Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Capillary suspensions: a novel route for versatile, cost efficient and environmentally friendly material design (CAPS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-08-01
End date: 2018-07-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1489617.6
EU funding (EUR): 1489617.6
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

A wide variety of materials including coatings and adhesives, emerging materials for nanotechnology products, as well as everyday food products are processed or delivered as suspensions. The flow properties of such suspensions must be finely adjusted according to the demands of the respective processing techniques, even for the feel of cosmetics and the perception of food products is highly influenced by their rheological properties. The recently developed capillary suspensions concept has the potential to revolutionize product formulations and material design. When a small amount (less than 1%) of a second immiscible liquid is added to the continuous phase of a suspension, the rheological properties of the mixture are dramatically altered from a fluid-like to a gel-like state or from a weak to a strong gel and the strength can be tuned in a wide range covering orders of magnitude. Capillary suspensions can be used to create smart, tunable fluids, stabilize mixtures that would otherwise phase separate, significantly reduce the amount organic or polymeric additives, and the strong particle network can be used as a precursor for the manufacturing of cost-efficient porous ceramics and foams with unprecedented properties. This project will investigate the influence of factors determining capillary suspension formation, the strength of these admixtures as a function of these aspects, and how capillary suspensions depend on external forces. Only such a fundamental understanding of the network formation in capillary suspensions on both the micro- and macroscopic scale will allow for the design of sophisticated new materials. The main objectives of this proposal are to quantify and predict the strength of these admixtures and then use this information to design a variety of new materials in very different application areas including, e.g., porous materials, water-based coatings, ultra low fat foods, and conductive films.

Keywords: 88.40.fh: advanced materials development 83.60.la: viscoplasticity,yield stress 45.70.-n: granular systems 83.10.tv: structural and phase changes porous materails
Development of new chemical imaging techniques to understand the function of water in biocompatibility, biodegradation and biofouling (BIOWATER)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Ireland
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2020-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1487681.95
EU funding (EUR): 1487681.95
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Water is the first molecule to come into contact with biomaterials in biological systems and thus essential to the processes of biodegradation, biocompatibility and biofouling. Despite this fact, little is currently known about how biomaterials interact with water. This knowledge is crucial for the development and optimisation of novel functional biomaterials for human health (e.g. biosensing devices, erodible biomaterials, drug release carriers, wound dressings). BioWater will develop near and mid infrared chemical imaging (NIR-MIR-CI) techniques to investigate the fundamental interaction between biomaterials and water in order to understand the key processes of biodegradation, biocompatibility and biofouling. This ambitious yet achievable project will focus on two major categories of biomaterials relevant to human health: extracellular collagens and synthetic biopolymers. Initially, interactions between these biomaterials and water will be investigated; subsequently interactions with more complicated matrices (e.g. protein solutions and cellular systems) will be studied. CI data will be correlated with standard surface characterization, biocompatibility and biodegradation measurements. Molecular dynamic simulations will complement this work to identify the most probable molecular structures of water at different biomaterial interfaces. Advanced understanding of the role of water in biocompatibility, biofouling and biodegradation processes will facilitate the optimization of biomaterials tailored to specific cellular environments with a broad range of therapeutic applications (e.g. drug eluting stents, tissue engineering, wound healing). The new NIR-MIR-CI/chemometric methodologies developed in BioWater will allow for the rapid characterization and monitoring of novel biomaterials at pre-clinical stages, improving process control by overcoming the laborious and time consuming large-scale sampling methods currently required in biomaterials development.

Keywords: chemical,imaging,hyperspectral,near infrared,mid infrared,biofouling,biocompatibility,biodegredation
The evolution of plant-fungal markets (MARKETS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Evolutionary, population and environmental biology
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2020-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1492438.0
EU funding (EUR): 1492438.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Throughout the Earth’s history, the mutualism between plants and their fungal partners has mediated nutrient cycles and energy flow in ecosystems. Underground, mycorrhizal fungi and plant roots form vast networks of connected individuals, in which sugars from roots are exchanged for nutrients from fungi. How is cooperation maintained in plant-fungal networks? Selfish individuals can potentially exploit the collaboration, reaping nutrient benefits while paying no costs. So, why cooperate at all? I recently demonstrated that plant and fungal partners are able to detect variation in nutrient provisioning by the other, and adjust their own strategy accordingly (Kiers et al. Science 2011). We argued that the partnership functions like an economic market: partners compete by trading resources, and those offering the best rate of exchange are rewarded. While this work suggests that plants and fungi can successfully negotiate conditions of trade, we have yet to conclusively demonstrate what drives ‘fair’ trade dynamics. In particular, we do not know how partner performance is evaluated, nor how trade strategies respond to changes in resource levels. I present an interdisciplinary program of research to address this problem by investigating four aspects critical to market regulation in nature: (1) Responses to external resources, (2) Partner decisions, (3) Network formation, (4) Conflict resolution within networks. Using a combination of gene-level characterization, microscale manipulation of nutrient landscapes, experimental evolution, and game theory, I will test: (1) how plant and fungal trading strategies respond to changing resource levels; (2) how hosts control fungal ‘behavior’, stimulating them to collect specific nutrients; (3) the role of fungal fusion in network formation; (4) how genetic conflicts within a fungal network are resolved. This work opens up a new field of research into how markets evolve and are stabilized in non-animal systems.

Keywords: mutualism cooperation cheating symbiosis mycorrhizae biological market theory strategies agriculture global change
Lie Group Analysis for Medical Image Processing (LIE ANALYSIS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Mathematical foundations
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2018-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1267550.0
EU funding (EUR): 1267550.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of this project is to substantially improve computer algorithms for image analysis in medical imaging. Currently available techniques often require significant application-specific tuning and have a limited application scope. This is mostly due to the use of non-generic feature spaces that involve many physical dimensions and lack mathematical foundation. Instead, we derive inspiration from the superior generic pattern recognition capabilities of the human brain and propose a novel operator design aiming at better results and wider applicability. This novel operator design combines (partial and ordinary) differential equations on non-compact Lie groups (induced by stochastic processes and sub-Riemannian geometric control) with wavelet transforms. Many mathematical challenges arise in the analysis and (numerical) solutions of these operators. The research departs from previously developed insights of the PI on 'invertible orientation scores', which can be regarded as a specific instance in a general Lie group theoretical framework. Within this general framework one obtains a comprehensive invertible score defined on a higher dimensional Lie group beyond position space. The key challenge is to appropriately exploit these scores, their survey of multiple features per position, their underlying group structure, and their invertibility. We will tackle this via left-invariant evolutions and left-invariant sub-Riemannian optimal control within the score. The orientation score approach will be systematically extended towards multi-scale-and-orientation, multi-velocity and multi-frequency encoding and processing, widening the application scope. Moreover, improvements in contextual enhancement via invertible scores and improvements in optimal curve extractions in the Lie group domain of the score will be pursued. We will develop and apply the resulting algorithms to a wide range of medical imaging challenges in neurological, retinal and cardiac applications.

Keywords: 68u10 mathematical image analysis,35r03 partial differential equations on heisenberg groups/lie groups,35q68 pdes in connection with computer science,49j10,49j15 optimal control involving ode&pde
Active Target and Time Projection Chamber (ACTAR TPC)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1290000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1290000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The active target and time projection chamber (ACTAR TPC) is a novel gas-filled detection system that will permit new studies into the structure and decays of the most exotic nuclei. The use of a gas volume that acts as a sensitive detection medium and as the reaction target itself (an “active target”) offers considerable advantages over traditional nuclear physics detectors and techniques. In high-energy physics, TPC detectors have found profitable applications but their use in nuclear physics has been limited. With the ACTAR TPC design, individual detection pad sizes of 2 mm are the smallest ever attempted in either discipline but is a requirement for high-efficiency and high-resolution nuclear spectroscopy. The corresponding large number of electronic channels (16000 from a surface of only 25×25 cm) requires new developments in high-density electronics and data-acquisition systems that are not yet available in the nuclear physics domain. New experiments in regions of the nuclear chart that cannot be presently contemplated will become feasible with ACTAR TPC.

Keywords: nuclear shell structure,nuclear astrophysics,r-process nucleosynthesis,2-proton radioactivity,active target,tpc,radioactive beam experiments
EFFECTOMICS- elucidating the toolbox of biotrophic pathogens (EFFECTOMICS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Genetics,Genomics,Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
Countries involved: Austria
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-12-31
Duration (months): 71.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1446315.7
EU funding (EUR): 1446315.7
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Our existence as human beings is based on plants and their products. Worldwide, crops are threatened by pests including biotrophic fungi. Therefore, it is of vital interest to develop new strategies to reduce crop losses and to improve crop plants for the growing world population. Biotrophic plant pathogens employ small secreted molecules, so-called effectors, to overcome plant defence systems and to establish biotrophy. The rapid increase in available genome sequences of biotrophic pathogens and in transcriptomic datasets of their biotrophic stages allow us to identify putative secreted proteinaceous effectors by bioinformatic means. However, our insight into the functions of these effectors is still very limited. In this proposal, the PI´s extensive experience on both the plant host side and the fungal pathogen side of the biotrophic interaction is exploited to develop a workflow for functional, partially robotic-based screens to fill this gap. The combination of screen-deduced functional information with the analysis of effector localisation and specific host interactors will provide the basis for formulating starting hypotheses of effector function. These will then be tested in individual case studies, employing the well established Ustilago maydis-Zea mays as well as the new Ustilago bromivora-Brachypodium distachyon model systems. The project will be conducted at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Terrestrial Microbiology in a highly stimulating scientific environment. Linking the dramatic morphological changes and underlying molecular events during biotrophy on the host side to the action of subsets or even single effector proteins will allow the creation of a synthetic effectome. The deep functional understanding of the manipulative toolbox of biotrophs has the potential to facilitate transgenic crop development and will open a new era in the development of sustainable antifungal plant protection strategies.

Keywords: effectoromics,effectors,plant/fungal patho-systems,ustilago maydis,zea mays,functional screens,localisation screens,interaction screens
Synthetic species of the mosquito vectors of human disease: from hybrid genetics to a new type of vector control (VECSYN)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Applied life sciences and biotechnology
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1497606.0
EU funding (EUR): 1497606.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In this project I aim to generate the first synthetic species of mosquitoes derived from Anopheles gambiae, the main vector of malaria, and also from Aedes albopictus, a vector of several viral diseases, that has recently invaded Europe. The experimental generation of artificial species will prove invaluable to shed light on major biological questions concerning reproductive isolation. Furthermore, I propose a novel strategy to reduce the incidence of disease transmitted by these vectors based on the release of synthetic strains. Mathematical modelling indicates this to be a highly effective way to simultaneously suppress and replace a wild disease transmitting vector population with disease-refractory insects. In Objective 1, I will identify genes that constitute the natural reproductive barriers in mosquitoes by analyzing the genetic makeup of progeny arising from crosses of related mosquito species. Such genes can be drawn upon for the construction of artificial barriers and help to reveal the mechanisms underlying speciation in mosquitoes. In Objective 2, I will introduce, into the mosquito genome, artificial reproductive barriers that cause post-zygotic lethality in hybrids but that will not otherwise affect the mating propensity of parent and synthetic species. I propose a generalizable approach for the construction of artificial species barriers utilizing synthetic transcriptional activators. In Objective 3, synthetic strains will be transformed with genes that interfere with the replication of malaria or viral pathogens and their transmission to humans and tested in cage experiments to validate their efficacy for vector control. To carry out these experimental activities I will utilize cutting-edge next generation genetic mapping and site-specific genome-editing technologies. Knowledge arising from the development of synthetic mosquito strains will be applicable to beneficial species with a range of applications in biosafety, agriculture and biotechnology.
Crystal Engineering of Metal Organic Frameworks for application in Mixed Matrix Membranes (CRYSTENG-MOF-MMM)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2013-09-01
End date: 2018-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1467510.0
EU funding (EUR): 1467510.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

With this proposal, I seek to develop the gas separating membranes of the future. The overall aim is to produce composite membranes comprising engineered Metal Organic Framework (MOF) particles and polymers in the form of Mixed Matrix Membranes (MMMs). By applying these new membranes, energetically more efficient separations will be possible. Despite the superior performance of membranes only based on crystalline materials like zeolites or MOFs, polymeric membranes rule the commercial scene thanks to their easy processing, high reproducibility and mechanical strength. However, the existing polymeric membrane materials are not optimal: improvements in permeability are always at the expense of selectivity and vice versa, while plasticization threatens their application at high pressures. This research aims at utilizing the best of both fields by combining the high selectivity of MOFs with the easy processing of polymers in the form of Mixed Matrix Membranes. The main barrier to achieve this goal is the optimization of the MOF-polymer interaction and mass transport through the composite. This is very challenging because chemical compatibility, particle morphology and filler dispersion play a key role. Innovatively the project will be the first systematic study into this multi-scale phenomenon with investigations at all relevant interactions, including MOF particle tuning targeting the application in MMMs. A thorough study on the synthesis of the selected MOF structures and on the performance of the composites will allow engineering MOFs at the molecular and particle levels, resulting in higher selectivity and faster transport. The use of flexible MOF structures will not only allow a better membrane processing but will also reduce polymer plasticization. This research will deliver a new generation of mixed matrix membranes, outperforming the state of the art polymeric membranes.

Keywords: metal organic frameworks,mixed matrix membranes,separation,crystallization
Interplay between influenza viruses and host SUMO pathways (SUMOFLU)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Immunity and infection
Countries involved: Switzerland,United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2013-StG, 2013)
Start date: 2014-02-01
End date: 2020-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1482452.0
EU funding (EUR): 1482452.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Influenza viruses cause a significant seasonal disease burden and continually threaten to initiate human pandemics. Antivirals are available for treatment of influenza, however drug-resistant viruses often emerge. Thus, there is urgent need to develop new antivirals with lower chances of selecting resistance. As viruses rely extensively on cellular functions, one way to minimise resistance is to target new antivirals against host factors. This concept requires a fundamental understanding of mechanisms underpinning the interplay between influenza viruses and their hosts. In this project, we will investigate the role that host SUMO pathways play during influenza virus replication. SUMO proteins are important regulators of cell signalling, and are covalently linked to other proteins in order to alter structure, localization or function. As such, SUMO conjugation regulates many diverse aspects of biology. Our own work shows that global cellular SUMOylation increases during influenza virus infection, and that virus replication is severely impaired when cells are depleted of key enzymes and components required for general SUMO conjugation. Here, we will determine what viral components trigger SUMOylation, and which specific cellular enzymes are involved. We will characterize where in the cell SUMO conjugates accumulate, and for the first time apply large-scale affinity-based quantitative proteomics to the identification of proteins that become SUMO modified during infection. A key aim will be to correlate changes to the SUMO sub-proteome with the function of specific host SUMO-modifying enzymes, thereby establishing the mechanistic role of these modifications during virus replication. Understanding basic mechanisms underlying SUMOylation during influenza virus infection will provide new insights into the fundamental biology of these important pathogens. The work could also lead to identification of key cellular pathways that can be exploited as novel therapeutic targets