Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Characterising protein oligomers and their role in neurodegenerative disease in humans (Oligomers)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Panel description: Nervous system development, homeostasis and ageing, nervous system function and dysfunction, systems neuroscience and modelling, biological basis of cognitive processes and of behaviour, neurological and mental disorders
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2014-ADG, 2014)
Start date: 2015-09-01
End date: 2021-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499551.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499551.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Small soluble protein aggregates play a key role in the onset and spreading of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. However, which oligomers are present in human disease and which are toxic remains unknown because ultrasensitive methods do not exist to detect and characterise the low concentration of oligomers, which are highly heterogeneous in size and structure. To address this problem we will develop fluorescence based methods to detect and characterise individual oligomers to measure the oligomer size, structure, proteinase K resistance, seeding capability and composition. We will also develop methods to enrich these oligomers so we can use mass spectrometry to determine post translational modifications and recover the oligomers to directly test their cytotoxicity and mechanism of damage. The capability to characterise these oligomers at this unprecedented level of detail will represent a major advance in the field. These methods will then be applied to stem cell models of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease and then clinical samples of CSF from patients. These experiments will determine how the number, composition or structure of the oligomers changes in the disease and if this results in increased cytotoxicity. Clinical samples of CSF from patients with genetic mutations will be used to determine if detectable changes in the oligomers occur early in the disease and samples of brain tissue used to determine the changes in oligomers during the spreading of the disease. By the end of the project we will have determined which oligomers play major roles in the onset and spreading of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease in humans, providing targets for therapies, and tested if the detection and characterisation of these oligomers can be used for early diagnosis of the disease.

Keywords: single molecule fluorescence
Enhancing innovation management capacity of SMEs in the Netherlands 2015-2016 (INMANCAP2)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: Specific Grant agreement
Countries involved: Netherlands,Netherlands
Call: Enhancing the innovation management capacity of SMEs (H2020-Adhoc-2014-20, 2014)
Start date: 2015-01-01
End date: 2016-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 804485.0
EU funding (EUR): 804485.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The overall objectives of the project are to deliver services designed to enhance the innovation management capacity of SMEs in the Netherlands between 1 january 2015 and 31 December 2016. These services will comprise both key account management services under the SME Instrument of Horizon 2020 and services to enhance the innovation management capacities of SMEs. The sub objectives for the first category are: to develop regional SME innovation management capacity by carrying out an innovation management gap analysis and developing and implementing a coaching action plan for a specific project under the H2020 SME Instrument. The sub objectives for the second category are: to identify promising SMEs capable of growth and successful internationalisation, to carry out a diagnostic audit to identify gaps in the regional SME innovation management capacity and to develop and implement a tailored action plan to make the innovation system in the company more efficient and effective.

Keywords: key account management services,enhancement innovation management capacity,horizon 2020
Resolving the Tussle in the Internet: Mapping, Architecture, and Policy Making (ResolutioNet)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Systems and communication engineering
Panel description: Electrical, electronic, communication, optical and systems engineering
Countries involved: Germany,Netherlands
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2015-STG, 2015)
Start date: 2017-02-01
End date: 2023-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499875.0
EU funding (EUR): 376750.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The Internet has revolutionalized the way people and corporations communicate, publish, access, and search for information. As our globally-connected digital civilization increasingly relies on its smooth operation any disruption has a direct negative impact on both the economy and society. However, the Internet was not designed to serve its current role nor was foreseen to be a public good. On the contrary, it was designed to be fully decentralized and thus administrated by the owners of independent networks. Today, the various Internet players have diverse and often conflicting objectives. Indeed, the tussle between Internet players or between them and governments hit the news and the negative externalities affect the life of potentially billions of Internet users worldwide and harm innovation in the Internet. We propose a research agenda to resolve the tussle in the Internet. First, we propose the use of sophisticated techniques to collect and analyze massive network data to unveil the complex interactions among the various Internet players that lead to disputes and to identify the conditions under which conditions a resolution is possible. Second, we utilize additional degrees of freedom to resolve the tussle in the Internet by enabling coordination of the various Internet players. To this end, we introduce expressiveness of all the involved parties in existing and emerging protocols and enable agile deployment of third-party services and applications inside operational networks. Third, we contribute to the Internet policy making debate by providing an unbiased view of the state and health of the Internet as well as providing recommendations on how to resolve the Internet tussle. This is an interdisciplinary effort to foster a dialogue for Internet's future and sustainability in light of its ever-increasing growth and competitiveness.

Keywords: internet,computer networks,internet measurement,internet protocols,internet architecture,internet policy
Sustainable cleaning agent and organic fertilizer recovery from sewage sludge (reNEW)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Climate action, environment,  resource efficiency and raw materials
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Hungary,United Kingdom
Call: Boosting the potential of small businesses in the areas of climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials (H2020-SMEINST-2-2016-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2017-11-01
End date: 2019-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1980613.75
EU funding (EUR): 1386429.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

UTB Envirotec Zrt, is one of the Central European market leaders in engineering services for wastewater and organic waste treatment. In the past few years, we have developed a technology for sustainable valorisation of sewage sludge. The treatment of this sludge represents one of the biggest problems for small and medium sized wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) in Europe. In our process, called reNEW, the sewage sludge is biologically transformed into volatile fatty acids (VFA) and valuable nutrients (NPK), which are recovered. These products represent important market value: VFA as raw material for eco labelled cleaning agents, and NPK as fertilizer. With the aim of exploitation of the reNEW technology, we formed a spin-off company, Renew Technologies Ltd (RNT) in the UK. Our final aim is to roll-out the technology and widely implement it all over Europe, enabling the growth of our companies. We aim to realise the reNEW project in cooperation of the two companies: RNT being the technology owner and responsible for commercial exploitation, while UTB being the technology provider (design, building and implementation of plants). This initiative has received funding in the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 1, project number: 728932, duration: 01/07/2016-31/12/2016. We have successfully completed the feasibility study. We verified the technological feasibility as well as the economic viability of the project and further improved our business concept. We demonstrated the efficiency and economic value of the two products, VFA and NPK, respectively and made a scale-up design of our pilot operating currently at our premises (TRL=6). We have improved the proposal and discussed it with our clients, technical partners, and the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN). These discussions and the results of the feasibility assessment have reassured us regarding its merit.

Keywords: waste water treatment wwt,compound recovery,sustainable wwtp operation
ENergy aware BIM Cloud Platform in a COst-effective Building REnovation Context (ENCORE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing and Processing, and Biotechnology
Theme: Technologies enabling energy-efficient systems and energy-efficient buildings with a low environmental impact
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Italy,Spain,Italy,Spain,Germany,Cyprus,Switzerland,Croatia,Denmark,United Kingdom,Portugal
Call: Building information modelling adapted to efficient renovation (RIA) (H2020-NMBP-EEB-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2019-01-01
End date: 2022-06-30
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5562382.5
EU funding (EUR): 5562382.5
Participants: 14
Project status: CLOSED

The main objective of ENCORE is to increase the share of renovated stock in Europe and worldwide by providing effective and affordable BIM tools that cover the whole renovation life-cycle (from data collection to project execution, and commissioning/delivery). It will tackle energy efficiency and comfort parameters, involving all the actors in the process (architecture studios, designers, constructors, tenants, or public administration), and facilitating information exchange among all the parties. To achieve this objective ENCORE proposes the creation of a system that integrates services for data acquisition from the buildings like Static LiDAR setups, and LiDAR or photogrammetry equipment embarked in UAVs. It will also allow to involve dwellers in the process by providing them with mobile tools to capture images or other in-doors information. It also provides support to architects and designers in the creation of the 3D models from the acquired data, automatically identifying and classifying the constructive elements, and allowing them to complete the model with existing BIM resources. They will be able to modify the model, presenting the energy efficiency gains of different renovation alternatives, including the impact in the overall budget. ENCORE will also provide mechanisms for the dwellers or owners to validate the project, either on-site with Augmented/Mixed Reality solutions, or on-line. Once the project is validated, ENCORE will automatically generate the work planning for the construction works, and once finalized, ENCORE will provide continuous monitoring of the energy consumption to ensure non-degradation of the renovation works. ENCORE will be validated in experimental facilities consisting of a baseline building and an experimental building that can be modified to measure the energy efficiency of the modification. Additionally, the pilot user owns several social buildings to renovate, where ENCORE can be validated in real life conditions.

Keywords: building renovation,energy efficiency,comfort evaluation,ontology,lidar,photogrammetry,computer vision,computer graphics,augmented reality,holonic systems,smart monitoring
A novel immunotherapy against brain metastasis: Anti-Galectin-3 (Gal3-BrainMets)

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: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Spain
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2019-02-01
End date: 2021-01-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 170121.6
EU funding (EUR): 170121.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The development of new cancer treatments has significantly improved life expectancy of patients. However, these advances increase the risk of suffering from secondary tumours (metastases). Particularly, breast cancer brain metastases are a major cause of morbidity, with meagre life expectancy (3-18 months). These facts highlight the urgent need to find better treatment against this disease. Immunotherapy has recently gained great momentum in the clinic to treat different type of cancers. However, its therapeutic use for metastatic spread to the central nervous system (CNS) remains scarce. The immune response within the CNS during metastasis progression greatly depends on microglial cells (resident CNS macrophages). Their roles in neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative processes have been intensely investigated, whereas their function in metastasis has received minor attention. During brain metastasis, microglia show impaired immune defence, secreting a variety of anti-inflammatory cytokines (e.g. IL-10 and TGF-B) and growth factors which may contribute to metastasis progression. A key molecule which might alter such adverse behaviour is beta-galactoside-specific animal lectin galectin-3 (Gal-3). Studies of this promiscuous protein has shown a pivotal role during tumour progression and metastasis to non-CNS sites. Importantly, recent studies from Prof Venero’s group have shown how inhibition of microglial Gal-3 shifted the phenotype of these cells into a more pro-inflammatory state. Therefore, since pro-inflammatory state in microglial cells has been described to exert anti-metastatic effects, Gal-3 inhibition may provide a powerful and novel brain metastasis immunotherapeutic approach. Moreover, the fact of the existence of Gal-3 drugs in current clinical trials enhance the possibility of using this strategy as neo-adjuvant therapy to treat breast cancer patients at risk of brain metastasis.

Keywords: brain metastasis,microglia,galectin 3,breast cancer,immunotherapy,macrophages,in vivo,mouse
Linking livestock genetic diversity with three thousand years of agricultural crises and resilience (PALAEOFARM)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Panel description: Biotechnology using all organisms, biotechnology for environment and food applications, applied plant and animal sciences, bioengineering and synthetic biology, biomass and biofuels, biohazards
Countries involved: Germany,United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2019-STG, 2019)
Start date: 2020-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499998.0
EU funding (EUR): 989253.75
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

Over the last 50 years, chicken production has increased fivefold, chicken growth rate has tripled, and milk production per cow has doubled. Yet, many of the biotechnological tools responsible for this accelerated trend are now under threat of becoming obsolete. While the causes are numerous, one significant driver is a dramatic reduction of genetic diversity in livestock populations. Cycles of agricultural productivity growth and decline have occurred throughout European history, spurred by major historical forces such as the spread of empires and continent-wide epidemics. For example, productivity crashed between the 4th-13th centuries, only to rebound during the Agricultural Revolution of the 13-18th centuries. Fluctuating levels of genetic diversity were likely both cause and remedy to these cycles. Genetic diversity acts as a fuel for selection: the lower it is, the more difficult it is to improve traits, and the more likely that epidemics will develop and spread. Given this importance, maintaining diversity amongst livestock is recognised as one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Despite this, we lack any understanding of how much genetic variability was present, and subsequently lost, before, during, and after either the Green or Agricultural Revolutions, nor do we understand how efficiently it was utilised. PALAEOFARM will assess the long-term sustainability of modern breeding practices by unravelling how genetic variability was leveraged across major agricultural transitions in European history. Using an innovative combination of ancient DNA, archaeozoology, and experimental immunology, I will explore how livestock populations withstood epidemics and selective breeding in a world without antibiotics or quantitative genetic techniques. This will provide a novel perspective on how a multi-billion euro industry, responsible for feeding billions of people, can be sustained in the face of major biotechnological obsolescence.

Keywords: livestock genomics,population genomics,ancient dna,immunology
Novel technologies for dark matter search and frontier astroparticle physics experiments (DarkWave)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Spreading excellence and widening participation
Programme: Widening participation and spreading excellence
Theme: Improved access to Excellence
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Germany,Italy,Italy,Poland,France
Call: Twinning (H2020-WIDESPREAD-2020-5, 2020)
Start date: 2020-10-01
End date: 2023-09-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 879812.5
EU funding (EUR): 879812.5
Participants: 5
Project status: SIGNED

Experimental astroparticle physics is currently one of the most vibrant and exciting areas of fundamental physics and in the coming decade there is a real potential to experimentally resolve two remaining big puzzles in our understanding of the Universe: the nature of dark matter (DM) and the Baryon Asymmetry of the Universe (BAU, i.e. why there is more matter than antimatter). We currently do not know what is the nature of 95% of the energy density of our Universe. Astronomical observations tell us that at least 23% of the unknown density should behave like matter – as we cannot see it, we call it dark matter. The exact nature of DM (and dark energy) is still unknown and its origin is at present one of the most important questions in physics. Particle physics beyond the Standard Model provides several candidate particles which could be the DM. Out of these, Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are the best motivated. Discovering them would be a major breakthrough and a sign of physics beyond the Standard Model. The DarkWave consortium aims to make key contributions towards this discovery by: (1) building DarkSide-20k, the next generation experiment searching for dark matter via elastic scattering of dark matter particles in liquid argon (LAr), with sensitivity two orders of magnitude beyond current searches at ~1 TeV/c2 WIMP mass, (2) developing new technologies for ARGO and DarkSide-LM, the ultimate detectors, able to probe the full parameter space where WIMPs can be found. It will also (3) exploit technological synergies with two other key areas in astroparticle physics: long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments (DUNE) and gravitational wave detection.

Keywords: wimps,neutrino oscillations,cp violation,liquid argon detectors,silicon photomultipliers,pulseshape discrimination,sipm,wavelength shifters,low radioactivity techniques
Theranostic Immune Cell (theranoimmuno)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Panel description: Biotechnology using all organisms, biotechnology for environment and food applications, applied plant and animal sciences, bioengineering and synthetic biology, biomass and biofuels, biohazards
Countries involved: France,France
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2020-STG, 2020)
Start date: 2021-03-01
End date: 2026-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1480982.0
EU funding (EUR): 890357.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Recent studies on the developments of immune mobilizing monoclonal T-cell receptors against cancer (ImmTAC), bispecific T-cell receptors (TCR) engagers, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) cell-based therapies, have highlighted their potential to treat Multiple Myeloma (MM). These treatments, however, are expensive. The manufacturing processes that are employed for their generation are lengthy, and their commercial scale production is reliant on a multitude of equipment and operators that cannot easily be incorporated in the footprint of most local hospitals. Moreover, patient responses to these treatments remain heterogenous. We propose an innovative multidisciplinary approach that aims to develop a novel theranostic immune-cell based compound. This approach is based on the functionalization of the immune cells with theranostic ultrasmall macromolecules (USM); USM having a diameter size below 10 nm to allow renal clearance and minimize toxicity. The clinically-relevant imaging properties of the USM will allow to unveil various challenges remaining in the field of immunotherapy, such as to better elucidate the priming sites of immune cells, to track their migration in the body, as well as to localize their niche upon the establishment of minimal residual disease. By labelling the immune cells ex vivo, the diagnostic imaging properties enabled by the presence of the USM on the immune cell surface will allow to generate better ex vivo immune cells therapeutics (such as simili-CAR NK cells) with a rationalized target selection, will improve the cell dosing, and will help to better stratify the patient population in order to offer an improved personalized treatment plan.