Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Metallo-enzymes and Cells for Green Environmental Alternatives (McGEA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Staff Exchanges
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Chemistry
Countries involved: Portugal,Netherlands,Germany,Italy,France,Denmark,Spain,Argentina,United States
Call: MSCA Staff Exchanges 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-SE-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-12-01
End date: 2028-11-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1106628.57
EU funding (EUR): 1039600.0
Participants: 11
Project status: SIGNED

"By far, nature is the best chemist of all time" according to Nobel Prize winner Frances Arnold. McGEA will develop nature inspired strategies to help avert the pending climate catastrophe. We will discover, characterize, engineer and exploit metalloenzymes as potent biocatalysts to efficiently perform chemically challenging reactions of high environmental impact. Specifically, we will use metalloenzymes to tackle three burning issues that fall squarely in the remit of the EU Green Deal action plan: CO2 capture, (bio)hydrogen production, and wastewater monitoring and remediation. These challenges will be addressed using purified metalloenzymes incorporated into hybrid materials and live bacterial cells as self-regenerating catalytic metalloenzyme carriers. Implementation of these two strategies will proceed with research activities across the full pipeline of metalloenzyme development. This will include i) the assembly of the metallic co-factors, as a prerequisite for establishing protocols for efficient metalloenzyme production, ii) rational redesign, directed evolution and in silico strategies to develop enzyme variants that show improved catalytic activity and stability, and iii) the incorporation of the enzymes into matrices that allow for enzyme reusability, stabilization, or their self-assembly into multi-enzymatic nanostructures for substrate channeling. The execution of this program relies on a strong interdisciplinary and intersectoral team. The McGEA brings together 6 research groups from EU and 2 research groups from overseas, all of them internationally recognized for their scientific excellence, and 3 EU companies that will join forces to accelerate the transition to a climate-neutral Europe. The consortium is designed to provide a diverse portfolio of skills through staff secondments to achieve integration from the stages of fundamental scientific discovery to the development of metalloenzyme-based processes and prototype devices.

Keywords: heme enzymes,iron sulfur enzymes,enzymatic co2 removal and h2 generation,biosensing and biodegradation
Self-sabotage in the early mammalian embryo: investigating the interplay between DNA damage responses, splicing failure and zygotic reprogramming (EARLYFATE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Cell Biology, Development, Stem Cells and R egeneration
Panel description: For all organisms : Structure and function of the cell, cell -cell communication, embryogenesis, tissue differentiation, organogenesis, growth, development, evolution of development, organoids, stem cells, regeneration, therapeutic approaches
Countries involved: Spain
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-06-01
End date: 2030-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1993143.0
EU funding (EUR): 1993143.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

In mammals, oocyte fertilisation is followed by a dramatic epigenetic and transcriptomic reprograming to prepare the newly formed embryo for subsequent development. Preserving genome integrity is critical at these early stages, when all cells have the potential to contribute to a large proportion of the embryo including the germ line. Despite this work by ourselves and others suggests the ATM kinase driven DNA damage response (DDR) to double strand breaks is dampened in the early embryo. At the same time the ATR kinase mediated DDR appears fully active and may even function in zygotic reprograming, as DNA damage acting through this pathway can reprogram embryonic stem cells to a more totipotent state reminiscent of the early post-fertilisation embryo. Beyond this little is known about DDRs in the early embryo, however we have recently identified a programmed splicing failure that accompanies the transcriptomic reprograming of the embryo and disproportionately disrupts transcripts coding for DDR genes. Furthermore, splicing inhibition has been found to reprogram embryonic stem cells to a more totipotent state and we have found this also inordinately disrupts DDR gene transcripts. These findings raise three fundamental questions: i) Why is a dampened ATM dependent DDR found in early cleavage stage embryos? ii) Does an ATR mediated DDR play a role in embryonic reprograming and totipotency emergence? iii) What is the impact of the programmed splicing failure on embryo development and totipotency, and is it related to DDR regulation? We will take a multidisciplinary approach to answer these questions using a combination of high-throughput -omics and focused techniques in the early mouse embryo. The knowledge gained will represent a breakthrough in the understanding of early mammalian post-fertilisation development, allowing us to unravel the interaction between the unique cellular processes that occur at this time, genome integrity control and splicing failure.

Keywords: dna damage response,zygotic genome activation,pre implantation development,totipotency,alternative splicing
Validation of Lunar Water Extraction and Purification Technologies for In-Situ Propellant and Consumables Production (LUWEX)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Space
Destination: Open Strategic Autonomy in Developing, Deploying and Using Global Space-Based Infrastructures, Services, Applications and Data
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Austria,Poland,Italy
Call: Space science and exploration technologies (HORIZON-CL4-2022-SPACE-01, 2022)
Start date: 2022-11-01
End date: 2024-12-31
Duration (months): 26.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499008.25
EU funding (EUR): 1498220.25
Participants: 6
Project status: CLOSED

Sustainable space exploration requires the development of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) technologies, which encompass all processes that utilize local resources to generate useful products for robotic and human exploration. Among the available resources, water is the most versatile and most needed in space exploration. Water can be easily stored and directly used as consumable for astronauts or electrolyzed to hydrogen and oxygen, a very effective rocket propellant combination. LUWEX aims to develop, integrate and validate lunar water extraction and purification technologies for in-situ propellant and consumables production for future space exploration missions. The consortium will develop key technologies for an in-situ raw water process chain, which include an innovative water extraction prototype, water purification technologies and water quality monitoring for application in a future European-led space exploration mission. An integrated test setup will be built to validate the operational capabilities of the technologies and also of the whole process chain. This setup will deliver a relatively realistic environment analogue to the lunar surface and will use a lunar dust-ice simulant to provide proper validation conditions to raise the TRL of all subsystems and the whole process chain to level 4. The interdisciplinary nature of LUWEX combines research and innovation in space engineering, space science and exploration, geophysics and terrestrial water systems. Large space industry (Thales Alenia Space), research organizations (DLR), SME (Liquifer Systems Group, Scanway) and academia (Technische Universität Braunschweig, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology) from four European countries (Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland) join forces in a unique consortium to enable breakthroughs in ISRU technologies. LUWEX will help to strengthen the excellence in European space science and exploration and also foster the competitiveness of the European space sector.

Keywords: in situ resource utilization,in situ propellant and consumables production,laboratory breadboard,moon water ice,isru process chain,lunar lander payload,european large logistics lander
Plasmid Evolutionary Innovation and Adaptation to Defense Systems (PLEIADES)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Panel description: For all organisms : Ecology, biodiversity, environmental change , evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, microbial ecology , marine biology, ecophysiology, theoretical developments and mod elling
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2025-STG, 2025)
Start date: 2026-02-01
End date: 2031-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499162.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499162.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Plasmids are self-copying genetic elements that can move between bacterial species. They frequently carry antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes, making understanding the factors that affect their spread through bacterial communities an urgent challenge. Exploiting bacteria’s natural defence systems to block plasmid spread is an exciting possibility. Recent years have seen a huge increase in the known number of ‘anti-phage’ systems that stop bacterial viruses (phage) from gaining a foothold in the cell. Some of these systems also defend against incoming plasmids, but the pace of discovery has outstripped the ability to experimentally test all relationships. We need computational approaches: by developing new methods, PLEIADES will bridge the gap and give us new insights into plasmid evolution. The central hypothesis of PLEIADES is that selective pressure from ‘anti-phage’ defence systems also shapes the genomic architecture of plasmids. To better understand plasmid evolution we need to explore how variation in plasmid content and structure is linked to defence systems. We will tackle three objectives. First, we will build statistical models that relate the diversity of defence systems and plasmids across bacteria, controlling for other factors to deliver a systematic understanding of their relationship. Second, we will investigate the modular evolution of plasmids, which evolve by frequent rearrangements, using new computational frameworks that capture this plasticity together with tools to predict functions for plasmid proteins (the majority of which are currently unknown). Third, we will explore the role of defence systems in plasmid competition, investigating diverse plasmids from metagenomes to build a data-driven theory of their coevolutionary dynamics. By combining cutting-edge computational analysis with evolutionary theory, PLEIADES will advance our understanding of plasmid evolution, paving the way for new experimental efforts to address the threat of AMR.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance,antimicrobial resistance,microbial evolution
Exploring Eco-efficient blended cements: Innovations in performance and sustainability (EcoCemXplore)

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: United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 260347.92
EU funding (EUR): 260347.92
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Europe is committed to achieve the ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse emissions and to transition towards an energy-neutral built environment by 2050. The construction sector, which contributes >70% of CO2 emissions in many countries, urgently needs to adopt greener practices. In response to this challenge, this research combines materials science, environmental science and civil engineering to develop new novel cements with the potential to reduce CO2 emissions from Portland cement by up to 40%. The main aim of this project is to develop an innovative and comprehensive approach to optimizing the design of new ultra-low clinker hybrid alkaline cements (HAC), using treated low-purity clays as cement replacements, in combination with sodium sulfate. This will be achieved by: - Determining the effectiveness of calcination or mechano-chemical (MCA) activation in enhancing the pozzolanicity of low-purity clays, focusing on revealing nano-structural alterations induced by such treatments in the clay structure/ mineralogy. - Elucidating the factors controlling the fresh state properties of HAC produced from calcined or MCA clays, focusing on rheology, reaction kinetics and in-situ characterisation of the reaction products forming <48h of reaction. - Revealining how mix design formulations of HAC control their phase assemblages evolution, this is interrogated by using conventional characterization techniques, along with advanced synchrotron techniques including advanced computerised X-ray tomography techniques. - Creating an experimentally validated thermodynamic modelling to predict of the phase evolution of HAC, as a function low-purity clays chemistry and mix design parameters. This project will allow the identification of key strategies that will help transform the use of low-content clays in the development of eco-efficient cements, and it will give the Fellow the opportunity to establish himself as an expert in such eco-efficient cements, gaining unique expertise.

Keywords: eco efficient materials,hybrid alkaline cements,green construction,low purity clays,mechanochemical activation,synchrotron,portland cement
Trafficking mechanisms and physiological factors mediating a direct gut microbiota-brain neuron interaction (MicrobiotaNeuroTalk)

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: Portugal
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2023-STG, 2023)
Start date: 2023-12-01
End date: 2028-11-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1875000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1875000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The gut-brain axis has emerged as a complex regulator of system-wide physiology, playing essential roles to maintain homeostasis, including contributions to brain development and activity, affecting host metabolism and behavior. The gut bacterial composition constantly fluctuates, allowing for the regular release of diverse microbe-derived compounds into the bloodstream. Although it is known that many gut-bacterial metabolites affect distant organs such as the brain, their direct interaction with brain neurons is rarely demonstrated. The impact of microbial metabolites on brain mechanisms are generally thought to be indirect due to interaction with, for example, the immune system or the vagus nerve. However, my previous work has shown that microbe-derived muropeptides reach the brain and decrease the spontaneous activity of brain neurons that express the Nod2 receptor. Remarkably, this direct interaction affected appetite and thermoregulation in a sex- and age-dependent fashion. Nevertheless, to further understand these direct interactions, some questions still need to be addressed: how does this compound reach the brain? Which factors may lead to this sex- and age-dependent neuronal activation? Are there other neuroactive bacterial compounds directly affecting brain neurons? Therefore, using interdisciplinary approaches, I propose to (1) unravel gut-brain trafficking mechanisms, (2) define physiological factors (e.g. hormones) that shape this microbe-neuron interaction and (3) describe new bacterial compounds that affect hypothalamic circuits and their downstream effects. This proposal will expose novel aspects of host-microbe interactions, leading to a more complete and integrated understanding of bacterial influence on host’s essential functions. It may also lead to new therapeutic approaches for neurological disorders that exhibit specific sex prevalence and where the microbiota is a factor in disease susceptibility, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

Keywords: gut brain axis neuroimmunology
Ready-to-use software suite implementing fully individualized neurofeedback protocols for ADHD remediation in clinical setups (FOCUS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS (ERC-2024-POC, 2024)
Start date: 2025-10-01
End date: 2027-03-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

We propose to develop a ready-to-use software suite implementing fully individualized neurofeedback protocols for ADHD remediation in clinical setups. These protocols will be tailored to each participant’s initial brain functional connectivity, and will combine fMRI- and EEG-neurofeedback to enhance and restore attentional control. The fMRI-neurofeedback will be driven by three specific functional markers derived from individual participant resting-state fMRI brain patterns, respectively targeting inattention, impulsivity and attentional flexibility. The EEG- neurofeedback will intervene in a second step and will specifically target the connectivity changes induced by the fMRI- neurofeedback. These neurofeedback protocols will be tailored to enhance cognitive functions, decrease ADHD symptoms and improve quality of life. Their innovation potential will rely on the combination of unique features optimizing the neurofeedback to individual participant neurophysiology and to achieving transfer of efficiency from within the protocol to real life. The software suit will allow automated tracking of changes in cognitive function, in brain functional connectivity and associated dynamics, in ADHD clinical scores as well as in quality-of-life self-reports. The project will be organized in four distinct work packages: a test work package, a research work package, a software development work package and an IPR, knowledge transfer and market analysis work package. The entire protocol will be released as an easy-to-install and use software suit, allowing clinical ADHD units having access to an fMRI and to an EEG to implement seamlessly. The outcome will be distributed to beta-testing ADHD clinical units and appropriate knowledge transfer plans will be built to maximize societal impact. In parallel, the software neurofeedback suit will be patented and market analysis will be performed in view of commercialization as a patented medical remediation device.
VIrtual Twins as tools for personalised clinicAL care (VITAL)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Health
Theme: Health
Destination: Unlocking the full potential of new tools, technologies and digital solutions for a healthy society
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Belgium,New Zealand,Spain,Netherlands,Switzerland,United Kingdom,Poland,Italy,France,Austria
Call: Integrated, multi-scale computational models of patient patho-physiology (‘virtual twins’) for personalised disease management (HORIZON-HLTH-2023-TOOL-05, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2028-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 8743516.25
EU funding (EUR): 8743516.25
Participants: 14
Project status: SIGNED

VITAL will deliver a comprehensive clinically validated multi-scale, multi-organ modelling platform that is driven by and can represent individual patient data acquired, both in the clinic and from wearable technology. The platform will create a virtual human twin for individualised and sex-specific optimisation of medical (pharmacological) or surgical (interventional) therapy for complex, multifactorial cardiovascular disorders that have systemic impact and high risk of comorbidities of a.o. the kidney and brain: systemic hypertension, heart failure (with/without preserved ejection fraction) and hemodynamically complicated atrial septal defects. User-friendly interfaces, co-created with healthcare professionals, will provide access to the technology. The platform consolidates existing multi-scale and multi-organ models of the heart, lung and systemic circulation and their regulatory mechanisms, and advances the state-of-the art by incorporating currently missing biophysics-based, physiology-underpinned components (kidney-related blood pressure control, hormonal actions, vascular region-specific smooth muscle cell functionality, and cardiac and arterial growth and remodelling mechano-biological mechanisms). By the end of the project, the platform will have been validated and tested in more than 200 patients across 5 clinical studies in France and the UK to optimise the treatment of patients with resistant systemic hypertension, heart failure or atrial septum defects. A unique aspect of VITAL is its focus on monitoring the mental health of patients to understand their expectations and reservations towards digital health technology. VITAL technology will be compliant with and contribute directly to the VPHi and EDITH virtual twin ecosystem. This will further unlock the potential of new digital tools that intelligently combine the power of physics-based multi-scale models, artificial intelligence and data to provide better health care for all.

Keywords: human virtual twin,personalised medicine,multi scale modelling,systems physiology,mechano biology,cardiovascular disease,patient trust,wearable technology,artificial intelligence