Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
DELta Virus infection in animal and human hosts (DELV)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Immunity, Infection and I mmunotherapy
Panel description: The immune system , related disorders  and their mechanisms , biology of infectious agents and infection, biological basis of prevention and treatment of infectious diseases , innovative imm unological tools and approaches , including  therapies
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-10-01
End date: 2027-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The emergence and rapid transmission of viruses pose increasing risks and challenges to modern societies, threatening public health and economic stability. A thorough understanding of basic virology is therefore critical for an informed development of preventive and control strategies. Although for more than 40 years the only known member of deltaviruses was the human Hepatitis Delta virus (HDV), it was recently discovered that HDV-like agents are present in a variety of animal vectors and reservoirs including bats, rats, snakes, birds and insects. Metagenomic data indicate that these satellite viruses possess an unrecognized host shifting capacity enabling them to cross the species barrier. As no efficient antiviral treatment is available against HDV, the emergence of novel deltaviruses poses a significant potential threat to human health. To date, animal deltaviruses have not been functionally characterized and little is known about their basic biology. The proposed project (DELV) aims to generate essential knowledge about the biology of deltaviruses, their interactions with host cells, their zoonotic potential and evolutionary fitness. Using newly generated deltavirus molecular clones coupled to unbiased proteomic and genetic approaches, DELV will identify host factors interacting with deltaviruses in their natural animal and human hosts (Aim 1). Further, it will determine and characterize host factors that are essential for deltavirus replication in the human host when they cross the species barrier (Aim 2). Finally, DELV will discover viral elements favoring deltavirus host shifting and adaptation capacities (Aim 3). DELV aims to shape novel paradigms in virology, RNA biology and host-pathogen interactions. Knowledge generated through DELV will guide the development of novel antiviral strategies and will have profound implications for understanding the ecology and evolution of these newly discovered, yet mysterious, viral elements.

Keywords: rna virus,hepatitis d virus,animal deltaviruses,zoonosis,virus adaptation,host factors,restriction factors,proteomics,genetics
EVOLUTIONARY MECHANISMS OF AGE-RELATED BONE LOSS ACROSS THE HUMAN AND HOMINID SKELETON (STAND UP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Postdoctoral Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Germany,United States,Italy
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2026-01-01
End date: 2028-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 401232.0
EU funding (EUR): 401232.0
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

Age-related bone loss in humans is widely documented and linked to the process of skeletal gracilization, evolved over the last 10 kyrs. One explanation for the human susceptibility to bone loss during ageing is that osteoporosis is an unintended consequence of otherwise advantageous evolutionary adaptations. However, the deeper evolutionary roots and potential epigenetic changes that underlie the biological mechanism of age-related bone loss in humans compared to other hominids are still not understood. Osteoporosis is indeed a global health issue affecting millions of people worldwide with greater prevalence in post-menopausal women. Despite the clinical and biosocial implications of the disease that particularly impact public health issues related to women’s lives, an understanding of the evolutionary roots of osteoporosis is conspicuously lacking. STAND UP aims to fill this gap by identifying and quantifying patterns of age-related bone loss across the skeleton in humans and a comparative sample of our closest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, and identifying its epigenetic correlates across taxa. This project will take a novel, comparative and interdisciplinary approach by combining (1) a holistic investigation of the skeletal changes in internal and external bone morphology across the skeleton in unique skeletal samples of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas that each come with critical, individualized demographic and behaviour data, and (2) a comparative molecular analysis of epigenetic bio-markers that underpin patterns of skeletal aging. Ultimately, STAND UP will combine functional morphology of the skeleton, molecular biology and evolutionary anthropology, together with expertise in clinical medicine, to clarify how and why bone structure changes through adult age, particularly in females, in hominids. This project offers an understanding of genotypic-phenotypic underpinnings of osteoporosis in human evolution with far-reaching biological implications.

Keywords: human evolution evolutionary anthropology skeletal genomics functional morphology
Correction of SynGAP haplodeficiency-related defects in AMPA receptor dynamic nanoscale organization (MindTheGAP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Postdoctoral Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: France
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 195914.88
EU funding (EUR): 195914.88
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Pathogenic SYNGAP gene mutations generally lead to haploinsufficiency and account for up to 1% of intellectual disability cases. SynGAP is one of the most abundant postsynaptic proteins that maintains a low basal activity in excitatory synapses. It acts through AMPA type glutamate receptors (AMPAR) that mediate most fast excitatory neurotransmission in the brain. In SynGAP haplodeficiency, AMPAR trafficking and surface expression are dysregulated, and synaptic plasticity is impaired. In our project, we aim to 1) study how SynGAP regulates the surface nano-organization of AMPAR subunits, 2) validate a novel strategy to stabilize SynGAP in the postsynaptic region using innovative molecular tools, 3) exploit our strategy as well as pharmacological approaches to restore normal synaptic transmission and plasticity in SynGAP+/- neurons. We will use recently developed and validated antibody fragments against each AMPAR subunit with 4-color dSTORM/U-PAINT microscopy to uncover their specific nanoscale co-organization. Furthermore, we will test novel synthetic nanobodies specific to calcium permeable receptors to provide the first direct microscopy evidence on their synaptic distribution, in relation to SynGAP haplodeficiency. We will test a newly engineered family of proteins created in our group that aims to stabilize the complex of PSD95 and SynGAP to counter the loss of half the SynGAP protein in haplodeficient neurons, at different time windows as SynGAP affects neuronal maturation and synaptic development. We will also aim to reverse the upregulation of calcium permeable AMPARs observed in SynGAP haploinsufficiency by selectively blocking them with NASPM. Together, our expected results will provide unprecedented insight to the regulation of excitatory synapses, as well as novel strategies to experimentally correct SynGAP haplodeficiency.

Keywords: syngap,ampar,synaptic plasticity,dendritic spines,cellular neuroscience,
FLEXIBLE PEROVSKITE SOLAR CELLS WITH CARBON ELECTRODES (PEARL)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Energy
Destination: Sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Finland,Netherlands,Germany,Italy,United Kingdom,Poland,Spain,Switzerland
Call: Novel Thin Film (TF) technologies targeting high efficiencies (HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-03, 2022)
Start date: 2023-10-01
End date: 2026-09-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4498458.0
EU funding (EUR): 4498458.0
Participants: 10
Project status: SIGNED

Several advantages arise from the incorporation of carbon electrode in the perovskite solar cell (PSC) architecture such as reduced material cost, improved device stability and simplified device fabrication process as well as lower emissions. Thus, the primary objective of PEARL is to realize flexible perovskite solar cells processed with industrially viable, scalable and environmentally sound methods, showing long term operational stability surpassing the IEC standards, efficiency of > 25%, lowered production costs below 0.3 EUR/Wp and minimal emissions < 0.01 kg CO2eq/kWh. To reach these objectives, PEARL is focusing on the development of planar, conventional n-i-p, and further n-i-c, device architectures utilizing low-temperature carbon pastes as the top electrodes aiming to the emerging markets of building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), vehicle integrated photovoltaics (VIPV) and internet of things (IoT).

Keywords: flexible perovskite solar cell,carbon electrode,high throughput fabrication,gravure printing,slot die coating,laser interconnection
Human-centred collaboratIVE MultI-ageNt framework for accelerating software Development and maintenance (HIVEMIND)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Digital
Destination: Digital & Emerging Technologies for Competitiveness and Fit for the Green Deal
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Germany,Sweden,Romania,Türkiye,Estonia,Switzerland,United Kingdom
Call: Fundamentals of Software Engineering (RIA) (HORIZON-CL4-2024-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4930088.56
EU funding (EUR): 4569056.77
Participants: 13
Project status: SIGNED

HIVEMIND is an ambitious project aiming to advance responsible and human-centric software engineering methods, tools and best practices leveraging AI and data technologies to accelerate the whole software development lifecycle. To this end, the project introduces an adaptive LLM-based multi-agent framework that enables collaboration between human actors and multiple AI agents tailored to mirror and provide specialised support for the various roles within a traditional software development team. Each of the agents will be clearly defined and specialised through multiple modalities of model customisation encompassing i) Fine-tuning with organisational data, ii) Prompt-engineering, iii) Retrieval Augmented Generation, and iv) Human-in-the-loop Machine Learning. These agents will be crucial for the development of mechanisms that support smart system specification, allowing to automatically derive complex requirements and facilitating agile modelling while considering inconsistencies and ambiguities, reducing the number of modifications needed in later stages of the software development lifecycle. Furthermore, HIVEMIND is positioned to support design-by-contract programming at all levels of integration by increasing the context awareness of AI agents that assist code development, analysis, verification and testing, allowing them to access relevant documentation during the development process. Moreover, HIVEMIND extends beyond the development phase, providing comprehensive support for the entire software lifecycle, covering software maintenance, including for multi-architecture systems. It represents a synergistic effort, merging the expertise of leading EU software engineering academics, AI researchers and industry representatives into a unified open-source framework targeted to reach TRL5. To this end, the project addresses a range of societal and industrial sectors, aiming at validating the HIVEMIND technologies in 5 relevant environments.

Keywords: responsible software engineering,smart system specification,design by contract programming,ai,data driven technologies,large language models,human in the loop machine learning
EUropean Cancer Information Portal (EU-CIP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Mission
Theme: Cancer
Destination: Cancer
Action type: Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Austria,Belgium,Cyprus,Spain,Hungary,Ireland,Italy,Lithuania,Luxembourg,Malta,Netherlands,Norway,Poland,Portugal,Romania,Sweden,Slovenia
Call: An information portal for the European Cancer Patient Digital Centre (HORIZON-MISS-2024-CANCER-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-05-01
End date: 2029-04-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 12372101.2
EU funding (EUR): 11999215.84
Participants: 40
Project status: SIGNED

This proposal for a European Cancer Patient Digital Centre (ECPDC) Information Portal, EU-CIP, addresses the information needs of cancer patients, survivors, relatives, and caregivers. EU-CIP aims to create a patient-centric cancer information portal that improves health literacy, empowers patients, and reduces inequalities in access to cancer care information across Europe. The EU-CIP primary goal is to improve quality of life and enhance cancer patient care by improving access to general and personalized knowledge, delivering comprehensive information on cancer prevention, early detection, diagnosis, and treatment options including risks, side effects and late effects as well as information on rehabilitation and management of recurrence and palliative care. EU-CIP will prioritise high-incidence cancers, those with poor prognosis, and paediatric cancers. A Common Library of Contents available to all Member States will be created and EU-CIP nodes will be deployed in 10 Member States. The Library of Contents will use information from evidence-based sources such as the Knowledge Centre on Cancer and the European Cancer Information Service, existing Cancer Information Portals, and European guidelines. A governance framework for scalable content creation and review processes supported by AI tooling will be established. The consortium partners, including several patient organisations, will ensure that the patients’ view is reflected in the content review and technology usability aspects. The EU-CIP Central and local nodes will be built in a modular fashion to allow integration with existing electronic health infrastructures. To align with the EU Cancer Mission goal to improve lives through prevention, EU-CIP will raise awareness about the Mission and Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. Alignment with the Mission’s overall plans will be realized through collaboration with the EU funded projects of the related 01-01/01-02 calls.

Keywords: quality of life,cancer information portal,patient empowerment
Illuminating consciousness during sleep via real-time dialogue with sleepers (DialogueWithSleepers)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Postdoctoral Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2026-03-16
End date: 2028-03-15
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 260347.92
EU funding (EUR): 260347.92
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

After waking from a sound sleep, we typically remember little of what transpired during the night. The common assumption is thus that sleep is unconscious. Yet, what is recalled in the morning offers only the tiniest glimpse into the Pandora’s box of our sleeping minds. For instance, repeatedly awakening individuals to probe the last thing on their mind reveals frequent experiences across sleep stages. Further, studies of brain responses reveal sophisticated environmental processing during sleep. During fleeting moments, sleepers can even respond to questions using subtle signals, like twitching. We propose to take advantage of this real-time dialogue with sleeping people to get a first-hand glimpse into the sleeping mind, unobscured by the memory deficits that usually shield us from knowing what happens each night. Our first project will first elucidate why sleeping people communicate inconsistently. By studying sleepers’ responses to analogous questions posed in three different sensory modalities, we will test whether responsiveness is bottlenecked by global variations in markers of consciousness or by modality-specific sensory disconnection. Our novel response methodology will also allow us to detect whether sleepers form the intention to respond, regardless of their behavioral responses. Next, we will initiate communication throughout a full night’s sleep to query sleepers about conscious experiences in all sleep stages. By posing questions that require a metacognitive judgment, we can directly evaluate how metacognition, a process closely linked with higher order aspects of consciousness, changes throughout sleep. Immediately after responding, sleepers will be awoken to report their experiences to assess whether sleepers report conscious access of responses given. This synergistic combination of methods has the potential to reveal previously intractable mysteries of the sleeping mind, such as the nature of experiences forgotten upon awakening.

Keywords: sleep consciousness dreaming lucid dreaming communication narcolepsy rem sleep nrem sleep multisensory
High-throughput oligonucleotide synthesis and NGS for Digital TEXT Storage And retrieval in DNA encapsulated nanofibers (TextaDNA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Pathfinder
Destination: Challenges
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Spain,Germany
Call: EIC Pathfinder Challenge: DNA-based digital data storage (HORIZON-EIC-2022-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-02-01
End date: 2028-01-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2509125.0
EU funding (EUR): 2509125.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Incorporating biomolecules as integral parts of computational systems represents a frontier challenge in bio and nanotechnology. Using DNA to store digital data is an attractive alternative to conventional information technologies due to its high information density and long lifetime. However, developing an adequate DNA storage medium remains a significant challenge in permitting the safe archival and retrieval of oligonucleotides. TextaDNA introduces polymer fibres as a novel approach to encapsulating and retrieving information-carrying oligonucleotides. We will develop a complete DNA storage workflow, encoding digital information into DNA base sequences and optimising oligonucleotide synthesis and encapsulation in polymer nano and microfibres. The project is led by nanoGUNE, a nanotechnology research centre, and partners with Eurofins, a leading European company specialising in state-of-art oligo synthesis and next-generation sequencing. We will design next-generation sequencing assays to automate the DNA digital storage readout retrieved from fibres. The enhanced oligo synthesis and sequencing strategies that, TextaDNA will develop are of fundamental interest in the path toward broader use of DNA digital storage, increasing synthesis speed and length of oligos and reducing costs. The consortium will create the conditions for encapsulating oligonucleotides inside polymer fibres and methods to retrieve them. We will establish efficient methods of synthesising oligonucleotides going beyond state-of-art phosphorodiamidate chemistry while ensuring their stability. Further, TextaDNA will also explore ways of incorporating sequencing technologies into reading digital data stored in oligonucleotide pools and expand the data storage capabilities of DNA. TextaDNA will add to the European leadership in DNA data digital storage by leveraging oligo synthesis and sequencing with nanotechnology to build DNA digital storage materials.

Keywords: electrospinning,melt electrowriting,next generation sequencing,nanofibers,dna synthesis
Early bilingualism boosts the brain's resilience to dyslexia (BIBALANCE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Panel description: Cognitive science, psychology, linguistics
Countries involved: Spain
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2030-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2000000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Learning to read strongly depends on phonological development that is largely influenced by environmental factors. BIBALANCE will investigate the extent to which the early acquisition of two phonological systems in early bilingualism impacts the organisation of the ‘phonological mind’ and determines the success of reading trajectories. BIBALANCE will examine the mechanism of ‘hemispheric rebalance’ to explain the effects of bilingualism on reading acquisition. We will show that early bilingualism shapes brain dynamics by redistributing attentional weights across the hemispheres towards a highly connected system, and interacts with genetic risks of dyslexia, which is associated with poorly connected systems. BIBALANCE’s aim is to offer a mechanistic understanding of how these bilingual neural reconfigurations may sharpen phonological sensitivity and in turn increase the adaptability of the brain to high genetic risks of dyslexia. BIBALANCE will establish bilingual hemispheric rebalance as an overarching mechanism that boosts resilience to dyslexia, showing that (i) it explains adaptive strategies across reading proficiency levels, (ii) it precedes and predicts the successful overcoming of reading challenges, (iii) it is relevant across development (before and after dyslexia diagnosis), and (iv) it has impact for remediation. Four work packages will address these challenges in parallel by testing 500 Basque-Spanish bilingual children on indices of bilingual exposure, genetic risks of dyslexia, hemispheric rebalance at the functional, structural, and behavioural levels, and finally, of phonology and reading. If successful, BIBALANCE will achieve a major breakthrough in understanding how the ‘phonological mind’ is structured and molded to effectively overcome challenges during reading acquisition through a complex interplay between genes and environment. It also has the potential for unprecedented translational impact on clinical practice and education.

Keywords: bilingualism,reading development,developmental dyslexia,phonological processing,resilience,brain connectivity,genetic susceptibility