Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Construction of a Genetic System for Planctomycetes. (COGNISEPLANCTOMYCES)

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,Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IOF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-03-01
End date: 2013-02-28
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 238099.9
EU funding (EUR): 238099.9
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Due to the emerging resistance of bacterial pathogens against commonly used drugs, there is an urgent requirement for new antibiotic compounds and lead structures. The European Commission encouraged researchers to investigate this problem in a holistic manner. Recently bacteria with complex lifestyles and intensive “crosstalk” came into focus as potential source for new small molecule lead structures which might be further developed as therapeutic agents. Planctomycetes comprise ideal candidates, since these ubiquitous occurring organisms, which reproduce via budding, form cell aggregates, such as biofilms and “marine-snow”. Beside their complex lifestyle, they comprise sub cellular compartments resembling the eukaryotic nucleus which questions the pro-/eukaryotic dichometrie. Thus, they combine a complex lifestyle with interspecies communication, which is required for biofilm formation. However, in-depth analysis of Planctomycetes secondary metabolite production has been hampered by the lack of a genetic system. Consequently the major objective of this proposal is the construction of a genetic system for Planctomycetes. Such a system would allow e.g. the construction of deletion mutants and the identification of secondary metabolites while comparing these mutants against the wild type strain. In addition the genetic system will be highly beneficial for applications beyond the proposed project, since e.g. genetic modification of Planctomycetes which play an important role in waste water treatment will result in further biotechnological applications. In addition to the development of the genetic system, the capability of small molecule synthesis will be investigate via genome mining of the already sequenced Planctomycetes species. Further more surrogate genetic experiments will allow the cloning and heterologous expression of secondary-metabolite related genes and operons, which subsequently enables small molecule structure determination and characterization.

Keywords: natural sciences,drug discovery,bacteriology,evolution,development,antibiotics,microbiology,genetic system,molecular ecology,marin microbiology,planctomycetes,cell biology,biotechnology
Dynamic genome architecture in ciliates: an analysis of the evolution of internal eliminated sequences (IESs) in the Paramecium aurelia species-complex (DNA SPLICING)

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: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IIF, 2009)
Start date: 2011-01-04
End date: 2012-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 173240.8
EU funding (EUR): 173240.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Genomes are highly dynamic units that often undergo events of reorganization which are formally called developmentally regulated genome rearrangements (DRGRs). DRGRs, like for example chromatin/chromosome elimination or chromatin diminution are widespread throughout eukaryotes (e.g., ciliates, animals, insects, kinetoplastids, foraminifera, entamoebae) and create diversity in genome architecture, often producing significant changes in the fate of the affected cells. The relevance and the consequences of DRGRs have to date received relatively little attention, one reason being that this type of events clash against a commonly, too simplistic, held view that the eukaryotic genome content essentially does not vary among nuclei during an organism’s lifetime. Here, we propose to study the evolution and biological significance of DRGRs by examining one of its best-known and peculiar examples, the massive elimination of so-called internal eliminated sequences (IESs) from the micronuclear DNA of the ciliate Paramecium. Paramecium is a powerful model system that because of its remarkable biological features and molecular tools represents an excellent system to elucidate the evolution of genome architecture. Given the wide phylogenetic distribution of DRGRs, our analysis not only will provide valuable insights about the rates and mechanisms of origin, evolution, and loss of IESs from multiple Paramecium species, possibly reveal the regulatory potential of these non-coding sequens, and improve our understanding of DRGRs in ciliates, but can also lead to the identification of aspects of DRGRs that could be cautiously generalized to other eukaryotic lineages. Notably, a number of features of ciliates that have initially been viewed as odd and unusual have already helped reveal universal molecular processes (e.g., self-splicing RNA, telomere addition).

Keywords: genome rearrangements,dna splicing,ciliates,internal eliminated sequences,non-coding dna,gene regulation
Impact of subglacial meltwater plumes on sediment dispersal, ocean circulation, ecosystems and climate change (PLUMES)

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-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2011-06-01
End date: 2013-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 229253.2
EU funding (EUR): 229253.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

PLUMES is motivated by the possibility that sub-glacial melt-water from Greenland and Antarctic Peninsula could affect oceanic circulation in the future due to global warming. The hypothesis is that the impact of melt-water in the ocean during major events of ice sheet melting is due not only to the salinity-temperature difference with the water column, but also to the changes in physical properties induced by sediment suspension, which affect also the optical properties of seawater and the vertical flux of oxygen and nutrients. Therefore, glacial melt-water plumites are a sedimentary proxy for major glacial brake-outs and oceanic circulation changes. The main objective of PLUMES is to quantify the sediment input from glacial melt-water during the last de-glaciation of the Barents Sea paleo-ice streams from the marine sediment record and to evaluate the effect of sediment laden melt-water plumes on ocean circulation and ecosystems. Specific objectives are: 1) to define the mechanisms and date sub-glacial melt-water outbursts from the west Barents Sea paleo-ice streams; 2) to model the oceanic circulation including the presence of a fresh water input with sediment suspension, 3) to model the effect of sediment suspension in the water column on the biological cycle, and 4) to correlate sub-glacial melt-water outbursts to known local and global climatic stages. PLUMES will provide research training in three areas: 1) specific methodology, to learn the principles oceanic transport and deposition of suspended particles by oceanic circulation; pelagic ecosystems with respect to light transmission and nutrient availability by melt-water plumes, and seabed morphology analysis; 2) multidisciplinary access to research, and 3) management. PLUMES represents the continuity of efforts to investigate the processes of climate change and its impacts on the Earth environment started by the International Polar Year 2007-2008 and follows recommendations of the IPCC.

Keywords: climate variability (climate change),geological oceanography,physical oceanography,sedimentology,seismology
Securitization versus Depoliticization in the European Union Asylum and Migration Policy: The Role of the New Agencies (FRONTEX, EASO & Large-Scale IT Systems Agency) (EUMIGPOL)

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-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-10-01
End date: 2012-09-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 165962.4
EU funding (EUR): 165962.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project examines the evolution of the European Union (EU) asylum and migration policy. It aims to elucidate an important apparent contradiction at the heart of this policy: the simultaneous co-existence of two seemingly opposite trends – ‘securitization’ on the one hand and ‘depoliticization’ on the other hand. The research project aims to account for this apparent contradiction by developing an original multidisciplinary theoretical framework, which combines insights from security studies, public policy and European studies. In addition to this original theoretical contribution, the proposed project will generate new empirical knowledge through the application of this new theoretical framework to three case studies. Those will concern the three European agencies dealing with asylum and migration, which have already been or are in the process of being established (FRONTEX, EASO and the Large-Scale IT Systems Agency). Data will be gathered and analysed according to the principle of methodological triangulation between the analysis of secondary sources, documentary analysis and semi-structured elite interviews. This research project will contribute to strengthening European excellence in social sciences, in particular in security studies, European studies and the study of governance by agencies. In addition, the proposed project will generate policy-relevant findings, which will be of interest to policy-makers dealing with asylum and migration issues and/or agency creation in any policy field.

Keywords: eu policies,governance,security,migration,asylum,european agencies,frontex,securitization
New enzymes by identification from metagenomic libraries and directed evolution using microfluidic microdroplets (METAPROMIS)

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-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-06-01
End date: 2012-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 180603.2
EU funding (EUR): 180603.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The usage of Nature’s catalysts for industrial applications is promising to be one of the central pillars of sustainable European chemistry, due to the reduced environmental impact of ‘green’ biocatalytic processes compared to current hazardous chemical procedures. However, at present a large fraction of chemical transformations cannot be substituted with biotechnological production lines, because suitable biocatalysts satisfying the criteria are not known. Our incomplete understanding of enzyme mechanisms makes it difficult to generate catalysts de novo with protein design techniques. An alternative route is the identification of biocatalysts from the natural collections of evolved proteins that fit into the catalytic task to some extent (a phenomenon known as catalytic promiscuity) and improve their catalytic performance for the desired reaction by directed protein evolution techniques. In order to reach this strategic goal, we aim to employ a new high throughput technology (in vitro compartmentalization in microfluidic water-in-oil emulsion droplets) in the search for new biocatalysts. By this assay technology, previously inaccessibly large enzyme libraries will be screened. After isolation of the target enzymes from microbial metagenomes, the latest protein evolutionary theories in relation to catalytic promiscuity will be investigated on a large set of natural enzyme variants, in order to elucidate how new activities are evolved in nature. The resulting aspects of evolution of new enzyme functions could provide an intellectual framework to rationalise evolutionary developments and to utilize these principles for evolution in the test tube for relevant applications.

Keywords: enzyme catalysis,metagenomics,in vitro compartmentalisation,microfluidics,catalytic promiscuity,protein evolution
Role of astrocytes in Huntington's Disease: characterization of a novel mouse model with targeted expression of mutant huntingtin in the striatum. (ASTRO-HD)

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: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IIF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-08-02
End date: 2012-08-01
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 223230.4
EU funding (EUR): 223230.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Huntington’s disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease, which has no cure, resulting from the mutation of the gene coding for huntingtin protein (htt). Clinically, HD patients present with progressive involuntary spasmodic movements and cognitive impairments. Post-mortem studies of HD patients reveal severe atrophy of the striatum, reflecting a selective neuronal loss of medium spiny neurons (MSNs). The path leading to MSNs death remains unknown. Conversely, astrocytic dysfunction might be a causal factor leading to HD pathogenesis. Astrocytes play 2 key roles in neuronal survival implicating glutamatergic transporters: supplying energy to the neurons (through a glycolytic flux) and regulating synaptic activity (mainly glutamatergic); and yet, both glucose consumption and glutamate regulation are altered in HD. To further study the specific role of astrocytes in the pathogenesis of HD, the host laboratory developed, using a lentiviral–based approach, the first in vivo mouse model which selectively expresses mutant htt in astrocytes. The main objective of this proposal is to gain new insights into the specific effect of astrocyte mutant htt expression on glutamate transporters and glycolytic metabolism. This objective will be achieved by pursuing a comprehensive characterization of this novel model (behavioral and neuropathological analyses using a stereological approach and detailed cell morphology analysis) and monitor the astrocytic function by combining techniques mastered by the applicant (electrophysiology) and by the host laboratory (glutamate receptors regulation and glucose utilization). Furthermore, defining the implication of altered astrocytes on neuronal loss would shed the light on the role of astrocytes in other neurodegenerative diseases.

Keywords: health sciences
Landslides, floods and erosion: new insights from event-based field measurements in the Southern Alps of New-Zealand and stochastic 2D numerical modeling of long-term landscape evolution (€ROSNZ)

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: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IOF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-12-01
End date: 2013-02-28
Duration (months): 25.0
Total project cost (EUR): 145956.87
EU funding (EUR): 145956.87
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Long-term erosion of mountain belts is driven by discrete landsliding events that deliver sediment to rivers, and flood events that transport sediment away and incise bedrock. Landsliding and flooding events obey different frequency-magnitude distributions, are partially correlated (e.g., storms trigger landsliding and flooding, earthquakes only trigger landsliding), and interact along the drainage network to generate a complex spatio-temporal response still poorly understood at the event scale (i.e. how fast is a landslide deposit eroded, and how does it impact the downstream evolution of a channel ?) and over the long-term (how important are extreme events on river dynamics, landscape morphology and sediment fluxes ?). To progress on this topic, we propose to combine innovative field measurements using Terrestrial Laser Scanner, documenting individual flood and landslide impacts on channel morphology in the extremely active Southern Alps of New-Zealand, and 2D stochastic numerical modeling of landscape evolution to explore the long-term consequences and improve on the hazard assessment of rare extreme events such as landslide dams. The applicant will complement his leading expertise in numerical and experimental modeling of channel dynamics by being trained in landslide dynamics and risk assessment at Dept of Geological Sciences (Univ. Canterbury, N-Z), a leading institution on this topic with unique access to the nearby Southern Alps. During the return phase, he will apply his new skills to implement a stochastic landslide module to the landscape evolution code developed at Geosciences Rennes (CNRS, Univ. Rennes, Fr), validate model outputs against field data, and explore the long-term consequences for mountain erosion of the combined short-term stochasticity in landsliding and flooding. To further improve his career and strengthen the link between Europe and New-Zealand, the fellow will also prepare and submit a Marie-Curie Initial Training Network proposal.

Keywords: erosion,landslides,floods,southern alps of new zealand,geomorphology,surface processes modelling tools,terrestrial laser scanner,landslide dam,sedimentology,risk assessment (geophysics)
Trans-Regional Elites in the Later Roman Empire (TRANS-REGIONAL ELITE)

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-2009-IOF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-09-01
End date: 2014-02-28
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 233889.9
EU funding (EUR): 233889.9
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The growing level of political and economic integration is leading to the emergence of pan-European managerial, administrative and (increasingly) educational élites. From a historical perspective, the importance of supra-regional institutions is a rare phenomenon. Before the onset of modernity, the Roman Empire was the only political formation which united much of the European continent under the umbrella of a unified and centralised administrative framework. Here, in the late third and early fourth centuries, a centralised, hierarchical and salaried bureaucracy developed. For the first time, aristocrats from throughout Europe and the Mediterranean world were joined in one unified and hierarchically-structured institution. This project explores the social and cultural effects of the formation of a new supra-regional bureaucracy. It looks at the impact of the new imperial institutions on the ways in which their members conducted their lives, and in which they conceived of their place in the world. This project breaks new ground by looking at the ways in which the social and geographical mobility created by the late-antique shifts in governmental structure was experienced by those who participated in it. Drawing on recent research in social anthropology and in the comparative study of empires, it looks at the ways in which both participants and observers negotiated the disruptions caused by translocation into different social and geographical environments. The outgoing phase will be spent with Clifford Ando at the University of Chicago, the leading theorist on Roman government. The return phase will spent at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, one of the foremost European centres for the comparative study of pre-modern states. The project will enable researcher John Weisweiler to transfer new methodologies on trans-regional political formations to the European Research Area. And it will enable him to acquire specialist skills vital for his later research career.

Keywords: humanities
Robust and Self-organizing Networks (ROSES)

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-2009-IOF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-08-01
End date: 2012-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 207628.4
EU funding (EUR): 207628.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Networks in transport, logistics, and telecommunication are pivotal for European and similar modern societies. The networks are complex and of very large scale. They must be operated both efficiently and reliable. At the intersection of mathematics, computer science, economics and engineering a huge body of linear and discrete network optimization methods has been developed. Methods for robust optimization form a younger field, topically attracting a lot of attention both mathematically and from practice. Recently, the concept of Recoverable Robustness, which we developed in an FET project, has significantly enlarged the possibilities to combine robustness and network optimization. The concept is well understood and proved useful in practice when the recovery is a linear program. The case when the recovery is an integer linear program has far broader modeling power. This case is almost untreated. In many applications the networks are not controlled by a central optimizing authority. They are operated by selfish players. A market mechanism must guarantee that the players in pursuit of their own benefit achieve global efficiency and reliability. Mechanism design is a thriving field with high international and interdisciplinary visibility. While many mechanisms for optimization problems are known, mechanisms that instill robust solutions are untreated. Given a market mechanism to instill robustness in a network controlled by selfish players at minimum loss in efficiency, a different application stands to reason: the networks created by credit obligations. To design regulations yielding robust credit networks it seems reasonable to complement classical, stochastic techniques with robust network optimization and algorithmic game theory. Such a new approach will have huge impact both scientifically and on financial stability. MIT’s ORC offers leading experts to cooperatively extend robustness to integer recovery, mechanism design and financial risk management.

Keywords: operations research,applied mathematics,algorithms