences have a propensity to form highly stable four-stranded structures (termed quadruplexes) in the presence of physiological monovalent cations. Using an approach that consists in targeting simultaneously the quadruplex structure itself but also the two single-stranded RNA flanking regions in a sequence-specific manner, we demonstrate that RNA quadruplexes represent a valid therapeutic target for chemical intervention to modulate the translation of specific genes (notably N-Ras, Aurora kinases A and C) both in vitro and in vivo. Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are used as antisense oligonucleotide analogues to direct a quadruplex-stabilising platform to the only gene of interest, thus making this class of compounds capable of discriminating between an RNA quadruplex and other nucleic acid secondary structures, including other RNA quadruplexes. This novel approach for specifically silencing genes is likely to have great therapeutic potential. Once validated in vitro, this strategy will be applied in vivo, using for the first time microbubbles to facilitate the delivery of neutral oligonucleotide analogues (i.e. PNAs) in cellulo. Co-injection of microbubbles and antisense oligonucleotides, combined with localised ultrasound treatment has been successfully applied for gene delivery to specific organs. Herein, transfection of the PNA-based RNA quadruplex ligands will be carried out using microbubbles with variable shell compositions and different transfection methods (co-injection, encapsidation, covalent attachment) will also be considered. Transfection efficiency will be quantitatively evaluated by fluorescence confocal microscopy and correlated with the changes in levels of expression of specific genes.

Keywords: biomedical engineering,molecular chemistry,chemical engineering,anticancer therapy,gene therapy,biotechnology,rna quadruplexes,microbubbles,peptide nucleic acids,transfection
Harnessing of hematopoietic stem cells for targeting of brain metastases (CELL THERAPY)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2015-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Brain metastases occur in 20 to 35% of cancer patients and are associated with poor prognosis due to the lack of efficient treatments. Targeting of brain lesions poses several challenges including the poor penetration of drugs into the brain due to the tightness of the blood-brain barrier. Therefore improved approaches for the delivery of therapeutic agents to brain lesions are urgently required. The goal of this project is to develop a cell-based strategy to deliver therapeutic agents to brain metastases. This will be achieved by stable introduction of genes encoding secreted therapeutic molecules with anti-cancer properties into hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Upon transplantation, the progeny of HSCs will home to cancer lesions, thereby delivering the therapeutic agent of choice. We already demonstrated that the progeny of genetically engineered HSCs readily crosses the blood-brain barrier and homes to brain metastases in animal models where it efficiently expresses the delivered gene. Here we aim to further improve our approach in pre-clinical models to facilitate its clinical translation. To this end we aim to improve the efficiency of therapeutic delivery by increasing the infiltration of HSC progeny into the brain via whole brain radiation, a standard therapy for brain metastases. Secondly, we aim to improve the specificity of therapeutic delivery by identification of gene promoters that are active specifically within HSC progeny infiltrating the tumour. Expression of therapeutic agents by these promoters will restrict their delivery to tumour lesions. Thirdly, we aim to demonstrate a therapeutic efficacy of HSC-based drug delivery in combination with an enzyme / prodrug approach. Due to the advanced application of HSC transplantation and HSC-based cell therapies in the clinic, our approach has a strong potential for a successful clinical translation.

Keywords: health sciences,natural sciences,applied biology,brain metastases,hematopoietic stem cells,cell therapy,gene therapy,in vivo models,cancer
Silicon Spin Quantum Bits (SISQ)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-08-01
End date: 2015-07-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The objective is realising the first silicon single-electron spin quantum bits, which will be a significant step towards the realization of the first generation quantum computers. Quantum computers are expected to dramatically outperform the largest classical supercomputers in solving specific important problems. Applications involve data encryption (for intrinsically secure communication), the efficient simulation of quantum systems (such as chemical reactions), and support in many emerging forms of artificial nanotechnology, and in our understanding of the nanomachinery of biological molecules. In this proposal CMOS-compatible silicon quantum dots (QDs) are used as hosts for electron spin quantum bits for future solid-state quantum information processing. We will use a unique design which incorporates a large number of independently controllable gates, resulting in an unprecedented degree of tunability in Si QDs. This architecture has allowed for single-electron QDs in silicon. Here, we aim at establishing Pauli spin blockade in the few-electron regime in double QD (DQD) systems, which will be used as detector for single-electron spin resonance. This will enable us to determine the single electron spin coherence time T2, which holds the promise to be extremely long in Si QDs.

Keywords: physical sciences,solid state physics,nanotechnology,nanoelectronics
BICULTURALISM: Social Correlates and Individual Differences (BICULTURALISM)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-08-01
End date: 2015-07-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The proposed program of research will allow the PI to apply her expertise on the study of psychological acculturation and biculturalism to the European context, and also develop a European network of collaborators on these issues. Broadly speaking, the 4-year proposed research program will examine (by means of social-network, survey, and experimental methodology) some of the social and individual factors involved in the development and maintaince of a bicultural orientation among first and second-generation immigrants residing in Catalonia (Spain). The first phase will examine the links between immigrants’ personal social networks (their composition, density, clustering) and these individuals´ multiple cultural self-identifications. The second phase will involve a large psychometric study to refine the measurement and understanding of the construct of Bicultural Identity Integration (BII), an individual difference variable capturing variations in bicultural identity. The third phase will involve an experimental study examining how the expectations of the receiving society regarding acculturation affect immigrants’ own acculturation and cultural identity profiles. The fourth phase of the proposed project will involve the development of a special issue on the topic of “Multi-Cultural Identity in European Contexts” for the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, as well as a small-group conference on this issue involving the contributors to this special issue and other relevant experts.

Keywords: psychological sciences,social psychology,acculturation,biculturalism,cultural identity,social sciences,social psychology
Drawing and the Transmission of Images and Ideas in the Middle Ages (DTIIMA)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2012-05-01
End date: 2016-04-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

My research concerns the role of drawings as a means of copying and communicating images and ideas in medieval Europe. Drawings in the Renaissance have long attracted scholarly attention, but the role which they might have played in the Middle Ages remains something of a mystery, partly because such a small number of drawings have survived, and partly because of difficulties in reading the medieval sources that attest to the uses and functions of drawings. Yet the 12th and 13th centuries seem to be when the practice of drawing underwent the changes that caused drawings to play such a vital role in the Renaissance. My project seeks to substantially advance the new wave of studies on medieval drawing by expanding the range of evidence considered, and by challenging the set of questions and assumptions that have been used so far in addressing the study of the role of drawing in the transmission of images and ideas. Images on unmovable mediums – monumental sculptures and mural paintings for example – needed to be copied onto a mobile support in order to travel. These intermediary supports – whether drawings and/or visual memory – were essential to the outcome of the image’s transmission and the ability to formulate new and complex visual messages. Through a systematic analysis of both direct and indirect sources, my research aims to establish what the uses of drawings were in the Middle Ages and what role they played in the transformations that affected the visual arts at the end of the thirteenth century. In the first phase of the research, I will conduct a systematic analysis of drawings, both “model drawings” and “project drawings”, and a selection of the written evidence concerning drawing. The second phase will see the publication of preliminary results in the form of articles on specific cases. In the final phase, the overall results will be published as a monograph on the transmission of images and its impact on the circulation of ideas in the middle ages.

Keywords: art history,medieval history,graphic arts,drawing,painting,iconography,words and images,transmission,visual culture,visual memory,visual communication
THE LIMITS TO THE TRANSFER OF FIRMS’ STATUS ADVANTAGES IN CROSS-BORDER INVESTMENTS (STATUS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Türkiye
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2015-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The performance benefits of firm status have been well-documented in the literature. While recent work in management has shown that status advantages may be transferable across markets as a proxy of entering firm’s quality, the limits to the transferability of status advantages, particularly across national borders, have not been fully studied. This research program proposes to study this question in three related parts: (1) How do physical, cultural and institutional distances between home and host countries influence the transfer of status-based advantages? (2) How do transnational ties, especially those of migration and trade, influence the transferability of status advantages? (3) How do country-level status differences influence the transfer of firm-level status advantages in cross-border trade? This study will examine these questions in the context of cross-border venture capital investments. This context not only provides an opportunity to examine how status advantages transfer across national borders, but also a deeper understanding of cross-border venture capital flows, a topic of increasing importance to foster innovation and economic growth. The empirical study will examine the likelihood of venture capital firms to enter a new country, and the amount of their investment in the country, with a longitudinal data set that compiles secondary data on investments between a sample of countries. The study will contribute to the literature and practice in two ways. First, it will contribute to the management literature by examining the contingencies around the transfer of status advantages. Second, it will contribute to the entrepreneurship and innovation financing literature by documenting the pathways of cross-border investment as a function of firm-level status advantages. Third, it will inform practice by providing a guideline to firms and policy makers about how venture capital firms choose where to invest.

Keywords: international management,entrepreneurship,organizational science
Defined co-immobilization by DNA binding protein tags (DECODEB)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-12-01
End date: 2015-11-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Defined spatial distribution of proteins plays a major role in nature, like structures for bacterial cell mobility (Escherichia coli’s flagella), capsid structures of viruses, structures for the controlled segregation of chromosomal DNA both in eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells, a large array of membrane protein complexes (e.g. protein transporters and nutrient transporters) and the assembly of channeled metabolic pathways among many others. All these diverse and fundamental processes are the result of the evolution of very specific and controlled spatial organization of multiple proteins. Defined spatial distribution also plays a major role in many biotechnological applications of proteins, from the immobilization of antibodies on the surface of an electrode for their use in biosensors to the creation of nanostructures through biotemplating. A wide variety of approaches have been developed in order to allow the easy immobilization of proteins, ranging from electrostatic interactions and direct covalent linkage to high affinity non-covalent interactions (e.g. streptavidin/biotin). In order to facilitate the generation of more complex synthetic quaternary protein structures (on surfaces and in solution), we propose the development of a protein fusion tag system that will enable the controlled and orderly precise co-immobilization of proteins by means of protein-DNA interactions. This project aims to take advantage of the highly developed methodologies that currently exist and allow the synthesis and immobilization of DNA with ease and use them as a means for controlled protein co-immobilization. Specifically, to achieve this objective, we propose to develop a panel of high affinity DNA binding proteins with different sequence specificities to be used as fusion tags and provide the protein-DNA interaction link.

Keywords: protein immobilization,protein-dna interactions,protein quaternary structure,protein assembly,protein engineering
Neural Circuits Underlying Visually Guided Behaviour (FISHBRAIN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Portugal
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2015-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

A fundamental goal of neuroscience is to understand how information processing in neural circuits gives rise to behavior. Even the simplest actions can involve hundreds of neurons distributed throughout the brain. However, for most behaviors, little is known about which neurons play an important role, how they are organized into circuits, or how activity is transformed between different brain areas. The zebrafish model provides a unique opportunity to thoroughly dissect the neural basis of behavior in a vertebrate, due to their small, transparent brains, robust visual responses, and amenability to genetic manipulation. Using two-photon imaging, we can scan the entire area of the brain while monitoring the activity of individual neurons. This research programme aims to dissect the circuits underlying simple visually guided behaviors in larval zebrafish using a combination of state-of-the-art imaging, genetics and behavioral analysis. We propose to 1) perform a quantitative analysis of zebrafish behavior using high speed videography, and a custom designed arena for presentation of visual stimuli to freely swimming fish, 2) identify individual neurons and circuits that are active during these behaviors using two-photon imaging of fish expressing genetically encoded calcium indicators to and 3) perturb activity in these circuits using targeted single cell laser ablations and optogenetics. These experiments will map out the functional architecture of the zebrafish brain, revealing sets of neurons that comprise complete behavioral circuits in a vertebrate. Furthermore, they will provide an essential framework for the analysis of neural development, genetic mutants and disease models.

Keywords: behaviour zebrafish neuroscience calcium imaging two photon optogenetics