Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Climate adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana through evolution of transcription regulation (TxnEvoClim)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Germany
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018, 2018)
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 174806.4
EU funding (EUR): 174806.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Differences in gene expression play a key role in generating the phenotypic variability needed for adaptation. During evolution, the coding sequence of genes evolves on average much slower than their expression patterns, thus transcriptional regulation can be especially important for rapid adaptation to a new environment. Climate is a major factor for plant adaptation, and both the dispersal of a plant from its native origin as well as climate change will often lower its fitness. Thus, understanding how gene expression patterns are modified to facilitate life in adverse climates would shed light on the trade-offs limiting adaptation. Studying how evolution has shaped plant transcriptomes so that these plants can grow in different ecological niches and their potential to adapt to a changing climate requires a large base of natural variability information. This has recently been accumulated for Arabidopsis thaliana, a model for genetic and evolutionary studies. In the proposed project I will use genomic and transcriptomic data from the A. thaliana 1001 Genomes Project, new measurements of gene expression under water deprivation, as well as newly available data on gene-regulation and field fitness, to define how gene expression is shaped by climate and the genetic potential to adapt to new environments. I will address the following: (1) In natural populations, how do gene expression patterns of individuals correspond to the particular adapted climates? (2) What is the genetic basis for the transcript differences and how is it reflected in modifications to the transcriptional network? (3) Can knowledge of climate-transcript variation relationships be predictive of individual strains more likely to survive in a new climate? As climate is changing due to global warming, the understanding of mechanisms by which plants adapt to climate becomes even more important in agriculture and in natural populations, and this project aims to illuminate the role of a central mechanism.

Keywords: natural variation,transcription regulation,climate change,arabidopsis,fitness prediction
Surface and sub-surface modified nano-electrocatalysts for the conversion of CO2 to value-added products: A structure-selectivity-mechanism-stability catalog (CO2-CAT-ALOG)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Chemistry
Countries involved: Slovenia
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-12-01
End date: 2022-11-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150040.32
EU funding (EUR): 150040.32
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In the age of Anthropocene, major challenges faced by mankind today are the global climate change and the associated huge energy crisis due to ever increased population demand. So, the contemporary interests are towards energy storage and conversion reactions and in generating the alternative fuels (from CO2, waste to wealth strategy). Copper is the known best electrocatalyst for the reduction of CO2 (green-house gas). However, Cu is not particularly selective-stable electrocatalyst and is vary prone to deactivation; selectivity and stability are two important strictures directly associated with the geometric and electronic structure of the catalyst and hence on the CO2 conversion efficacy. Herein, we propose few strategies with CO2-CAT-ALOG such as doping with IIIA group elements, to effectively have active-selective-stable electrocatalyst to reduce CO2 to >C1 desired products and explain the mechanism of actions by carrying out experiments and theory in tandem. Appropriately, this proposal aims at the (i) synthesis of atomically precise, zero-dimensional (0D) modified Cu nanoparticles (mCNPs) supported over 2D materials, (ii) exploring the parameters governing the CO2 activation and stability of the reaction intermediates with the aid of DFT calculations (modelling and simulation at nano-scale) and micro-kinetic modelling (iii) detailed study on selectivity and stability of modified surface and sub-surface of CNPs with IIIA-group with the aid of high-end multi-analytical methodologies. This CO2-CAT-ALOG approach will not only bridge the gap between theory and experiments at the nano-scale level to a possible extent, but also facilitates intra-European knowledge transfer along with direct societal impacts. In addition, proposed work will not only provide solid guidelines to smart-design and screen the robust active-selective-stable electrocatalysts but also addresses issues to overcome impediments in the field of electrocatalysis of CO2 in near future.

Keywords: electrocatalysis,copper nanoparticles,electrochemical co2 reduction,advanced electrochemical characterisation,il tem,density functional theory
Merging enantioselective isothiourea catalysis with visible-light photoactivation for the synthesis of biologically-relevant chiral molecules (PHOTO-ITU)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Chemistry
Countries involved: Spain
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-03-01
End date: 2023-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 160932.48
EU funding (EUR): 160932.48
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The quest for successful lead candidates in drug discovery has challenged synthetic chemists to develop innovative strategies to rapidly generate screening collections of chiral molecules. In this context, cascade processes provide a powerful tool for rapidly increasing, in one step, structural and stereochemical complexity, while fulfilling the requirements for atom and step economy. The development of asymmetric variants has mainly relied so far on ionic reactivity. PHOTO-ITU seeks to expand the synthetic potential of asymmetric cascade reactions to include the radical reactivity domain. To achieve this goal, we will combine asymmetric organocatalysis and photochemistry, two powerful strategies of modern chemical research with an extraordinary potential for the sustainable preparation of novel molecules. Specifically, we will exploit the unexplored excited-state reactivity of isothiourea-based catalytic intermediates thus merging, for the first time, tertiary amine isothiourea catalysis with asymmetric photochemistry. The resulting photochemical asymmetric radical cascades will rapidly generate, in one single step, architecturally complex chiral natural-like compounds containing biologically relevant heterocyclic scaffolds. The planned research combines perfectly the fellow’s experience in isothiourea catalysis and the host’s experience in photo-triggered asymmetric processes to develop otherwise unachievable catalytic asymmetric radical cascade reactions. The resulting strategies will be used as an ideal platform for assembling libraries comprising enantiopure chiral small molecules that, along with biological screening carried out in collaboration with an international pharma-company (Bayer AG), will increase the probability of success in identifying drug-candidate structures. The multi-cultural and intersectorial nature of this project will contribute to broaden the fellow’s competencies and will place him in a competitive position for the next career move.

Keywords: radical chemistry,asymmetric catalysis,organocatalysis,photochemistry,electron transfer,drug development
TurboID-charging discovery of plant pathogen virulence and host resistance mechanisms (Turbo-MPMI-Discovery)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-04-01
End date: 2022-05-31
Duration (months): 26.0
Total project cost (EUR): 212933.76
EU funding (EUR): 212933.76
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Extensive studies in the field of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (MPMI) show that pathogens inject virulence factors ("effectors") into host cells to manipulate host proteins and promote pathogen success. Recognition of effectors or their modified host proteins by plant intracellular receptors can activate immune responses. Identification of effector-host interactor (host target and intracellular receptor) pairs remains challenging. A more sensitive and specific approach to define effector-host interactor pairs would greatly accelerate discovery in plant-microbe interactions. Proximity labelling (PL) with biotin ("BioID") provides a novel method to detect proteins in the vicinity of a tagged protein. Taking advantage of the recently developed ("TurboID") allele that is highly active at ambient plant temperatures, the main goals of this project are to: 1) establish a sensitive and specific method (TurboID-based PL-MS) to identify effector-host interactor pairs; 2) use this method to identify host targets of 6 CCG effectors of oomycete Albugo candida that confer immune suppression to Arabidopsis; 3) isolate host target transcription factor TCP14-interacting effectors from pathogens from three taxonomic kingdoms, and to identify intracellular receptors CHS3 (Chilling sensitive 3)-interacting effectors. The method proposed here will break the bottleneck of defining effector-host interactor pairs and dramatically accelerate discovery in plant-microbe interactions. The identification of CCG effector targets will shed light on the strong immune suppression capacity of A. candida. My MSCA is a great opportunity for me to build on my previous international mobility from China to Canada and now to the UK, by undertaking advanced multidisciplinary ‘training-through-research’ at TSL. I shall benefit from broad technical and transferrable skills training alongside many dissemination opportunities to boost my professional visibility, leadership capacity and employability.

Keywords: turboid,pathogen effectors,host targets,nlr id,plant microbe interactions,arabidopsis
Programming trustworthy Infrastructure As Code in a sEcuRE framework (PIACERE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Italy,Spain,Italy,Spain,Spain,Slovenia,Poland
Call: Software Technologies (H2020-ICT-2020-1, 2020)
Start date: 2020-12-01
End date: 2023-11-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4424250.0
EU funding (EUR): 4424250.0
Participants: 10
Project status: SIGNED

In this era of virtualisation, the abstraction of underlying hardware resources and the prominence of tools for infrastructural automation have been key enablers for the deployment of distributed services at scale. The growing role of software in managing infrastructures and the DevOps movement, focused on the automation of infrastructure management, are targeting the challenges of increasing speed and quality of infrastructure management, thus lowering costs and enhancing security and trustworthiness. However, the market of infrastructure automation tools is fragmented, there is no single one to manage the whole lifecycle of infrastructure as code (IaC) and existing solutions do not address all trustworthiness and security aspects throughout the whole lifecycle. PIACERE will develop tools, techniques and methods enabling organisations to fully embrace the IaC approach through the DevSecOps philosophy. PIACERE will provide the first Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to develop and verify IaC. Exploiting Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), the IDE will enable developers to create infrastructural code at an abstract level. Using the novel DevOps Modelling Language (DOML), the DevOps team will generate IaC for different languages and verify its correctness at model and code level along with the corresponding security components. The IDE is one part of the complete workflow and will be supported with: 1) a canary environment to aid the simulation of the conditions of the production environment allowing the early identification of potential vulnerabilities and 2) an IaC execution Environment to automatically deploy, monitor and ensure that the conditions are met, incorporating self-healing and self-learning features. The integration, security first and IaC polyglotism arm the DevSecOps teams to treat and work with IaC as they do with traditional code, simplifying the design, development and operation of IaC, while increasing their productivity, quality and reliability

Keywords: devops,infrastructure as code,devops modelling language,code generator,self learning and self healing mechanisms,optimization algorithms,machine learning techniques,security analysis
Dissecting the chromatin dynamics at telomeres during mouse pre-implantation development. (TeloChromatin)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: France
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2016, 2016)
Start date: 2017-07-01
End date: 2019-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 173076.0
EU funding (EUR): 173076.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In the last decades, the progress in medicine have contributed to extend human lifespan considerably. Unfortunately, this aging of populations gives rise to the increased appearance of degenerative diseases and cancers, and therefore represents a critical problem for public health. During embryonic development, cellular proliferation is an essential process that is required to generate all the tissues and organs that contribute to the adult organism. However, alterations in the molecular mechanisms regulating this fundamental process can drive developmental defects and tumors. Cellular fail-safe systems evolved to prevent these events to happen. One of them is the natural shortening of chromosome ends, termed the telomeres. This “molecular clock” prevents cells from proliferating if their telomeres become critically short, which could lead to chromosomal alterations. This mechanism is responsible for cellular aging in Human. Unfortunately, cancer cells can bypass this process through the activation of telomere maintenance mechanism allowing for virtually unlimited proliferation. Interestingly, such maintenance mechanisms naturally occur during early embryonic development. The proposed research is aimed at understanding how telomeres are regulated in this system and under a physiological context. My expertise in mouse embryonic work associated with the competences in telomere biology of the host laboratory of Dr. Jerome Déjardin will likely be a suitable combination to answer these questions. On the long term, these researches could lead to the discovery of key factors regulating telomere maintenance. Finally, as the suppression of telomere length maintenance inhibits cell growth, the present proposal could contribute to the development of new treatments against cancer or precocious aging.

Keywords: telomere,chromatin,embryo
Secure, Private, Efficient Multiparty Computation (SPEC)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Panel description: Informatics and information systems, computer science, scientific computing, intelligent systems
Countries involved: Denmark
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2018-STG, 2018)
Start date: 2019-01-01
End date: 2024-10-31
Duration (months): 70.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1495902.0
EU funding (EUR): 1495902.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

MPC is a cryptographic technique that allows a set of mutually distrusting parties to compute any joint function of their private inputs in a way that preserves the confidentiality of the inputs and the correctness of the result. Examples of MPC applications include secure auctions, benchmarking, privacy-preserving data mining, etc. In the last decade, the efficiency of MPC has improved significantly, especially with respect to evaluating functions expressed as Boolean and arithmetic circuits. These advances have allowed several companies worldwide to implement and include MPC solutions in their products. Unfortunately, it now appears (and it’s partially confirmed by theoretical lower bounds) that we have reached a wall with respect to possible optimizations of current building blocks of MPC, which prevents MPC to be used in critical large-scale applications. I therefore believe that a radical paradigm-shift in MPC research is needed in order to make MPC truly practical. With this project, I intend to take a step back, challenge current assumptions in MPC research and design novel MPC solutions. My hypothesis is that taking MPC to the next level requires more realistic modelling of the way that security, privacy and efficiency are defined and measured. By combining classic MPC techniques with research in neighbouring areas of computer science I will fulfill the aim of the project and in particular: 1) Understand the limitations of current abstract models for MPC and refine them to more precisely capture real world requirements in terms of security, privacy and efficiency. 2) Use the new models to guide the developments of the next generation of MPC protocols, going beyond current performances and therefore enabling large-scale applications. 3) Investigate the necessary privacy-utility trade-offs that parties undertake when participating in distributed computations and define MPC functionalities that encourage cooperation for rational parties.
Standing at the Crossroads: Doubt in Early Modern Italy (1500-1560) (BIVIUM)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Global Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Italy,Canada
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2018-09-03
End date: 2021-09-02
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 229761.0
EU funding (EUR): 229761.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

This three-year research project aims to produce the first comprehensive social and cultural history of doubt and unbelief in Renaissance Italy. The project is timely since scholarly attention to the topic of unbelief and skepticism in Early Modern Europe is growing, as evidenced by recent publications and major research projects. In a period of dramatic cultural, political and religious change, traditional ideas and beliefs were shaken; and doubts on human reason and its powers arose. As a result, intellectual and religious authorities and long-standing truths began to be questioned by intellectuals and commoners alike, and anxiety over the powers and reach of human reason spread. A number of works were published in the vernacular that dealt with doubt and addressed a broad public. These works have never been coherently and systematically studied. This project will fill the void analysing such works with an ground-breaking interdisciplinary methodology. It will result in new comprehension of crucial aspects of European cultural identity such as the rise of the notion of freedom of conscience and the development of intellectual inquiry, and will revolutionise the traditional scholarly approach to a key moment in Italian and European civilisation. Marco Faini, an experienced researcher with international experience in Germany (Wolfenbüttel, Münster), in the UK (Cambridge), and at Villa I Tatti, is confident that the development of this project will profoundly impact his career. Thanks to the training provided by Ca’ Foscari University in Venice and by the Faculty of History at Toronto University, Faini will acquire new skills and build fruitful relations with European and North-American institutions and scholars. The training, networks and publication of the project’s outcomes will increase Faini’s possibilities of obtaining a future ERC Grant and may also result in a tenure-track position at Ca’ Foscari University.

Keywords: doubt,renaissance thought,unbelief,atheism,reformation,scepticism,vernacular
A new social business model for Europe to promote the integration of deaf people in the professional market (Signs For Europe)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Austria
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-2, 2018)
Start date: 2018-10-01
End date: 2021-09-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1996035.63
EU funding (EUR): 1397224.94
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

There are 1 million of deaf Europeans, suffering from an average 50% unemployment rate and 21.1% of which is at risk of poverty. The limited access to employment is the result of the insensitivity to their learning needs in the current educational system, which does not provide them with quality or consistent education in sign language. They usually finish their compulsory schooling with diminished chances at a qualified job and a professional career. Current job skills courses given by different private or public institutions do not use teaching methods and materials that are adapted to their learning needs. During our 14 years of experience in deafness and sign language education, we have developed an effective educational system for deaf people to raise their employment chances: job skills courses taught by qualified teachers fluent in sign language and specialized professional training developed in partnership with employers. Our system also includes bespoke training material, remote access and deaf-centred didactic approaches. 70% of our students finds a long-time qualified job. With Signs for Europe we aim at replicating throughout Europe our successful business model by making it into a social franchise. We will invest €2M to standardize our didactic concepts and materials, define the processes needed to run the franchise, set the necessary IT platforms to train the franchisees in our unique concept and gather all the information in a Franchise Handbook that will be handed over as part of the franchise deal. The final approach will be tested with 2 pilot experiences in Germany. In 5 years, Signs for Europe will help 39,200 deaf Europeans to find a long-term job. Our unique approach will allow governments in our target markets to save 863€M in unemployment subsidies. equalizent will grow hiring 11 new people and earning 4€M in profits as we expand our business internationally.

Keywords: disabilities,teaching materials,human rights,deaf,lifelong learning,training,peer to peer education,special educational needs,signs language