Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Nanoscale Chromatin Response to Mechanical Stimulus (NanoCHROMS)

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: Spain
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): 165312.96
EU funding (EUR): 165312.96
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Cells respond to physical stimuli from their environment, drastically changing their chromatin organization. Direct nuclear mechanotransduction affects cell behavior, but this mechanism is still not fully understood. This unsolved link is due to the difficulty of finding tools to generate precise mechanical signals and observe changes in chromatin at the nanoscale level. NanoCHROMS aims to understand the effect of nuclear mechanotransduction on nuclear architecture. We aim to characterize the mechanism driving localized chromatin structure changes in response to direct physical stimuli, and how these changes relate to cellular state. NanoCHROMS will exploit two novel and powerful technologies, Nanofabrication and Single Molecule Localization Microscopy (SMLM). For that, we will use nanopillars as nanomechanical actuators. By culturing somatic, stem and cancer cells in a fabricated nanopillar surface, purposely designed to be SMLM-compatible, we can exert a precise, controlled, and replicable force in the nucleus. Using SMLM, we can unveil higher order chromatin folding with nanometric precision, obtaining positional information of DNA and nucleosome packaging, directly related to cell function. By using SMLM in cells growing on nanopillared surfaces, we can establish the changes of chromatin in direct relation to the physical point of application of the stimulus at the nanoscale. Finally, using sequence-specific imaging approaches (Oligopaints) we will study the nuclear positioning and compaction of genes whose expression is drastically affected by mechanotransduction. NanoCHROMS will contribute to understanding the mechanisms driving expression changes, maintenance of stemness and oncogenesis by mechanostimulus, being a steppingstone in projects working in the interface between cell biology and nanomaterials science. Finally, NanoCHROMS will develop a systematic and quantitative method to evaluate the effect of different nanostructures on nuclear architecture.

Keywords: chromatin structure,mechanobiology,super resolution microscopy,nanopillars,single molecule localization microscopy,cohesin,ewing s sarcoma
Tailoring lattice oxygen and photo-induced polarons to control reaction mechanisms and boost catalytic activity (PhotoDefect)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Panel description: Analytical chemistry, chemical theory, physical chemistry/chemical physics
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2022-STG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-12-01
End date: 2028-11-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1895956.0
EU funding (EUR): 1895956.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Photoelectrochemistry can revolutionise our way of life by harnessing sunlight to produce renewable fuels and chemicals and by helping us preserve the planet for future generations. However, enhancing the efficiency and selectivity of photoelectrochemical (PEC) reactions remains a challenge, especially for the photo-transformation of organic compounds required in industry. The problem stems from the difficulty of characterising the catalytic interface of heterogenous systems under working conditions. This prevents us from elucidating the reaction mechanisms and, so far, has dramatically limited our ability to control reactivity in a similar way to what can be achieved with homogeneous molecular catalysis. A particular challenge of solids is that they are prone to form defects during catalysis. However, how defects and lattice distortions impact the steps of the catalytic cycle remains unknown. Such mechanistic understanding is critical to redesign new materials and boost catalytic efficiencies. PhotoDefect will address this gap in our understanding by applying new methodologies to the study of oxidation reactions at metal oxide photoelectrodes. Our approach is to combine operando mass spectrometry and electrochemistry with optical and X-ray lasers to provide unprecedented insights into the polarised interface. Our strategy is to detect, in situ, the formation of reactive intermediates, defects and catalytic products in order to map out reaction mechanisms and establish ways to control them on demand. We will use cutting-edge methodologies to establish whether defects and photoinduced structural distortions or polarons participate in the steps of the catalytic mechanisms. Most importantly, if successful, our results will reveal new ways to tune the yield and selectivity of PEC reactions by controlling defects and polarons. These results will influence the way we synthesise PEC materials and the theoretical models we use to understand reaction mechanisms.

Keywords: photoelectrochemistry,defect,oxygen vacancies,polarons,reactivity
Paradoxical activation of oncogenic signaling as a cancer treatment strategy. (PARADOX)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Panel description: Organ and tissue physiology, comparative physiology, physiology  of ageing , pathophysiology, inter - organ and tissue communication, endocrinology, nutrition,  metabolism, interaction with the microbiome, non -communicable diseases including cancer (and except disorders of the nervous system  and immunity -related diseases)
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2023-ADG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-07-01
End date: 2029-06-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Cancer cell homeostasis requires a balance between activated oncogenic pathways driving tumorigenesis and engagement of stress-response programs to counteract the inherent toxicity of such aberrant signaling. Indeed, emerging evidence suggests that hyperactivated oncogenic signaling can also be toxic to cancer cells, indicating that cancer cells select optimal levels of oncogenic signaling rather than maximal levels. I propose here a fundamentally different approach to the treatment of cancer, based on deliberate hyperactivation of oncogenic signaling, combined with perturbation of the activated stress responses to selectively kill cancer cells. We will use drugs that further activate oncogenic signaling in cancer cells (protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) inhibitors, GSK3 inhibitors, PKC activators, DUSP inhibitors) and study the associated toxicities using single cell omics technologies. We will then use CRISPR and compound screens to identify the vulnerabilities of such drug-treated cells. This will identify effective combination therapies using this paradoxical approach. We have delivered initial proof of concept for this notion by demonstrating that hyper-activation of oncogenic signaling in colon cancer by small molecule inhibition of PP2A, combined with inhibition of the mitotic kinase WEE1 results in dramatic anti-tumor responses in vivo. Most strikingly, we found that cancer cells develop resistance to this therapy through selective downregulation of oncogenic signaling to evade the stress imposed by hyperactivation of oncogenic signaling. Consequently, resistance to this hyperactivation therapy was associated with both reduced oncogenic signaling and oncogenic traits in vivo. Here, we aim to understand and exploit toxicities associated with paradoxical activation of oncogenic signaling using multi-omics technologies, study how cancer cells can develop tumor suppressive drug resistance and address the effects of this type of therapy on pre-malignant lesions.

Keywords: cancer therapy signaling stress responses
Bulk-like Joints by Gas Actuated Bonding (BulkBonding)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Products and Processes Engineering
Panel description: Product and process design, chemical, civil, environmental, mechanical, vehicle engineering, energy processes and relevant computational methods
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2023-STG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2028-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2300000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2300000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

In this project I will develop a novel concept and new understanding of metal joining through use of chemical gases. In this concept, chemical vapour transport (CVT) technology is unconventionally used to induce a transient liquid phase that could form joints with greatly enhanced mechanical and anti-corrosion properties. In metal joining a continuous metallic phase must bridge two parts, but current bridging phases are weaker and more prone to corrosion than the materials from which the components are made. This shortens the lifespan in harsh environments and new avenues need to be explored. My preliminary data show that it is possible to: 1) induce a transient liquid phase, by 2) exposing metal surfaces to melting point depression element (MPD) precursors gases, using 3) chemical vapour transport technology. The concept will result in joints made from the bulk material itself, hence both joint and bulk obtains the same surface oxide and microstructure, leading to best possible corrosion resistance and strength. In this project, in-situ characterisation will be used to improve our understanding of chemical vapour technology for processing metals and their oxides. Benefiting from this knowledge, and the production of small components for testing fundamental properties and evaluating performance, I will discover the mechanisms in, and create models for, CVT alloying as well as identify the properties of the novel joints. To ensure a wide application of research results, I will investigate the joints in corrosive settings, targeting the demanding environments found in solar thermal energy storage, solid oxide fuel cells, and fossil free steel production. This novel joining concept could also revolutionise the manufacturing of small, complex, and high-performing equipment, as difficult-to-join alloys could thus be used in difficult-to-manufacture components. Such components are found in turbine engines, medical equipment, and sensor technology.

Keywords: joining,chemical vapour transport cvt
Holistic, Omnipresent, Resilient Services for future 6G Wireless and Computing Ecosystems (HORSE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Smart Networks and Services
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Partnership: SNS (JU-JTI)
Countries involved: Italy,Germany,Greece,Cyprus,Spain,Switzerland,Portugal
Call: Secure Service development and Smart Security (HORIZON-JU-SNS-2022, 2022)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2025-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5314850.14
EU funding (EUR): 4999756.25
Participants: 18
Project status: SIGNED

6G technologies, benefitting from softwarisation, Gb/s speed and sub-THz communications paradigms, open up opportunities for developing new and innovative network management strategies while navigating the evolution toward disaggregation, new software-based paradigms in architecting and operating future connectivity platforms, and embracing features of computing, automation and smartness, trust, privacy and security. Supported by this technology evolution, as the vision of new, smart and innovative capabilities is becoming a reality, superb user experience is expected even in presence of mobility and resource volatility. However, the fundamentally new and unknown features of advanced, disaggregated, virtualized and multi-vendor 6G based infrastructures, challenge the security and resilience design to the next level, by managing the unknown, complex and highly versatile infrastructures as they evolve. Indeed, the future deployment of 6G networks is inextricably connected with an integration of diverse hardware elements and infrastructures, thus leading not only to a highly heterogeneous environment, but also to functions and features that cannot be anticipated at the time of design. The vision of HORSE in this complex scenario, is to deal with the technology solutions, and system evaluation not yet foreseen, towards an omnipresent, smart and secure network service provisioning in the future network-of-networks landscape. To this end, HORSE proposes a novel human-centric, open-source, green, sustainable, coordinated provisioning and protection evolutionary platform, which can inclusively yet seamlessly combine advancements in several domains, as they get added to the system (e.g., predictive threats detection, proactive business-wise threats and breaches mitigation actions, programmable networking, semantic communications, Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), intent-based networking, AI-based techniques, cross-layer management of physical layer features, etc.).

Keywords: cybersecurity,ai assisted modelling,digital twin pre assessment,proactive security provisioning,green approach,intent based and explainable strategy
REsearching Legal Implementation of an Intersectional Framework: a feminist sociolegal analysis of opportunities and obstacles (RELIEF)

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: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2026-02-01
End date: 2028-01-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 209914.56
EU funding (EUR): 209914.56
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

RELIEF (REsearching Legal Implementation of an Intersectional Framework: a feminist sociolegal analysis of opportunities and obstacles) explores the implementation of intersectionality as an anti-discrimination framework in legislation, legal praxis and public policies with an interdisciplinary feminist approach. Intersectionality originates as a legal critique to understand how gender intersects with other axes of discrimination (sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, nationality, disability, and socioeconomic status) and RELIEF aims to investigate how legal implementation of intersectionality can address a more diverse and complex understanding of discrimination from a law-in-action perspective. This project will enhance my sociolegal research skills on gender equality and anti-discrimination within the EU multilevel legal framework under the supervision of Dr. La Barbera at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and in affiliation with the Gender and Politics (GEYPO) research group. At the same time RELIEF will contribute to feminist theory building by investigating how public institutions can effectively implement an intersectional framework. To achieve this goal, RELIEF conducts a sociolegal analysis of Spain’s anti-discrimination law, focusing on institutional actors, academic experts and civil society, combining legal analysis, qualitative and participatory methodologies. With a feminist participatory approach RELIEF directly engages stakeholders, connecting the scientific goals with the wider expected social impact and bridging the gap between sociolegal research, legal implementation and activism. RELIEF’s empirical evidence enriches the theoretical debate on the institutionalisation of intersectionality, co-produces transformative knowledge and provides recommendations for public institutions and civil society to address multifaceted discrimination, reduce inequalities, strengthen human rights and empower marginalised communities and individuals.

Keywords: intersectionality,non discrimination,anti discrimination law,gender mainstreaming,gender,race,disability,lgbtq,gender equality,equality,diversity and inclusion,equality policies
The roles of the agency of the dead in the lives of individuals in contemporary society (DEAGENCY)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Panel description: Sociology, social psychology, education  sciences , communication  studies
Countries involved: Slovenia
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2022-ADG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-09-01
End date: 2028-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1887187.5
EU funding (EUR): 1887187.5
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Each from their own perspectives, various disciplines have shed light on the roles fulfilled by the dead in contemporary society. Their findings, however, remain compartmentalised, their insights scattered; a comprehensive understanding of their role in the lives of individuals is still missing. This project will benefit from the insights of each of them, with the aim to transform the current partial understandings into a complex view of the roles that the dead play in individuals’ lives. Instead of focusing exclusively on the role of personally significant dead for the bereaved or treating the dead as expression of “folk belief”, or metaphors of cultural and social problems and changes, the project will view the dead as being actively involved in the intricate relationships between individuals and larger social and cultural processes. The over-arching aim of DEAGENCY is to generate a new theory for comprehensively understanding the roles that the dead fulfil for individuals in contemporary society. This will be achieved through identifying: 1) the ways individuals experience and conceptualise the agency of the dead; 2) the reasons and contexts within which it is triggered; and 3) the aims and manners of interaction with the dead. To gain insight into the widest possible range of the roles of the agency of the dead in individuals’ lives, the project will study them within three disparate areas of social / cultural changes and problems, related to the post-socialist period: 1). the effects of the problematic political past (mass graves); 2). changing religious landscape; and 3). changing social life in rural communities. To access subjective experiences of individuals, the ethnographic method will be used in fieldwork conducted in Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Through comparative analysis, common patterns transcending particular changes / problems and contexts will be identified, leading to the final synthesis: the generation of a new theory.

Keywords: the agency of the dead,east central europe,individuals
Establishing a Laboratory of Cultural Heritage in Central Romania (ELABCHROM)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area
Programme: Widening participation and spreading excellence
Theme: Improved access to Excellence
Destination: Improved access to Excellence
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Romania,Finland,France
Call: Twinning (HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03, 2021)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2025-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499998.75
EU funding (EUR): 1499998.75
Participants: 4
Project status: SIGNED

How can a university from a Widening Country achieve R&D excellence faster and better? The ELABCHROM project provides a twofold answer to this challenge. On the one hand, the solution we propose is not just a contingent “twinning” between various research institutions, but a long-term partnership, in the form of a university consortium that covers all branches of academic life. In this respect, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu (LBUS - CO) has chosen as partners for ELABCHROM the University of Jyvaskyla (P1) and the University of Burgundy (P2), i.e., two of the best universities within the FORTHEM European University, in which LBUS was included in 2021. On the other hand, a viable solution is also to exploit the advantages of the regional ecosystem, which in the case of LBUS translates primarily through the status of "cultural city/area" of Sibiu. This status, corroborated with the higher degree of development of SSH research directions in the LBUS, determined the choice of the main field of ELABCHROM. Specifically, our project aims to establish, with the support of the universities from the FORTHEM Alliance, a laboratory of cultural heritage within LBUS, which will lead to an increase in the capacity to achieve excellence in research at the level of the institution, as well as to a closer connection between citizens and academia. According to ELABCHROM, LBUS will be able to bridge the gap that still separates it from other Member States universities through a series of institutional reforms (the establishment of the laboratory), organized mobilities and training of researchers and administrative staff, joint activities with P1 and P2 (common conferences, publications and applications), as well as through an exploratory research project, meant to explain Sibiu’s successful development by exploiting its cultural heritage, as well as to produce a model of regional development that can be transferred to other areas of the Widening Countries.

Keywords: cultural heritage laboratory central romania southern transylvania sibiu area regional development place branding multiculturalism multimodality digitalisation networking forthem alliance