Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Acquiring competencies in neuroendocrinology by an aquaculture researcher through investigating Gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone & Kisspeptin as mediators between environmental cues & fish reproduction (NEUROBASS)

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: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF, 2012)
Start date: 2013-05-01
End date: 2015-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 166336.2
EU funding (EUR): 166336.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The purpose of NeuroBass is to develop an aquaculture researcher’s career as a principal investigator of the fundamental study of reproduction for the applied optimisation of rearing environment and the resolution of reproductive bottlenecks for commercially important fish species. This detailed knowledge is urgently required and is essential for promoting the sustainability of European aquaculture. The project has been designed by the researcher (Institute of Aquaculture, Scotland), in liaison with the host (the world leading functional neuroendocrinology lab at the University of Cadiz, Spain), to gain new, state-of-the-art experience, competencies and skills in neuroanatomy and neuroendocrinology. Techniques will include in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry, laser capture microdissection, RT-PCR, along with a physiological analysis. This cutting edge training will be achieved by means of a study to elucidate the chain of connection between environmental cues and the classical endocrine axis of reproduction in the European sea bass, Dicentrarchus labrax. It is hypothesised that two recently discovered neuropeptide systems, Gonadotropin-inhibitory Hormone (GnIH) and Kisspeptin, act as mediators of the effects of environmental factors, in particular light, on the neuroendocrine and endocrine systems governing reproduction. To examine this hypothesis, NeuroBass is divided into two research sub-projects. Sub-Project 1 is aimed at investigating the potential interaction of the environmental synchroniser, light, and its transducer neurohormone, melatonin, with the GnIH and kisspeptin neuroendocrine systems in sea bass. Sub-Project 2 is aimed at investigating the potential interaction of the two newly-discovered systems with downstream neuroendocrine and endocrine control of reproduction in sea bass. The result of NeuroBass will be to produce a competent researcher with a practical synergy of expertise both in aquaculture and in functional neuroendocrinology.

Keywords: v402 aquaculture - fisheries,reproductive physiology,l403 endocrinology,l501 neuroanatomy and neurophysiology,molecular biology,light transduction,resource sustainability
The “Germanic Völkerwanderung“ in Early Modern Thought. Origins and Developments of a Historiographical Master Narrative, 1500-1830 (MIGRATIO GENTIUM)

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: Austria
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF, 2012)
Start date: 2013-10-01
End date: 2015-09-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 240733.2
EU funding (EUR): 240733.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

In the patriotic German historiography of the 19th and 20th centuries, the motif of the “Germanic Völkerwanderung“ has played an eminent role. According to this master narrative of German nationalism, allegedly Germanic tribes like the Goths, the Vandals, the Langobards and numerous others had roamed Europe in a series of far-reaching campaigns of conquest and colonization between the late fourth and the mid-sixth century AD that brought the Roman Empire to its knees. Their bravery and martial prowess were interpreted as manifestations of primordial, unchanging Germanic virtues which modern Germans shared with their barbarian ancestors. During the last decades, historical research on the transformation processes of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages has thoroughly refuted such appropriations of the past. The deconstruction of the "Völkerwanderung", however, makes it even more important to examine the origin of this highly influential historical narrative. The planned research project intends to examine the development of the "Völkerwanderung" topos between the 16th and the late 18th century. How did early modern scholars conceptualise the process of barbarian migration – the migrants’ motivation, the organisation and the logistics? How did they judge the interaction between Romans and barbarians? Was "migratio gentium" already instrumentalised in the construction of pre-national and proto-national identities before the rise of the modern concept of nationhood around 1800? And when and why did scholars reach the consensus that the period between 375 and 568 was the migration period, and that it was more heavily influenced by tribal mobility than others? A detailed analysis of the "Völkerwanderung" motif between humanism and late enlightenment would promise important insights into the intellectual roots of German nationalism.

Keywords: s409 history of ideas - intellectual history,s411 collective memories - identities - lieux de memoire - oral history,s408 historiography - theory and methods of history
Abscisic acid and the mechanisms that regulate hydrotropism. (HYDROTROPISM)

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-2012-IEF, 2012)
Start date: 2013-07-01
End date: 2015-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 221606.4
EU funding (EUR): 221606.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Despite ABA being the most important phytohormone in the response of plants to drought stress little is known about how water deficits are perceived by plants. Although ABA has been traditionally described as a growth inhibitor, different reports have shown a role for ABA promoting growth. Under water stress ABA inhibits shoot growth and maintains root growth in order to guarantee water uptake. In fact, roots grow towards zones with higher water contents and this response is called hydrotropism. This project is focused on the study of the mechanisms that link the perception of water deficits in the soil with the adaptive responses caused by ABA that are directed to ensure plant survival. The identification of the mechanism by which an environmental signal causes a modification of root growth will be investigated. The discovery of the elements responsible for transmitting the water deficit signal and the proteins involved in this signaling pathway will compose the first part of the project. Next, the creation of multiscale models capturing the response integrating dynamic changes in ABA response, biomechanics and root growth in response to hydrotropic stimuli as well as the use of non invasive micro CT imaging of root systems will help to understand how plants respond to osmotic gradients in soil. The study of the mechanisms that regulate root growth and bending will help create useful tools directed to reduce crop losses caused by this stress. The experience of the researcher in the field of ABA will help to create an integrative point of view of the role of this hormone in the context of growth regulation. The availability of modeling, genetic and imaging techniques as well as the long experience of Prof. Malcolm Bennett in the study of gravitropism and auxin regulated plant growth makes The Center for Plant Integrative Biology an excellent setting to investigate this biological process.

Keywords: abscisic acid,hydrotropism,water stress,root,modeling,in vivo confocal laser scanning microscopy,aba reporter system
Single-cell dynamics of Gal1 transcriptional memory inheritance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (TXNMEMGAL1)

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-2012-IIF, 2012)
Start date: 2013-03-01
End date: 2015-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 194046.6
EU funding (EUR): 194046.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Transcriptional memory offers a mechanism for adaptive response to various types of repeated stimuli. Thus far the mechanisms that govern transcriptional memory are poorly understood, although evidence of its heritability to progeny suggests that they rely on epigenetic cues mediated through chromatin. Furthermore the dynamics of transcriptional memory at the single-cell level are not known, which is key to understanding the regulation of transcriptional dynamics and environmental adaptation. This proposal aims to unravel the mechanisms of transcriptional memory by studying a simple memory model, the inducible galactokinase 1 (Gal1) gene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In particular, I will address transcriptional memory at the level of the individual cell and the molecular mechanisms underlying “epigenetic” memory. I will use state-of-the-art live-cell timelapse imaging, microfluidics, and pedigree mapping to study single-cell dynamics of the inheritance of transcriptional memory in yeast cells through division. To elucidate the mechanisms by which transcriptional memory is regulated, I will screen a mutant library for chromatin factors that are potentially implicated in transcriptional memory. By combining these techniques with classic chromatin biochemistry I will unravel the function of the regulators of transcriptional memory. Finally I will establish the biological impact of transcriptional memory by determining whether this memory imparts an advantage on cell survival. Because “epigenetic” mechanisms are highly conserved, my studies will reveal fundamental mechanisms by which memory is maintained within a cell and inherited from an individual cell to its progeny in eukaryotes. This knowledge is essential to understand how cells integrate responses to repeated environmental change and will bring Europe to the forefront of the study of transcriptional memory.

Keywords: gal1,transcriptional memory,single-cell,chromatin,epigenetics,yeast,saccharomyces cerevisiae,microfluidics,live-cell imaging,l208 epigenetics and gene regulation
Arctic Geo-hazards, Geo-fluids and Climate Change (ARCTIC GEO-HAZARDS)

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: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF, 2012)
Start date: 2014-03-21
End date: 2018-02-10
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 173370.6
EU funding (EUR): 173370.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Recent studies indicate that water and methane stored in deep sediments might be abruptly mobilized by warming due to Climate Change. At the particularly climate-sensitive Arctic margin, sudden migration of such deep geo-fluids might cause submarine slope instability and landslides, and might even result in a significant release of methane into the atmosphere. Submarine landslides threaten infrastructures and can generate tsunamis. Today’s high interest in Arctic resources indicates an impending increase in industrial seafloor usage, especially near coastal areas. During past climate oscillations, protruding and retreating Arctic glaciers favored deposition of alternating sandy and clayey layers on the slope. These sediments differ in porosity, density and water content because they experienced disparate depositional history and mechanical consolidation, due to past waning and waxing of grounded glaciers. Ongoing temperature rise may help to free geo-fluids that change current flow rates. Upward fluid migration in fractures and sediment layers with different properties will cause local high pore pressures that will decrease the shear strength of layers and potentially trigger submarine slides. Similar geological scenarios occurring during past interglacial periods are viable for large-scale submarine slides discovered in the region. This project aims at developing a detailed 3D numerical modeling of fluid flow at a type-example of an Arctic continental margin. We will determine the hydrogeological system, and numerically simulate scenarios of changing fluid flow rates, and how they affect pore pressure to study their potential effect on slope stability along the continental slope offshore Svalbard Archipelago (Norway). Modeling will be based on available, unpublished, recently collected 2D seismic data, multibeam bathymetry data, and core data from the region. Structural information will be complemented with laboratory work that will provide sediment properties.

Keywords: v201 climatology and climate change,v201 geology - tectonics - volcanology,g303 civil engineering - maritime/hydraulic engineering - geotechnics - waste treatment
Mechanisms of Cellular Rigidity Sensing (RIGIDITY SENSING)

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: Israel
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IOF, 2012)
Start date: 2013-03-01
End date: 2017-10-01
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 264711.0
EU funding (EUR): 264711.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Recent studies show that the rigidity of the extracellular matrix is a critical determinant of cell growth, differentiation, and death. Cells sense rigidity via integrin adhesions and respond by changing their morphology, signaling, and gene expression patterns. Irregular rigidity signals or defective responses to appropriate rigidity signals underlie many medical disorders. This is especially evident in cancer, where the ability of cells to detect differences in matrix rigidity is fundamentally altered. Despite the importance of mechanosensing of matrix rigidity, findings in this field have been mainly phenomenological, and at the moment we still don’t know how rigidity sensing occurs. Active rigidity sensing involves development of traction forces on integrin adhesions, yet how cells develop forces, and how these forces are used to sense and transmit rigidity signals are both unknown. This grant is focused on analyses of the steps in building the machinery used by fibroblasts to sense and transmit rigidity signals. During the outgoing phase of the studies the applicant will use a combination of nanofabricated surfaces with integrin ligands, elastic micropillars that allow measuring forces, and super-resolution microscopy to define the critical steps in the assembly of integrin adhesions and to determine which proteins are essential for force production. The return phase of the studies will focus on investigating the signaling events downstream of rigidity sensing using biophysical measurements of the interaction kinetics of signaling molecules with integrin adhesions. The proposed studies will provide a detailed spatiotemporal description of the critical components and pathways of mechanosensing of matrix rigidity, and will help explain the underlying mechanisms involved in rigidity sensing during important processes such as differentiation or cancer.

Keywords: integrin adhesions,traction forces,mechanosensors,nanofabrication,super-resolution microscopy,pillar displacement by cellular force,frap,binding/unbinding kinetics
EPISCOPAL NETWORKS AND FRAGMENTATION IN LATE ANTIQUE WESTERN EUROPE (ENFLAWE)

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: Austria
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF, 2012)
Start date: 2013-07-01
End date: 2015-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 179137.2
EU funding (EUR): 179137.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The fragmentation of the Roman World meant a reduction in scale, that is, a contraction in the system formed by economic, political, social and cultural relationship networks. Conversely, the Church survived into the middle ages as the only ‘supranational’ institution despite having faced some disruptive challenges. Political, symbolic and cultural relationships continued flowing along long-distance Episcopal networks in the fifth century. Nonetheless the nature and form of these long-distance networks was largely affected by the fragmentation of the Roman Empire. The aim of this project is to analyse how the fragmentation of the Roman world affected the evolution of the Episcopal networks and how these networks worked for or against the integration of the Western post-Roman World, both in cultural and institutional terms. This project will focus in three important Episcopal networks in Western Europe from the late fourth century to the late fifth century. These networks are the entourage around Ambrose, bishop of Milan (d. 396); the bishops from the monastery of Lerins (in the first half of the fifth century) and the entourage of Sidonius Apollinaris (d. 489). The research will include primarily Episcopal sources, Council Acts, Chronicles, and epigraphic sources, among others. The project’s conceptual basis and its main innovative aspect is the use of network theory and methodology as a tool for assessing the evolution in the scale, the form, the nature and the lasting patterns within these Episcopal networks. This research is not only expected to produce interesting results to current research on late antiquity and the early middle ages, but also to enrich historiographical approaches and knowledge transfer within the European Research Area. The product of this research will be four articles in international, peer-reviewed journals and the creation of a database and digital map that considers the temporal and spatial evolution of these networks.

Keywords: s403 ancient history - ancient cultures,s404 medieval history,s410 social - economic - cultural and political history,s408 historiography - theory and methods of history
First principles study of photoinduced non-adiabatic dynamics in DNA repair by photolyases (PINADBIO)

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: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IOF, 2012)
Start date: 2013-04-01
End date: 2016-03-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 227893.2
EU funding (EUR): 227893.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Photolyases are natural proteins that by absorbing sunlight can repair human DNA photo-damage. In spite of great potential for use of photolyases in future sunscreen techniques for skin cancer prevention, the detailed mechanism of their operation still has not been established. In this project we aim to unravel their DNA photo-repair mechanism in atomistic details. In order to deliver upon this promise, it must be possible to accurately predict, not only electronic states of isolated active centers, but also their nuclear dynamics after photo-excitation, and how this dynamics is changed through the interaction of the active centers with the protein environment. The objectives of the current proposal is to go beyond a static mechanistic picture obtain from reaction paths developing along active center potential energy surfaces. Our target is to advance our knowledge on the non-adiabatic dynamics of photochemical processes and the effects of an environment upon them, but also to consolidate methodology and procedures that allow predictability and transferability of simulation results. This will be done by systematic comparison and assessment of different simulation methods at distinct levels of theory. We will start with low dimensional parametrizations of potential energy surfaces obtained from accurate electronic structure calculations. These parametrizations will be used in quantum dynamical simulations and will be further augmented by the "environmental" effects through the QM/MM approach and system-bath projection formalisms. This proposal builds upon the highly complementary skills of the researcher in potential energy fitting and non-adiabatic dynamics, and expertise of the hosts in non-equilibrium quantum statistics, QM/MM, and electronic structure methods. The training provided by the fellowship will empower the researcher with a very complete set of tools that will be instrumental in achieving professional maturity.

Keywords: c118 photochemistry,c113 physical chemistry of biological systems,c115 theoretical and computational chemistry,c107 chemical physics
Nanofiber-Based Optical Drag Force and Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (NANOFIBER OPTICS)

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: Austria
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IIF, 2012)
Start date: 2014-04-01
End date: 2016-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 248379.6
EU funding (EUR): 248379.6
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Recently, it has been shown theoretically that strongly non-paraxial Bessel beams can exert an optical force on a particle that drags the latter towards the light source. However, an experimental verification of the existence of an optical drag force (ODF) with Bessel beams is very challenging. In the first subproject, we therefore propose to theoretically investigate the possibility of realizing an ODF acting on particles in the evanescent field of highly non-paraxial modes sustained by high-index optical nanofibers. Nanofiber modes are promising candidates for such investigations because they can exhibit wormhole regions with negative Poynting vector in their evanescent field. Moreover, a possible ODF could be straightforwardly demonstrated because the mode might provide both the tractor force and a gradient force that automatically traps the particles in the region with a backward force. Beyond the fundamental interest of demonstrating an ODF, its implementation with nanofiber modes may find important applications in both science and technology. In the second subproject, we propose to theoretically investigate cavity quantum electrodynamical (CQED) effects for an ensemble of fiber-trapped atoms coupled to a nanofiber-based cavity (NFC). Due to the strong lateral confinement of the NFC mode, the CQED effects prevail even if the NFC finesse is moderate (∼100) and the resonator is comparatively long (∼10 cm). Such NFCs have recently been demonstrated experimentally. Moreover, cold neutral atoms have recently been trapped and optically interfaced in the evanescent field surrounding optical nanofibers. It is therefore very timely highly appealing to consider the combination of NFCs with such nanofiber-trapped atoms. We will therefore establish the theoretical framework for the novel system and explore its potential for controlling the flow of light and for light-light interaction at the single quantum level.

Keywords: p108 optics and quantum optics,p107 atomic - molecular physics