Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Apatite-mediated electroporation for efficient delivery of siRNA in umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells for safer allogeneic cell therapy (APApore4RNA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Society and Enterprise panel
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Slovenia
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018, 2018)
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 162040.32
EU funding (EUR): 162040.32
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) isolated from the Wharton jelly of the umbilical cord (UC-MSC) show great potential for the use in allogeneic stem cell therapies for various human diseases. However, the major limitation for the clinical use of allogeneic UC-MSC is their procoagulation activity, which is a consequence of expression of the tissue factor (TF), that can cause thromboembolism after transplantation, thus limiting their clinical usefulness. Preparation of UC-MSC without the TF (UCMSC-TF-) would enable safe clinical use of UC-MSC and bring their full therapeutic potential for treatment of patients. For this reason, preparation of UCMSC-TF- is the central goal of the “APApore4RNA” project. In the project, UCMSC-TF- will be prepared by utilizing the small interfering RNA (siRNA) directed against TF to silence the expression of TF. The project will develop a novel nanotechnology for ex vivo intracellular delivery of siRNA that will combine the use of biodegradable calcium hydroxyapatite (APA) nanoparticles (NPs) (fellow’s experience) and electroporation (EP) (experience of the company EDUCELL) to enable efficient, safe and reproducible transfection of UC-MSC. The use of APA NPs will be based on the fellow’s recent study published in Biomaterials that revealed their unique membrane-disruptive property that enables rapid permeation of payloads across plasma membrane. Moreover, as APA has low dielectric constant, it is expected that APA NPs will strongly improve the EP process by reducing the applied electric field required for reversible membrane permeabilization and consequently improve the safety and efficacy of EP. In addition, important goal of the “APApore4RNA” project is to gain fundamental knowledge about underlying mechanisms of APA-mediated electropermeabilization of plasma membrane and payload permeation across the membrane.

Keywords: calcium phosphates,mesenchymal stem cells,rnai,sirna,therapy,intracellular delivery,nanoparticles
Bridging the digitizing financial world to the changing attitudes and preferences of investors (COH-LAB)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Denmark
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1, 2018)
Start date: 2018-12-01
End date: 2019-03-31
Duration (months): 4.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Today’s investors aren’t getting the investing opportunities they need from financial institutions. There are plenty investing tools they can use, but they are expensive, fragmented and difficult to use. It is very difficult for investors to find investment products they understand and are interested in, while financial institutions struggle to find new investors and promote their products to broader audience. Lack investing opportunities is one of the main causes of wealth inequality, which is one of the greatest challenges facing our world and EU. Addressing the wealth gap is a priority for governments and multilateral organisations. Social research proves that this disparity creates economic challenges such as the ‘retirement crisis’ and leads to many social ills including low life expectancy, abuse, crime and poor educational outcomes. Coherra is a direct response to this problem. We have built an ecosystem leveraging latest trends in ecosystem economy and video content/software co-creation methods to bridge the gap between investors, asset managers and investing opportunities through a multilingual platform that brings global, curated experiences and AI based interactions to the asset management industry. The objective of the proposed COH-LAB project is to adapt cutting-edge AI technology to create a progressive development framework for the Coherra ecosystem. This will be achieved via Coherra Laboratory (COH-LAB), a virtual laboratory for content co-creation. COH-LAB will provide a virtual experimental and development environment where knowledge is shared, and innovation is created, as we jointly thrive to service investors and partners in the Coherra ecosystem.

Keywords: asset management
Launching first large-scale organic seaweed-to-food cultivation and processing in EU (SeaBest)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Norway
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-2, 2018)
Start date: 2019-03-01
End date: 2021-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2372687.5
EU funding (EUR): 1660881.25
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The SeaBest project will be the first to close the circle from seaweed spore to a high quality organic food product using a large-scale and cost-competitive approach in Europe. The project will allow 1,000-14,000t of seaweed to be produced in Europe at up to 56% less cost compared to current practises. Our project will satisfy the high unmet demand of the global market for cultivated organic seaweed worth €9.3bn and of the European organic food market worth €30 billion in 2015. For the first time ever, we will enable low-cost high-volume organic seaweed to be produced in Europe, fully traceable, foodgrade certified and ready for use as an ingredient on its own or in a multitude of products. We are already in talks with over 15 EU food producers and we have Letters of Intent documenting demand for over 3,200t just from 5 large clients who are awaiting the ability to purchase organic European seaweed on a large-scale - so that they can pursue catering to dominant global food outlets such as IKEA and Schouten. We have performed a Phase 1 Feasibility Study funded by Innovation Norway (VIDAN - 2014/104777) that validated our pilot plant at TRL 7 and commercial viability. Over €14 million has been invested in our unique and game-changing solution since 2009 including SEAWEED-STAR Eurostars (#6027) project that verified our offshore farming technology. We are part of the H2020-BG-2016-1 project GENIALG aiming to boost the EU Blue Biotechnology Economy (BBE) by increasing the sustainable production of EU seaweed. Phase 2 funding will allow us to reach full commercial viability through technology maturation, piloting and market maturation activities. SeaBest will generate 30 new FTEs within SES and another 36 in our production partners, and we estimate an accumulated €76.5m in revenues after 5 years. By mechanising seaweed farming and reducing production costs, SeaBest will also open the way to new markets in bioenergy, biopharmaceuticals and animal nutrition.

Keywords: seaweed,food,sustainable farming,organic food,sea farming,organic farming,food retailing,health foods,superfoods,european seaweed farming
Insect pollinators along gradients in differently structured landscapes: importance of the edge effect and small- vs. large-scale agriculture (Happybee)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Hungary
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2022-01-01
End date: 2023-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 139850.88
EU funding (EUR): 139850.88
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This project will investigate pollinator distribution, spillover, colony fitness, and individual navigation capacity in the agricultural landscape and their relationships with small- vs. large-scale agriculture, forest proximity, and crop type (wheat vs. oilseed rape). The project is divided into four work packages (WPs). In WP1 I will conduct a meta-analysis following a systematic review on how abundances of different pollinator species are related to the gradient from the field edge towards field centre (the edge effect). In WP2 I will study bumblebee colony traffic rate, colony growth rate, queen brood cells, and pollen baskets (consumed food diversity) using DNA meta-barcoding. In WP3 I will use a novel approach combining marking bumblebees with RFID tags with a homing experiment to increase understanding of pollinator movements and navigation capacity in the agricultural landscape. In WP4 I will communicate the ongoing work and results of the project via scientific and popular-science articles, as well as blog posts and other information-sharing channels. The major innovation of this proposal is the combination of methods used in agroecology, movement ecology and landscape ecology. My project includes large-scale fieldwork studies in Hungary and Austria. The study results will enable me to draw more robust conclusions about pollinator distribution, fitness, movements, agroecology, food production, and target the highest-level ecological and multidisciplinary journals. I will target my project results to communicate my findings to a wide audience including consultation with policy makers, stakeholders, agricultural producers and the general public. The project results will also have implications for increasing the effectiveness of agri-environment schemes for biodiversity.

Keywords: agri environment schemes,biodivesity,ecosystem services,landscape structure,movement ecology,pollinators
Control of flexible structures and fluid-structure interactions (ConFlex)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Innovative Training Networks (ITN)-European Training Networks
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Germany,Germany,Germany,Spain,Israel,Spain,China,France,France,France,Netherlands,United States,Netherlands,United Kingdom,United Kingdom,United Kingdom,Canada,United Kingdom
Call: Innovative Training Networks (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2017-10-01
End date: 2022-03-31
Duration (months): 54.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3932721.72
EU funding (EUR): 3932721.7199999997
Participants: 25
Project status: CLOSED

We propose to develop systems and control theory needed to understand and control large flexible structures and fluid structure interactions. The beneficiaries are a group of 15 academics from the fields of modelling, control theory, distributed parameter systems and fluid dynamics, aeroelasticity, swimming and marine engineering, working in either mathematics or engineering departments, with strong links between us. We are located at 10 universities in the UK, France, The Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Israel. In addition, we have four partner universities in Canada, China, USA and France and 11 prestigious industry partners, mostly from Europe. We believe that our backgrounds and skills are sufficiently close so that we can (and do) communicate with ease, but also sufficiently distinct so that we can cover many aspects of this field, and hence (as a consortium) offer outstanding training to young researchers. We believe that this area will have a great impact on the technology of the future, as well as on our understanding of nature, and we are eager to train new scientists and engineers in this broad field. We believe that Science and Technology in Europe will greatly benefit from this research, and from the education and and knowledge that we will impart to a new generation of researchers. Our research plans are organized into five scientific work packages, which cover mathematical systems theory, modelling and model reduction, relevant aspects of control theory, and applications. The applications that we plan to investigate concern a wide range of flexible structures in interaction with fluids: wind turbines, aircraft wings, precision machine tools, vessels linked by cables as encountered in marine salvage operations and microscopic electromechanical devices. These apparently unrelated systems face similar challenges and can be analysed and controlled in a unified framework.

Keywords: flexible structure,fluid structure interaction,port hamiltonian system,coupled distributed,parameter system,wind turbine,marine engineering,vibrations,internal model principle,robust,control
Lean robotized AssemBly and cOntrol of composite aeRostructures (LABOR)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Smart, green and integrated transport
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Clean Sky 2
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: CS2 (Art-187)
Countries involved: Italy,Italy,Italy
Call: Development and validation of a self-adaptive system for automated assembly of major composite aerostructures (H2020-CS2-CFP06-2017-01, 2017)
Start date: 2018-03-01
End date: 2021-06-30
Duration (months): 40.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2509375.0
EU funding (EUR): 1995062.5
Participants: 4
Project status: CLOSED

According to the Global Market Forecast, there is a strong need to ramp up the productivity in the aeronautic industry and to this aim, all manufacturers are highly investing in flexible and lean manufacturing to reduce cost and boost productivity. Robotics is a key technology enabler but its adoption in the aeronautic industry is only at an early stage due to a number of barriers related to strict product requirements. Current commercial robotized assembly cells of airframe parts usually resort to high payload robots. The LABOR project has the challenging objective to overcome some of the barriers mentioned above in the automation of many critical assembly sub-operations, as drilling, inspection, sealing and fastening, by proposing a novel lean approach. The overall technological strategy consists in the adoption of small-scale robots (with the aim of saving costs and gaining flexibility) in conjunction with smart fixtures and external axes to increase their workspace. Furthermore, still in view of cost savings and the possibility to have spare parts at disposal with a very limited investment, the robotic work cell will make use of standard process tools, such as electrical drilling tools or automated fastening tools, suitable adapted to be integrated into a robot end effector compatible with quick tool-changers. Vision system will used in order to adjust the coordinates where the robot has to drill based on real time scanning of the sub-components and to check the quality of the holes to guarantee a high standard of the process. Each components of the self adaptive robotic cell will be considered as a Cyber Physical System and a distributed intelligence approach will be adopted. The consortium has experience in the proposed approach for the aeronautic sector and has the needed competences to bring the proposed concepts in the real environment and to exploit the results of the project.

Keywords: automated assembly,automated inspection,self adaptive assembly,one shot drilling,safe human robot interaction
The first toddlers-optimized, AI-based social robot supporting early and friendly 2nd language acquisition (ROBOTOD)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Israel
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1, 2018)
Start date: 2019-02-01
End date: 2019-05-31
Duration (months): 4.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Language skills are a top priority for the modern society. Yet English as a second language learning is progressively starting at earlier ages in public schools (e.g., 6-8 years in EU) many children around the world are missing the critical period (1-4 years old), in which a second language can be acquired as a second mother tongue, and starting too late causes failures and frustration to both children & parents. To be effective, early second language learning in toddlers (1-4 years) requires social interaction and curiosity stimulation. Current solutions (mostly non-interactive, screen-based apps.) are: ineffective for toddlers as optimized for school children (>6 years); not academically validated; in most cases unaffordable. Curiosity Robotics (CR) offers a disruptive solution: a plush-like novel robot (RoboTod), simple and appealing to the infant and loaded with AI and sensors, supporting personalization and long-term interactions. RoboTod will support infants’ physical interactions and teamwork with parents, teaching English As A Second Language while simultaneously stimulating child curiosity. RoboTod is optimized for toddlers, not dependent on screens or speech-recognition, cost-effective (4-20 fold cheaper than competitors), and with a rich content academically validated by over 30 years of linguistic experience of Helen Doron (over 1,000 schools and 155,000 students). After fully developed in phase 1-phase 2 projects (2019-2021), RoboTod will first target Europe (>7 million potential users, €0.9 billion market) and then China (€4 billion market) by following a B2B2C strategy, starting in schools of its strategic partner Helen Doron (850 schools in Europe) combined with local partners for distribution, shipping and customer’s support. Robotod´s market launch is foreseen for Q3 2021, achieving 5-year cumulative revenue of €60.1 million, while contributing to the European Council priority of ´enhancing the learning of languages´ across Europe.

Keywords: second language learning,social robots,toodlers,long term interactions
Geometry and Computational Anatomy (GEOCA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Mathematics
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) (H2020-MSCA-IF-2014, 2014)
Start date: 2015-03-01
End date: 2017-06-15
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 185857.2
EU funding (EUR): 185857.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The past decades have brought fascinating technological improvements of medical imaging techniques. This rapid development is accompanied by a growing need for computer based algorithms to align and extract markers from medical images. The days of heuristically engineered computer algorithms are, however, over; competitive, state-of-the-art medical imaging software must be based on rigorous mathematics to ensure accuracy, efficiency, and stability. Our research project lies at the forefront of computational anatomy (CA), a truly interdisciplinary field within medical imaging, combining differential equations theory, numerical analysis, computer vision, statistical methods, and differential geometry. CA is an emerging field that harbours a wealth of challenging problems. In particular, to develop image registration algorithms capable of handling heavily nonlinear deformations. In this project we construct image registration algorithms beyond state-of-the-art, adept of tasks where today's methods are inadequate. This is achieved by combining the knowledge of Professor Stig Larsson (scientist in charge) with the knowledge of Dr Klas Modin (experienced researcher). Larsson is a world-leading expert on numerical methods for partial differential equations. He has a large network of international collaborators as well as close connections to the medical imaging industry in Sweden. Modin has extensive expertise on geometric integration (GI), infinite-dimensional geometry, and CA, acquired via two post-doctoral positions at top research groups in two third countries. He thus brings state-of-the-art knowledge to the European research area. In particular, Modin's mastery of large deformation diffeomorphic metric matching (LDDMM) and Euler--Arnold equations is essential; it provides the link between image registration and PDEs. This link is the basis of the new, exciting methodology in the project: to apply state-of-the-art numerical PDE techniques to image registration.

Keywords: geometric numerical integration,computational anatomy,lie poisson equations,euler arnold equations,geodesics,image registration,medical imaging
Development of a novel analgesic for chronic pain from marine-derived compounds (Sea4Pain)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Portugal
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1, 2018)
Start date: 2018-05-01
End date: 2018-09-30
Duration (months): 5.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The Sea4Pain project will expand and define the development strategy for Sea4Us’s “Drug Discovery and Development Platform” – a platform that applies novel biotechnological approaches to exploit marine derived compounds for the development of novel pharmaceuticals highly relevant for biomedicine. The first lab-based research results have clearly demonstrated the benefits of marine compounds in a series of pathologies, like chronic pain, and the huge potential of its derivate products in the health market. In particular, our innovative breakthroughs will lead to the development of a unique, high efficacy analgesic (ion channel modulator), with reduced toxicity and limited side-effects (Sea4Pain). This extremely innovative approach shows a differentiated mode-of-action (acting directly in the "pain switch"), that will give rise to a new class of pharmaceutical drugs with no expected adverse effects on the brain (currently being patented). The disruptive compound will modulate specific ion channels in pain-sensing neurons (Kv), for which there is no known modulator, and ease the suffering of one fifth of the World's population who constantly suffer from chronic pain. Sea4Pain will offer alternative treatments for patients suffering from moderate to severe chronic pain. Current drugs in the market (opioid derivatives and others) do alleviate pain but co-inflict important noxious effects (habituation, addiction, loss of drive) and great loss in quality of life. The global pain management drugs and devices market was estimated to be worth $38 billion in 2015 and reach $51 billion in 2022 at a CAGR of 4%. Founded in 2013, Sea4Us has received over 525.000€ in Portuguese and European Research Grants, raised 10.000€ with crowdfunding, and 250.000€ in venture capital, supporting a team of 13 professionals and is focused on developing the Sea4Pain roll-to-market of innovative treatments.

Keywords: pharmaceutical applications of marine biotechnology,therapeutic drugs,ion channels,chronic pain