Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Peptide-drug conjugates for weight loss maintenance (PDC-MAIN)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator 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: Denmark
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-06-01
End date: 2030-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1999610.0
EU funding (EUR): 1999610.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The worldwide rise in obesity rates is causing significant harm to human health. While effective weight loss therapies are emerging, the challenge of maintaining weight loss remains unresolved. With this project, we will leverage expertise in drug development to engineer novel peptide-drug conjugates designed to obstruct homeostatic weight regain in a cell specific fashion. In the food deprived state, a subset of hunger promoting neurons undergo structural changes that increases excitability and thus drives homeostatic weight regain. Capitalizing on our knowledge of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) expressed in hypothalamic cell populations we will develop GPCR-targeting peptide-drug conjugates specifically designed to obstruct weight recidivism. To evaluate this drug-targeting approach, neurobiological methods including fiber photometry will be employed to confirm target engagement. Preclinical models are used to investigate the translational potential for treatment of weight loss maintenance following dietary and pharmacological weight loss interventions. The molecular mechanisms of action and receptor-target selectivity of the conjugates will be determined using loss-of-function mouse models. Pharmacokinetic properties of lead candidates will be optimized by incorporating chemical half-life extenders. This bridging between medicinal chemistry, neuroscience and pharmacology will give rise to new multimodal molecules targeting homeostatic weight regain mechanisms to address a vastly growing unmet medical need for weight loss maintenance pharmacotherapies.

Keywords: obesity,weight loss,pharmacology,weight loss maintenance,body weight,appetite,hunger,satiety,hypothalamus,agrp,peptide drug conjugates,drug design,medicinal chemistry,peptide chemistry,ghrelin,pyy,leap2,nmda receptor,g protein coupled receptors
Archiving and Curating the Margins: Queer Memory Activism and Infrastructures in Southeastern and Eastern Europe (QEAST)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Studies of Cultures and Arts
Panel description: Social anthropology, studies of cultur es, stud ies of arts
Countries involved: Slovenia
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2025-STG, 2025)
Start date: 2026-07-01
End date: 2031-06-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499500.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499500.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

In the In the 21st century, a new wave of anti-LGBT+ sentiments have emerged in global and local politics, often framing queerness as newly invented and imported from outside the local borders. Challenging this erasure from collective memory are queer memory activists and grassroot infrastructures such as archives and cultural festivals, which store, curate and circulate queer memories and resist heteronormative histories. Research into memory activism’s role in (re)imagining local and transnational pasts and futures has become a focal point of queer archival turn two decades ago. However, histories, memories, and meanings of queerness outside the global West are still chronically underexplored. QEAST fills this research gap by engaging with queer memories from the Southeastern and Eastern Europe (SEEE), a site of both anti-LGBT+ backlash and vibrant queer memory activism. Using tools from queer, memory, and festival studies and ethnography, QEAST zooms in on the SEEE’s grassroot past and current memory stakeholders, archives, and cultural festivals to O1) build a digital database of regional stakeholders and memory activism strategies; O2) map and analyse the mnemonic strategies of memory pioneers during socialism, how these efforts are historicized, preserved, and inherited; O3) develop a conceptual grid for understanding the dynamic of transcultural queer memory and queer theory travel, adopting globalized terms and narratives as well as original production, decolonization, and localization processes in the SEEE. By exploring how queer memory stakeholders preserve, produce, curate, and circulate queer memories, QEAST will deepen the understanding of queer memory’s role in community-building and challenging dominant local and global historical narratives. Ultimately, QEAST aims to decolonize Western-centric queer frameworks by uncovering alternative SEEE queer genealogies, providing insights for future research on queer memory activism in other peripheral regions.

Keywords: queer memory,memory activism,queer grassroot archives,queer cultural festivals,southeastern europe,eastern europe
Sustainable Livestock Systems Transition and Evidence Platform for Upgrading Policies (STEP UP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Bio-Environment
Destination: Fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food systems from primary production to consumption
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Ireland,Sweden,Portugal,Germany,Poland,France,United Kingdom,Netherlands,Spain,Serbia
Call: Towards sustainable livestock systems: European platform for evidence building and transitioning policy (HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4311559.4
EU funding (EUR): 4311559.4
Participants: 16
Project status: SIGNED

STEP UP will generate clear, unambiguous and quantitative information to support greater sustainability, viability and resilience of environmentally friendly European Livestock Production Systems (ELPS). Through state-of-the-art research methodologies and thorough and effective stakeholder engagement, STEP UP will deliver a platform of measures to support European policy makers with science-based evidence on the impacts and externalities of ELPS, as part of the food and wider ecosystem. Existing knowledge on the positive and negative impacts and externalities of ELPS will be collated following a comprehensive science-based analysis of published research and policy literature. Data gaps towards improving the sustainability of ELPS across diverse social and environmental contexts will be identified. In-depth case-study analysis to harmonise existing data, identify deficits in, and opportunities for, new data collection and systems development will be carried out. New indicators for assessing the externalities of sustainable ELPS, considering all relevant value-chain factors will be developed. The multi-actor approach (MAA) will be invoked to ensure “real-life” contextual reference points and testbeds for these new indicators including evaluation and impact, followed by a comprehensive impact assessment and cost-benefit quantification of current and innovative ELPS under various socio-ecological-economic contexts, using best quantitative data modelling methods. Transition pathways for more sustainable and diverse ELPS, forecast scenarios including monetizing impacts, will be identified. Evidence-based STEP UP knowledge of ELPS as part of the food system and wider ecosystem will be disseminated using MAA. Finally, STEP UP will provide a unique and warranted platform to support the development of informed and objective policy measures to optimise the central role of livestock in meeting the nutritional and societal needs of the European and global population.

Keywords: livestock,sustainability,food security,biodiversity,climate
Integrating non-living and living matter via protocellular materials (PCMs) design and synthetic construction (PROTOMAT)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Panel description: New materials and new synthetic approaches, structure -properties relations, solid state chemistry, molecular architecture, organic chemistry
Countries involved: Italy
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2023-03-01
End date: 2028-02-29
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2097713.0
EU funding (EUR): 2097713.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The bottom-up construction of synthetic cells or protocells from inanimate molecules and materials is one of the grand challenges of our time. While research thus far has been focused on increasing the biochemical complexity individual protocells, this research proposal intends to pioneer the first scientific advancements towards the controlled assembly of protocell building blocks into forms of adaptive and self-regulating protocellular materials (PCMs) that can integrate with living cells and target their mechanochemical sensory pathways. To achieve this, I am proposing to work at the interface of synthetic chemistry, materials science, microfluidics, and tissue engineering to address the following unprecedented aspects of PCM design and synthetic construction: (1) the engineering of PCMs with mechanical properties that mimic those of soft living tissues; (2) the engineering of PCMs with rudimentary adaptive and self-regulating higher-order behaviours; and (3) the development PCMs capable of interacting and integrating with living cells. I will start by developing the first experimental methodologies to assemble PCMs with a range of elastic moduli that mimic those of soft living tissues from protocells endowed with synthetic polymeric cytoskeletons of different composition. I will then engineer the first adaptive PCMs capable of autonomously converting environmental luminous stimuli into mechanical motions and reconfigurations that will self-regulate their endogenous enzymatic reactivity. Finally, I will develop the first forms of PCMs capable of delivering both mechanical and biochemical cues for living cell spreading, proliferation and differentiation in vitro. Overall, the proposed work will pioneer new internationally leading science at the life/non-life interface that will generate transformative ideas in the field of bottom-up synthetic biology with profound fundamental and applied consequences, especially in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Keywords: protocell,prototissue,biomimetic material,protocellular material,bottom up synthetic biology,enzyme cascade,polymer network,mechanical properties of soft materials,tissue engineering
leveraging the European compute infrastructures for data-intensive research guided by FAIR principles (EuroScienceGateway)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Research infrastructures
Theme: Research infrastructures
Destination: EOSC ecosystem
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Partnership: EOSC (co-programmed)
Countries involved: Germany,Spain,Czechia,Türkiye,Poland,Slovakia,Switzerland,United Kingdom,Netherlands,Italy,France,Belgium,Norway
Call: Innovative and customizable services for EOSC (HORIZON-INFRA-2021-EOSC-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3531125.0
EU funding (EUR): 3531124.0
Participants: 18
Project status: SIGNED

In the past decade, many scientific domains have been transformed into data-driven disciplines relying on the exchange and integration of internationally distributed data. Exploiting this data is still a laborious and largely manual task, prone to losses and errors, and increasingly specialised beyond most users technical capabilities. FAIR practices are encouraged but their adoption curve is steep. The needs for compute and data resources, tools, and application platforms are often domain-specific. Many scientists struggle to navigate this intricate ecosystem. Generally, researchers do not possess the computing skills to effectively use the HPC or Cloud platforms they need. Thus, new approaches are needed to enable all researchers, with widely ranging digital skills, to efficiently use the diverse computational infrastructures available across Europe, for asynchronous and for interactive applications. EuroScienceGateway will leverage a distributed computing network across 13 European countries, accessible via 6 national, user-friendly web portals, facilitating access to compute and storage infrastructures across Europe as well as to data, tools, workflows and services that can be customized to suit researchers' needs. At the heart of the proposal workflows will integrate with the EOSC-Core. Adoption, development and implementation of technologies to interoperate across services, will allow researchers to produce high-quality FAIR data, available to all in EOSC. Communities across disciplines - Life Sciences, Climate and Biodiversity, Astrophysics, Materials science - will demonstrate the bridge from EOSC?s technical services to scientific analysis. EuroScienceGateway will deliver a robust, scalable, seamlessly integrated open infrastructure for data-driven research, contributing an innovative and customizable service for EOSC that enables operational open and FAIR data and data processing, empowering European researchers to embrace the new digital age of science.

Keywords: fair eosc hpc workflows provenance distributed compute accessible reproducible cloud data intensive research life sciences climate biodiversity astrophysics materials science
Ecological repercussions of future changes of marine climate extremes at the eastern boundary of the South Atlantic (EcoCLimEx)

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: Norway
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2026-04-01
End date: 2028-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 267418.56
EU funding (EUR): 267418.56
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The southeastern Atlantic hosts the Angola Benguela Upwelling System that supports important fisheries for Angola, Namibia, and South Africa. Every few years this region experiences extreme warm and cold events known as Benguela Niños and Niñas, hereafter Benguela variability. These events have great socio-economic importance for the countries of Southern Africa due to their drastic effects on nutrients and oxygen content along the continental shelf, and thus, the marine ecosystem. However, the impact of climate change on Benguela variability and its consequences for the marine ecosystem and economically relevant fish stocks have not been addressed so far. This is because current Earth system models have large errors in the Angola Benguela area that introduce large uncertainties in future climate projections of Benguela variability. EcoCLimEx seeks to address these limitations by applying a new method, namely the emergent constraint analysis, to reduce uncertainties in climate change projections, but also by quantifying the response of local marine biogeochemistry and ecosystem to future changes in the variability. This will facilitate the quantification of future changes in economically relevant fish stocks in this region. EcoCLimEx will be conducted at Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, under the supervision of leading experts in climate dynamics, marine biogeochemistry and fishery. This unique synergy, in addition to the researcher’s own expertise in observational physical oceanography and Benguela variability, will facilitate a mutually beneficial, two-way transfer of knowledge. Collaborations with relevant stakeholders in Angola and Namibia will ensure the full exploitation of EcoCLimEx’s results.

Keywords: benguela ni o,angola benguela upwelling system,earth system models,emergent constraint analysis,marine biogeochemistry
PROTAC-driven Protein degradation by Proteasome during Antigen Processing and Presentation (ProAPP) (ProAPP)

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: Germany
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-08-01
End date: 2024-10-31
Duration (months): 27.0
Total project cost (EUR): 189687.36
EU funding (EUR): 189687.36
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

PROteolysis TArgeting Chimera (PROTAC) is a new and attractive therapeutic approach that regulates a target protein by channeling it to the proteasome for degradation (an energy-demanding pathway). Concurrently, proteasomes also play a central role in generating the peptide repertoire for antigen presentation on the Human Leukocyte Antigen-I (HLA-I) molecules. A few years after PROTAC was invented, proteasomes were found to catalyze not only canonical peptide bond hydrolysis, but are also capable of “cut-and-paste” events, i.e. generating spliced peptides, which have been shown to be frequently presented n HLA-I immunopeptidomes. It is unclear how PROTAC-driven proteasome degradation modulates the spliced and non-spliced peptide repertoire derived from a targeted protein. Alterations in peptide variety and quantity produced by proteasome may lead to strong implications on the HLA-I immunopeptidome, and, hence, could result in immune implications. Therefore, using the key oncoprotein KRAS as a PROTAC’s target, this study intends to understand: (i) how PROTAC-driven KRAS degradation affects cellular pathways on a system-wide level; (ii) the impact of PROTAC on KRAS derived peptide repertoire generated by proteasomes; (iii) to what extent PROTAC enhances KRAS derived peptide presentation on HLA-I molecules. Through the combination of a multidisciplinary approach; molecular biology, biochemistry, proteomics, bioinformatics and cellular immunology, this study will provide a better fundamental understanding of the effect of PROTAC-KRAS on the cellular proteome, proteasome-derived peptide repertoire (spliced and non-spliced peptides) and HLA-I immunopeptidome landscape, thus, provide insights into the suitability of PROTAC-KRAS application as a therapeutic approach for anti-cancer therapies. Additionally, this project will deepen our understanding of the role of spliced peptides in the antigen processing and presentation pathway.

Keywords: antigen processing and presentation,proteasomes,hla i
Survival of Sulfuric Acid Clouds in the Terrestrial Planet Climate: From Earth to Venus to Exoplanets (SoSAD)

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: Physics
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-08-01
End date: 2027-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 260347.92
EU funding (EUR): 260347.92
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Sulfuric acid clouds (SAD) play an important role in the Venus, Earth and potentially exoplanet climates. However, a systematic understanding of SAD's life cycle within terrestrial planetary evolution is still lacking. Here I propose a project that aims to understand the emergence, sustainability and extinction of SAD in the climate evolution of terrestrial planets (Objective 1), and evaluate the SAD radiative, cloud-physics and chemical feedbacks on the planetary climate evolution in a geological timescale (Objective 2). I will combine my expertise in clouds and chemistry with the supervisor's expertise in radiative transfer and exoplanet atmospheres to construct the first 1D state-of-the-art geochemistry-climate evolution model with a complete sulfur cycle included. First, I will use the model to determine the planetary environments required for SAD to emerge and exist for a long term, and to investigate the long-standing question of why Earth and Venus evolved in a divergent way. Then, I will use my new model to resolve and study the radiative, cloud-physics and chemical feedbacks of SAD on planetary climates, and investigate whether SAD's lifetime is also affected by these feedbacks. Finally, I will apply my model to exoplanets observed by the “Hot Rocks" JWST survey to explore the possibility of SAD's existence on terrestrial exoplanets. I will accomplish the objectives and contribute with broad, long-term impacts to both the Venus and Exoplanet communities, considering that three upcoming Venus missions, JWST and other space telescopes are or will be providing more observations of terrestrial planets. Through the MSCA programme, I will also establish my leadership in the interdisciplinary research community and transition from an independent researcher to a group leader, which will support my long-term goal of obtaining a permanent academic position. The host institution will also benefit from my expertise, networking and involvement in mentoring and outreach.

Keywords: planetary evolution,the venus climate,cloud physics and chemistry,terrestrial planets