Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Stimuli-responsive theranostic nanogels based on hyperbranched polyglycerol (SMART NANOGELS)

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: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-08-01
End date: 2014-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 167390.4
EU funding (EUR): 167390.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Recent advances in medicine and biotechnology have prompted the need to develop nanoengineered delivery systems that can encapsulate a wide variety of novel therapeutics. Moreover, these delivery systems should be “smart”, such that they can deliver their payload at a well-defined time, place, or after a specific stimulus. The ideal drug delivery system should be biodegradable and biocompatible, should benefit from an active and passive targeting, should target only the desired cells, and should release its cargo (high loading capacity) at the desired intracellular space. In addition, recent trends in nanotechnology have developed the concept of theranostic, i.e., imaging, therapeutic and diagnosis in one. To date, only a few examples of nanocarriers that fulfil all of these criteria have been reported and therefore this research field still remains almost unexplored. In addition, the application of all these concepts to polymeric nanogels constitutes nowadays a challenge, and the achievements of the proposed objective will pave the road for future biological and biomedical applications of these polymeric systems.

Keywords: chemistry,organic chemistry,polymer chemistry,macromolecular chemistry,nanotechnology,nanomedicine,biomedicine,bioimaging,cancer therapy,drug delivery,nanocarriers,nanogels,smart polymers
Hydrometeorological Controls and Warning Procedures for Shallow Landslides in an Alpine Region (HYLAND)

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: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2013-02-01
End date: 2015-01-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 193726.8
EU funding (EUR): 193726.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Landslides are among the most widespread geological hazards on Earth. Every year in Europe, landslide-related disasters result in fatalities, property losses and environmental degradation. The tremendous societal and economical impact of this hazard necessitates the need for measures to mitigate the risk. This work is primarily focused on shallow landslides and debris flows triggered by rainfall with the ultimate goal to advance early warning procedures for this type of hazards. The spatial distribution, duration, and intensity of precipitation play an important role in triggering landslides. A long history of development in radar-based precipitation estimation has culminated in sophisticated technology and techniques to produce reliable rainfall estimates at the ground. However, the radar error structure which is important at the local scale (i.e debris flow location) is still poorly known. One of the main objectives of this proposal is the development and implementation of comprehensive algorithms to improve the accuracy of radar-rainfall estimates at scales relevant to landslide studies. Another important aspect related to the link between rainfall and landslide initiation is the role of soil wetness. Past studies has generally overlooked the importance of the dynamics of soil moisture on triggering landslides and treated rainfall as the only hydrometeorological control. To advance our understanding and thus prediction of landslides we need to account for the effect of both variables. To address this issue, application of a hydrologic models will be carried out to derive information on the hydrologic state variables during landslide initiation and investigate the combined role of soil moisture and rainfall characteristics on the occurrence of landslides. Finally, a set of procedures will be developed to incorporate improved radar estimates and soil moisture information to provide warnings and assist landslide risk management in an alpine region.

Keywords: natural sciences
Tracing the oceanic mechanisms for the deglacial increase of atmospheric CO2: the role of Southern Ocean ventilation (DEGLACIALCO2)

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: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-09-06
End date: 2014-09-05
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 200371.8
EU funding (EUR): 200371.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

It is now well documented that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (pCO2) changed in parallel to the growth and decay of polar ice sheets over the last 800,000 years. However the mechanisms that cause these variations in CO2, and exactly how they are related to Earths’ climate remains much debated. This is a crucial issue given the current anthropogenic increase in pCO2 and it was recently identified by the IPCC as a key uncertainty in our understanding of the climate system as a whole. Although the exact processes are contested based on the magnitude and rapidity of the rates of carbon exchange, it is generally accepted that changes in oceanic carbon storage play a vital role in causing glacial-interglacial CO2 change. The overall aim of this proposal is to better understand the role of intermediate waters ventilated in the Southern Ocean in the rise of CO2 during the last deglacial. To achieve this aim, we will use the boron isotope-pH proxy in planktic foraminifera from a suite of key locations (Southern Ocean and Equatorial Pacific) to reconstruct oceanic pH changes during the last deglaciation, with the objective of documenting where and when CO2 was leaked to the atmosphere from the deep Southern Ocean during the deglacial. The generated data will be then tested against a new model output of the GENIE Earth System Model, in order to determine the relative importance of the deep carbon reservoir in driving Glacial-Interglacial CO2 change.

Keywords: paleoclimatology/paleoceanography,carbon cycle (climate change),climate variability and modelling,co2,deglaciation,ocean ph
Optical manipulation of droplets and interfaces in colloid-polymer mixtures (OPTMANDROPS)

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: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2013-04-01
End date: 2015-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 200371.8
EU funding (EUR): 200371.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

With the rising application of microfluidics in a wide variety of fields, full control over fluid interfacial properties, especially at small length scales, is becoming increasingly important. Therefore, a deep understanding of the interfacial dynamics is needed, not only in isotropic fluids with Newtonian flow properties, but also in anisotropic systems and in fluids that exhibit non-Newtonian behavior. Colloidal suspensions have proven an ideal model system for complex fluids, as due to their high tunability and the relatively slow interfacial dynamics they allow study of interfacial phenomena in great detail. We propose to study the interfacial and droplet dynamics in colloid-polymer mixtures using optical trapping techniques. Preliminary experiments have shown that it is possible to manipulate the colloidal liquid-gas interface in a phase separated colloid-polymer mixture with optical tweezers. We aim to systematically study the interfacial dynamics by distorting the interface in a controlled way. Both the static structure and dynamic relaxation behavior will be analyzed using optical microscopy. We furthermore envisage to use optical tweezing to coalesce and break droplets of colloidal liquid. This will shine detailed light on the forces at play, which will yield valuable and quantitative insight in these complex and rich hydrodynamic processes. We will extend our experiments to study the interfacial and droplet phenomena in suspensions of anisometric colloids and polymers, which exhibit isotropic-nematic phase coexistence. The anisotropic nature of the isotropic-nematic interface and the nematic phase itself will strongly influence the interfacial dynamics as well as droplet coalescence and breakup. We expect that combining advanced optical trapping techniques with highly concentrated colloidal liquid crystalline suspensions will lead to a host of new and exciting phenomena.

Keywords: soft matter and polymer physics,experimental physics,complex fluids,interfacial dynamics,coalescence,droplet breakup,laser trapping,colloid-polymer mixtures,liquid crystals
MicroEncapsDelivery (MICROENCAPSDELIVERY)

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: Greece
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-09-01
End date: 2014-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 161065.2
EU funding (EUR): 161065.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In this multidisciplinary research proposal we aim to develop a new therapeutic platform for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). HCC is the third leading cause of cancer death worldwide with a death rate greater than 600,000 persons annually. Currently the main curative treatments include resection, liver transplantation, or percutaneous local ablative treatment. However, all these approaches are primarily suitable for asymptomatic patients with very early and early HCCs. Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) is the primarily indicated treatment for HCC. New evidence suggests that TACE with doxorubicin-eluting beads is superior to conventional TACE, in terms of reduced adverse event rates and improved survival. These beads are impregnated with doxorubicin, which is slowly released after being infused into the tumour vessels allowing a delivery of high intratumoral concentrations with a low serum doxorubicin level. Ideally, the injected chemotherapeutic should be retained in the tumor and be gradually released to avoid systemic toxicity. However, its selective injection is associated to significant passage into the systemic circulation. To improve drug delivery to the liver, the project “MicroEncapsDelivery” aims to develop a new therapeutic platform for the treatment of HCC that will deliver locally at the tumour the angiogenesis inhibitor hemopexin-like protein (PEX) and the immunostimulatory cytokine interleukin 12 (IL-12). This interdisciplinary therapeutic approach encompasses microencapsulation of genetically modified bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells, within biocompatible alginate beads, for the continuous and localised delivery of the therapeutic factors. Our goal is to develop the cell microcapsules and optimise and characterise the pharmacological profiles of PEX and IL-12 in vitro and their biodistribution in vivo in an established HCC rabbit animal model. The result will be dramatically reduced tumour in a manner that was unachievable until now.

Keywords: cancer therapy,hepatocellular carcinoma,drug delivery,biodistribution,pharmacology,genetic engineering,hydrogel
MOLECULAR MECHANISM OF CAVEOLAR STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION (FUNCTION OF CAVEOLAE)

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: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-12-21
End date: 2015-07-11
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 209033.4
EU funding (EUR): 209033.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Caveolae are small invaginations of the plasma membrane, with characteristic flask-shaped morphology, found in most mammalian cells. Phenotypes of mice lacking genes for caveolins, key protein components of caveolae, show that these structures are involved in many physiological processes, such as vesicle trafficking, cholesterol homeostasis, signal transduction, tumor suppression and mechanosensing. However, many proposed physiological roles for caveolae are controversial, making a rigorous analysis of their function vital. The molecular mechanisms underlying the physiological functions of caveolae are not well understood as well, in part because until recently, the study was restricted to only one candidate-the family of caveolin proteins. The recent identification of a family of cavins genes as another essential structural component of caveolae has enabled us to explore caveolar research. Salient properties of the cavin family include their ability to form complexes and different but overlapping tissue distribution. The discovery of cavins support the idea that the wide range of functions attributed to caveolae in various tissues require diverse set of proteins. To address it, I will utilize innovative techniques for either high throughput screening aimed to identify novel factors or for characterization the role of cavins in this process. I will characterize cavin complexes in-vitro and in-vivo, by testing their interacting partners, the stoichiometry and domain requirements for this binding. Next, I will look for correlations between cavins complex characteristics in different tissues and changes in caveolar structure. As my long-term goal I plan to link between the protein composition of caveolae and their function in different tissues. This study will provide new insights into caveolar function in different tissues, thus advancing our understanding of the physiological processes shown to require proper function of these enigmatic structures.

Keywords: cell biology,proteomics,functional biology,molecular biology,protein structure and function,membrane transport,lipid rafts,membrane microdomains,high throughput screening,drug therapy
The Role of Intention in Language Processing (ILP)

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-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-05-01
End date: 2014-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 201932.4
EU funding (EUR): 201932.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The ability to use language is one of the defining properties of human cognition. On the one hand, the purely linguistic aspects involved in the comprehension and production of language are a uniquely human faculty. On the other hand, the use of language involves complex, higher-order functioning such as intention, essential to mental life. Indeed, a reader and speaker can choose which written information to consciously process and which words to say, respectively, as well as use these skills for different linguistic purposes. The present project aims at bridging these two prototypically human behaviors, by exploring the role of intention in language processing and we will do so for both the active process which is speaking and the passive process which is reading. Investigating the interaction between language and intention is particularly timely given the increasing amount of evidence in other areas of cognitive science highlighting that cognition arises through the early interplay between input-driven and top-down driven intentional processes. Concretely, the project has three (related) main parts: Part 1 will focus on how the conscious intention to engage in a linguistic act (global goal-directed linguistic intention) affects the way words are accessed and retrieved from long-term memory. In part 2, we will explore how distinct language operations one can use may affect the processing of the same input (local goal-directed linguistic intention). Finally, in part 3 and end goal of the project, we will construct and implement a computational model of how top-down intention can modulate lexical processing, with the aim to provide a theory of language functioning from a broader perspective on human cognition and goal-directed behavior.

Keywords: social and human sciences,psychology,cognitive science and neuroscience,language production,reading,intention,top-down processing,erps,computational modelling
Linking global species richness and beta diversity to individual species distributions at multiple phylogenentic and spatial scales (WORLDIVERSITY)

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: Czechia
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IOF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-08-01
End date: 2015-07-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 247847.7
EU funding (EUR): 247847.7
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Recently, unprecedented amounts of information on the World’s biodiversity have been assembled and striking patterns in its distribution have been described, such as the latitudinal gradient of species richness or the relationship between the richness and climate. Major challenges are to establish linkages between the various biodiversity patterns, to understand the mechanisms generating these patterns, and to make the results of macroecology useful for conservation biology and policy. This project will address these through the following objectives: (i) I will explore global patterns of aspects of biodiversity other than species richness, namely beta diversity; (ii) I will use the method of taxonomic deconstruction of global biodiversity patterns to assess their universality and I will examine if their taxon-specific forms can be linked to life history traits or phylogeny; (iii) I will improve methods designed to predict biodiversity in poorly surveyed areas or in areas under the thread of climate change. To address this I will use global data on birds, mammals, amphibians and recently developed statistical methods (spatially explicit regression techniques, phylogenetic analyses, randomization procedures). I will do the analyses at multiple grain resolutions. I will develop software that will enable my methods to be accessible to wide academic community. The project has relevance for biodiversity conservation both world-wide and within the EU and it will improve some of the methods currently used in biodiversity research. The project will establish vital collaboration between EU and Yale University. The project will provide me with training in cutting-edge biodiversity informatics, programming and novel evolutionary approaches. The hosting Jetz Lab at Yale University has well-evidenced experience in the analyses of broad-scale biodiversity data, it hosts leading experts and it participates in a number of collaborative efforts that will benefit the planned work.

Keywords: biodiversity,global,species richness,macroecology,species distribution models,beta diversity,vertebrates,climate,grid,land cover,taxonomic invariance,species-energy relationship,phylogeny
Towards FXR-mediated therapeutic intervention: Understanding how FXR integrates metabolic, endocrine and inflammatory signaling. (MECHFXR)

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: Netherlands
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF, 2011)
Start date: 2012-04-01
End date: 2014-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 183805.8
EU funding (EUR): 183805.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Nuclear receptors (NRs) are ligand-activated transcription factors that play vital roles in human physiology. 13% of all FDA-approved drugs target NRs, however they are associated with side-effects that limit their utility and safety. These side-effects are attributed to general activation of all NR transcriptional actions. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of NR transcriptional functions is essential to improve rational NR drug design. This project will focus on FXR, the NR activated by bile salts and key regulator of bile salt, lipid and glucose metabolism via transactivation. FXR also regulates inflammation status via transrepression of NF-κB. Currently, FXR is being investigated as target in the treatment of cholestasis, metabolic syndrome and inflammatory diseases. However, global activation of FXR will likely cause deleterious side-effects. Therefore, the proposed research aims to functionally dissect the different molecular mechanisms of FXR action during ligand-dependent transactivation and transrepression. Post-translational modifications and differentially recruited cofactors are crucial in differentiating between transactivation and transrepression. Key objectives: 1. To investigate the upstream protein modifications in FXR both in vitro and in vivo models. 2. To investigate protein-protein interactions that govern FXR signaling. Innovative unbiased assays that combine SILAC and biotinylated DNA-protein complex precipitations will be used to identify modifications and interacting proteins by mass spectrometry. In a pilot study, The Applicant identified a novel phosphorylation site (FXR-S224), important for gene transactivation but not NF-κB transrepression. These findings could advance drug design for FXR and warrant further investigation. During this fellowship The Applicant will extend her skills in molecular NR pathway analysis, important to establish herself in the NR field and prepare for setting up her own group and accomplishing her career a

Keywords: health sciences,nuclear receptor,farnesoid x receptor,transactivation,transrepression,post-translational modifications,coregulators,metabolism