Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
New Science enabled with the Expanded Very Large Array (NEWEVLA)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IOF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-06-01
End date: 2013-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 203585.6
EU funding (EUR): 203585.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The expansion project of the Very Large Array (VLA) near Socorro is a dramatic upgrade of one of the most successful scientific instruments. The new Expanded VLA will be a completely new instruments and orders of magnitude more powerful than the old VLA. Currently, the commissioning of the EVLA is under progress, and the new capabilities are already available only to researchers who spend time in Socorro to assist with the commissioning. This puts European researchers at risk to lose their competitiveness compared to colleagues in the US, who can be personally present in Socorro. Sending researchers to Socorro would avoid this problem, since they can use the full capabilities of the EVLA early on. The central aims of this proposal are to a) become a leading expert in Europe on the EVLA by hands-on experience in the commissioning phase, b) initiate ground-breaking new science currently not possible from anywhere in Europe by using the full capabilities of the new EVLA, and c) bring this new knowledge back to my host institute in Europe, the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie (MPIfR) in Bonn. I will pursue three different scientific projects, which have a large potential for a significant impact. The first project will investigate the diversity of Supernova Ibc and will help to understand the supernova - gamma-ray burst connection. In the second project, I will measure a very accurate distance to the closest ultracompact binary HM Cnc, which is expected to be the strongest source of gravitational waves for the LISA satellites, and can be only obtained by a VLBI parallax measurement. This is important to calibrate the physical properties of this system. Finally, a proper motion of the Andromeda galaxy will be measured. This is essential for our understanding of the evolution of the Local Group, which is an important laboratory to test theories of gravity. Therefore, all three project will have major implications even for fundamental physics.

Keywords: physical sciences,astronomy,astrophysics,radio astronomy,supernovae,astrometry,local goup
Regulation of coupling between transcription and splicing during cell cycle progression and UV irradiation (AS-ARK-JV-GD)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Outgoing Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IOF, 2010)
Start date: 2012-01-01
End date: 2014-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 191284.0
EU funding (EUR): 191284.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Alternative pre-mRNA splicing is more a rule than an exception because it is estimated to affect the expression of nearly 65%of human genes. The importance of alternative splicing (AS) is confirmed by findings that mutations that affect it are frequent in human hereditary disease and because AS factors can be misregulated in cancer. It is now well established that splicing can be cotranscriptional and that AS regulation not only depends on the interaction of splicing factors with their target sequences in the pre-mRNA, but is also coupled to RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription, similar to what happens with other pre-mRNA processing reactions. A unique feature of this polymerase is the presence of a highly repetitive carboxy terminal domain (CTD), which is subject to multiple regulatory post-translational modifications. The ways in which transcription, and more precisely CTD phosphorylation events, regulate AS involve both the association of splicing factors to the transcribing polymerase (recruitment coupling) and modulation of Pol II elongation rates (kinetic coupling). Moreover, it has been recently shown that chromatin template modifications, through Pol II elongation inhibition, can influence AS. But the mechanisms involved in alternative splicing regulation, especially those acting through coupling with transcription, have not been deeply studied in in vivo models. Much of our knowledge comes from in vitro approaches, where conditions can be precisely controlled at the expense of losing several levels of regulation present in intact cells. In this project, we plan to address two major questions: 1) how hyperphosphorylation of Pol II induces a decrease in Pol II elongation rate and 2) how AS changes caused through modifications in Pol II activity and chromatin structure are regulated during the cell cycle. To tackle these questions, we will take advantage of recent findings obtained by both the Kornblihtt and the Valcárcel labs.

Keywords: alternative splicing,rna polymerase ii,chromatin modifications,cell cycle,coordination between transcription and splicing,uv radiation
A putative mechanism coupling DNA replication and translation in archaea conserved in eukaryotes (MILESTONE)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2013-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 185248.0
EU funding (EUR): 185248.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Archaea, forming the third domain of life, are extremely interesting to study because of their position between Bacteria and Eukaryotes. Indeed, they possess characteristics from these two other domains; they are morphologically very close to bacteria (cell size; absence of a nuclear envelope) but show cellular mechanisms closer to eukaryotic ones (DNA replication, histones). Following a bioinformatics study of replication genes environments in archaea, Pr. Forterre’s lab showed that 2 clusters were highly conserved among archaea; surprisingly, the clusters grouped genes coding for replisome AND ribosomal proteins. The conservation of the clusters throughout evolution strongly suggests a functional interaction of the proteins involved. This project aims at studying the clusters to uncover a coupling between replication and translation in archaea. This would bring tremendous results for two reasons: first, such a control has never been shown in archaea or eukaryotes before, and was discovered only recently in bacteria, through the stringent response. No mechanism is known in archaea and eukaryotes to link proteins synthesis to DNA synthesis. Second, most of the genes located in the clusters have homologues in eukaryotes, and some of them are overexpressed in some human cancers. Thus, finding a new function and interacting partners for these proteins would help in understanding their role in cancer development and defining new therapeutic targets.

Keywords: evolutionary biology,genomics,molecular genetics,archaea,dna replication,protein synthesis
Development of an integrated numerical model of the intra-cranial space (including the brain parenchyma, blood flow and cerebrospinal fluid) for clinical application (DINUMA)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IIF, 2010)
Start date: 2011-05-06
End date: 2014-09-26
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 187028.8
EU funding (EUR): 187028.8
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

This research project aims at developing an integrated numerical model of the intra-cranial space necessary for a better understanding of cerebral mechanics under normal and disease conditions. This model will address the key short comings of the current strategies, namely the lack of integration between structural and fluid components and the discrepancies between the parenchymal deformations under large or small strain rates. To reconcile the different mechanical behaviors reported in literature for the brain parenchyma, we propose a bottom-up approach, wherein we first reproduce the parenchymal microscopic structure, considered as a fluid-filled network of viscoelastic fibers, and then propagate the micro-scale fiber deformations to capture large-scale motion. We then integrate the parenchyma within its physiologic environment by coupling our structural model with fluid dynamics simulations of the cerebrospinal fluid and cerebral blood flow. All developments will be conducted in synergy with in vitro experiments to validate our modeling strategies. Finally, in the application phase we demonstrate the strength and benefits of out integrated model, focusing on two specific research questions: 1) the mechanisms responsible for the enlargement of the ventricles in normal pressure hydrocephalus, and 2) the correlation between the apparent parenchymal compliance and risk of secondary traumatic brain injury. Such an integrated numerical tool also provides an ideal setting for the design and preliminary testing of medical devices, and will be incorporated into the on-going effort of the host institution to improve shunting technologies for patients with normal pressure hydrocephalus (SNSF Grant K-32K1_120531). The proposed developments and applications take advantage of the strong theoretical and modeling skills of the applicant, the expertise of the host institution in cerebral and porous material modeling, and both parties’ experience in applied biomedical research.

Keywords: bioengineering,cerebral mechanics,porous modeling,computational fluid dynamics (cfd),fluid structure interaction (fsi),cerebrovascular disease
Industry-academia partnership for the design and implementation of an efficient, reliable and secure smart energy network (SMART-NRG)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Greece,Spain,Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IAPP, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2017-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2644518.8
EU funding (EUR): 2644518.8
Participants: 4
Project status: CLOSED

Smart energy networks (SENs) are electric systems that use two-way networking technologies, cyber-secure communications technologies, and computational intelligence and control in an integrated fashion to efficiently manage energy consumption with the aim of providing a new electricity grid that is clean, safe, secure, reliable, resilient, efficient, and environmentally sustainable. SENs can be well regarded as a system of many systems, whose design challenges, requirements, and expectations can only be achieved through a holistic analysis, design, and optimization of all its components. In SMART-NRG, we will go beyond state-of-the-art approaches for SENs by introducing an innovative and integrated protocol stack, which will be made of three interlinked and optimized sub-systems: i) reliable communications and networking; ii) smart energy management; and iii) security and protection, which are one-to-one connected to the three key functionalities of SENs. The sub-systems will be studied, optimized, and integrated in a very efficient protocol stack, which will be tested via system level simulations and hardware testbeds, and, eventually, will be integrated into commercial devices. According to this view, the project has four main scientific objectives: 1. The proposal of a new protocol stack and network architecture for SENs integrating communications, energy management, and security protocols, along with their analysis, design, and optimization for smart metering applications. 2. The analysis, the design, and the optimization of an efficient and reliable two-way smart meter communication infrastructure by embracing a stochastic network modeling framework. 3. The analysis, the design, and the optimization of advanced smart energy management algorithms for better energy utilization. 4. The analysis, the design, and the optimization of advanced security and privacy mechanisms for large-scale networks with reduced management and control overhead.

Keywords: smart energy networks,system of systems,networking,information processing,security
Academia-Industry Research and Development Opportunities for Picornaviruses (AIROPICO)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Netherlands,Finland,Belgium,Spain,Estonia,Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IAPP, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2018-04-30
Duration (months): 52.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2542340.99
EU funding (EUR): 2542340.99
Participants: 10
Project status: CLOSED

Viruses belonging to the large family of Picornaviridae such as enteroviruses, rhinoviruses and parechoviruses represent the most commonly encountered infectious agents in mankind. Several research groups in Europe are active on different aspects of picornavirus research. Nevertheless, prevalence, transmission, and pathogenesis are still largely unknown and no therapy is available for picorna infections. Within the present AIROPico project, the partners now are teaming up to combine the disciplines of pathogenesis, diagnostics and therapy development in order to understand disease and to develop effective antiviral treatments.The present AIROPico project will provide interdisciplinary education and training to university scientists and company researchers, through intersectoral staff exchange and collaboration in the context of a highly innovative research and development project on picornavirus biology, diagnostics and therapy. The general aim of this project is to build up a sustainable, interdisciplinary, integrated academia-industry consortium to explore and unravel mechanisms of human picornavirus pathogenesis and to develop fast diagnostics, novel treatment options and additional therapy strategies. The project partners (all active in the field of picornaviruses from different perspectives) will work closely together on biological characterization of virus types, diagnostics and therapy development. The project will concentrate on combining knowledge, experiences and new research techniques (through secondments, recruitment and training) in a focused and joint collaborative effort, needed to tackle the health problems due to picornaviruses, but also needed to tackle the challenges faced in the development and marketing of new diagnostics and treatments.

Keywords: enterovirus,parechovirus,epidemiology,biological characterization,diagnostics,therapy development,multidisciplinair research.
RRI TOOLS, a project to foster Responsible Research and Innovation for society, with society. (RRI TOOLS)

Framework: FP7 — Capacities
Programme: Science in Society
Destination: A more dynamic governance of the science and society relationship
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Spain,Netherlands,Belgium,United Kingdom,Austria,France,Germany,Poland,Spain,Estonia,Greece,France,Czechia,Serbia,Portugal,Ireland,Sweden,Italy,Denmark,Hungary,Bulgaria
Call:  (FP7-SCIENCE-IN-SOCIETY-2013-1, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2016-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 7749212.64
EU funding (EUR): 6942031.02
Participants: 28
Project status: CLOSED

This project will develop and use a Training and Dissemination Toolkit on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). It will be addressed and designed by all the stakeholders of the Research and Innovation (RI) chain of value, including Researchers, Civil Society, Industry and Education but will specially focus on Policy Makers in order to impact significantly in the future governance of RI. The Consortium that will carry out the project is a 26 multi-stakeholder group of institutions with experience in different key components of RRI. The project envisages the creation of 19 RRI Hubs covering 30 countries of the European Research Area. The Consortium and the RRI Hubs will carry out a process of development of the toolkit that will be collaborative and inclusive, this way fostering methods and channels of dialogue in order to increase creativity and shared ownership of the process. Ultimately, the process will lead to a Community of Practice in RRI which will assure the use, evolution and enrichment of the toolkit. The RRI Toolkit will be an innovative and creative set of tools comprising practical digital resources and actions aimed at raising awareness, training, disseminating and implementing RRI. The RRI Hubs will be responsible for training on the use of the toolkit throughout Europe, of advocating policy makers at a national and regional level and of disseminating the concept of RRI to a wide audience. Bridging the gap between Science and Society has been a challenge for decades. Today, there is evidence that we need to involve wider society in decisions about the form and direction of research and innovation to contribute to a smart, inclusive and sustainable growth of our societies. RRI TOOLS will help transform Research and Innovation in Europe into a process targeted at the grand challenges of our time (science for society) where deliberation and reflection are coupled with action (science with society).

Keywords: toolkit,raising awareness,policy-makers,advocacy,creativity,multi-stakeholders,hubs,education,engagement,gender,open access,ethics,training,dissemination
Nanostructured Biocompatible/Bioactive Materials (NANOBIOMAT)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Research Staff Exchange Scheme
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Poland,United Kingdom,Greece,Moldova, Republic of
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES, 2013)
Start date: 2014-01-01
End date: 2017-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 319200.0
EU funding (EUR): 319200.0
Participants: 4
Project status: CLOSED

The primary goal of the Joint Exchange Program (Project) is to create multicomponent materials for biomedical applications and to combine knowledge and experience of the different scientific groups concerning interdisciplinary milestones of the proposal in order to deliver the final product. In the framework of the Project the following materials: porous and nonporous silica oxides, nanostructured carbons, 3D reinforced polymers, metal containing composites and interpenetrating polymer networks, are scheduled to develop biocompatible/bioactive nanostructured materials. According to the programme, the research is focused on: surface modification and interfacial phenomena, structure-property relations, novel biocompatible/bioactive coatings for blood contacting surfaces, (entero)sorbents (for pollutants and (bio)toxins removal), and drug delivery system development. The partner’s panel is composed in regards to the Project goals and potential contributions. The consortium includes six partners, three of them are universities from Member States (P1-P3), and the Institute of Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova (P4) is representing the Associated States. The Third Country Participants are presented by Partner 5, which comprised of teams from the Russian Academy of Sciences; and Partner 6 is the Chuiko Institute of Surface Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. This project will reinforce and strengthen existing bilateral scientific links and transforms them into a larger network which includes all the partners. It will provide momentum for long-term collaboration between the partners. Its results will lay foundation for other actions, aimed at further development and consolidation of the European Research Area and large scale competitive research projects. Additionally, this Project will provide relevant training for the early stage researchers from all teams.

Keywords: nanostructured materials,nanosystems,nanooxides,biopolymers,bioactivity,bactericide,(entero)sorbents,polymer interpenetrating network (semi-ipns),biocompatibility,and no-release systems,drug
Disarming the intravascular innate immune response to improve treatment modalities for chronic kidney disease (DIREKT)

Framework: FP7 — Cooperation
Programme: Health
Destination: Biotechnology, generic tools and medical technologies for human health
Action type: Collaborative project
Countries involved: Sweden,Denmark,Norway,Germany,United States,Australia,Netherlands,Sweden,Greece,Sweden
Call:  (FP7-HEALTH-2013-INNOVATION-1, 2013)
Start date: 2013-12-01
End date: 2017-11-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 8362243.13
EU funding (EUR): 5984070.0
Participants: 12
Project status: CLOSED

Chronic kidney disease is world wide a major cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). 800.000 patients in Europe and in the US, respectively, require long-term treatment initially with peritoneal dialysis, followed by hemodialysis and kidney transplantation. Each ESRD patient on hemodialysis costs ≈€40000 to €80000 per year, has extremely poor quality of life and an average life expectancy of only 4 years. Kidney transplantation totally changes life for an ESRD patient who can then return to normal life, but this treatment is hampered by the low number of available kidney grafts. All these treatments are, however, associated with severe adverse reactions that cause damaging thromboinflammation, triggered by the intravascular innate immune system, which lead to poor results and non-function. The overall aim of this project is to clarify the mechanisms and identify nature´s own specific control points of regulation in these adverse reactions in order to be able to significantly improve the quality of hemodialysis devices and kidney grafts by applying these concepts of regulation in hemodialysis and kidney transplantation. We envisage that conveying a novel soluble complement inhibitor to the clinical stage via phase 1/2a clinical studies, creation of nano-profiled surfaces with low activating properties and generation of easy-to-apply one step-coatings for treatment of biomaterials (hemodialysis) and endothelial cell surfaces (kidney grafts) will revolutionize the treatment modalities of ESRD. The feasible hemodialysis treatment periods are anticipated to be extended, combined with an improved quality of life and in kidney transplantation attenuation of innate immune reactions will prolong the life expectancy of the graft and make kidneys more accessible for transplantation. All the novel techniques can be applied to other types of implantations, extracorporeal treatments and transplantation and in the future be used in xenotransplantation and stem cell therapies.

Keywords: chronic kidney disease,end-stage renal disease,intravascular innate immunity,hemodialysis,kidney transplantation,regulation,coatings