Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Modeling Breast Cancer in 3D Cell Culture Systems and Mice (3DBREASTCANCER)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2012-01-01
End date: 2015-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies among women in the western world. In the last two decades, major advances have been made in our understanding of breast cancer that have resulted in a decline in breast cancer mortality. To advance these improvements, research efforts need to be directed to a series of areas, including breast cancer genetics and identification of new targets for therapy. Accordingly, the proposed research aims to characterize mammary cells during different stages of carcinogenesis, targeted treatment and during their dormant period that might lead to tumor relapse: • We will delineate cooperating lesions in breast cancer to develop better strategies for targeted therapy. • Our approach to understand the origin of tumor initiating cells and how and why they differ from normal breast stem cells will open new avenues in tumor treatment and prevention. • Characterization of the residual cells after treatment will greatly improve our understanding of the mechanisms of oncogene dependence and may lead to more effective therapeutic strategies to prevent breast cancer relapse. To investigate these objectives, we will utilize tractable in vivo mouse mammary tumor models in parallel with 3D cell culture systems of primary mammary cells derived from these animals. This novel, combined approach allows to retrieve more detailed mechanistic insights with respect to cellular organization, position and fate of specialized cells within a mammary acinus and -at the same time- to follow the in vivo model for overall phenotypes. The EMBL Mouse Biology Unit offers me the unique chance to implement these novel approaches in the European Research Area (ERA). Employment of sophisticated 3D cell culture systems in combination with transgenic mouse models, are expensive. The FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG award will contribute to address the outlined objectives and will allow to perform experiments that we view as a potent preclinical approach.

Keywords: oncology,anticancer therapy,breast cancer,primary 3d cell culture systems,oncogene dependence,mouse models of human disease,changes of epithelial polarity,minimal residual disease
Developing reconfigurable sub-diffraction-imaging devices using magnetized plasma (MAGPLASIMAG)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2012-04-01
End date: 2015-03-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 75000.0
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Imaging lies in the heart of many important applications in biology, medical sciences, security, and semiconductor industries. Conventional imaging methods are limited by the diffraction limit, and therefore cannot resolve features much smaller than the wavelength of the electromagnetic waves being used. Imaging beyond diffraction limit is therefore of special importance because of many applications ranging from biological imaging in the optical regime, to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at the radio frequencies. Superlens capable of imaging beyond diffraction limits are normally made from metamaterials – artificially engineered materials with unconventional optical properties. In this project, we propose to construct sub-diffractional imaging devices using a natural form of materials – magnetized plasma. Magnetized plasma with appropriately designed parameters supports nearly diffraction-less propagation of electromagnetic waves along the direction of the applied magnetic field, arising from the unbounded equi-frequency contour in the magnetized plasma. Such a unique feature can be utilized to replace metamaterials for sub-diffraction imaging devices as magnetic plasma do not require complex microfabrication techniques normally entailed by construction of metamaterials. More importantly, they can be dynamically reconfigured by tuning the applied magnetic field or the plasma density, and therefore they represent a facile and powerful route for imaging applications.

Keywords: applied physics,electromagnetism,microscopy,materials engineering
Confined synthesis of metastable complex oxides (COSYMETCOX)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2015-02-28
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 87500.0
EU funding (EUR): 87500.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Nowadays, a pressing demand for new materials with appealing multifunctional properties is pulling the research in materials science. In this context, as the properties of inorganic solids are intimately linked to their crystal structures, an interesting approach to extend the range of properties and applications of a particular compound is discovering and stabilising at ambient conditions new metastable polymorphs of thermodynamically stable structures. A fruitful strategy to stabilize metastable phases is the synthesis of nanoscale polymorphs under matrix confinement. Interestingly, some of those metastable polymorphs which can only be stabilized in spatially restricted fields, display outstanding multifunctional properties that could find important technological applications. Exploring, identifying and understanding the fundamental aspects of this stabilizing mechanism will be the first objective of the project. Some model metastable polymorphs with applicability in Information and Communication Technologies as memory or sensor devices that will be investigated in the project are: ε-Fe2O3, λ-Ti3O5 and a new phase of La0.7Sr0.3MnO3. The matrix confined synthesis is not always well matched for the integration of these nano-oxides into devices which requires a thorough control of the microstructure of the functional oxides and its precise positioning in a technological substrate. Addressing the above limitation is the second leading objective of the project.

Keywords: inorganic chemistry,cristallography,electronic,magnetic and superconductive properties,thermodynamics,solid state physics,nanosystems
Anti-imperial metropolis: political networks of Africans, Asians and Latin Americans in interwar Paris (AIP1918)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-08-01
End date: 2016-05-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project proposes an examination of the political networks forged by Asians, Africans and Latin Americans in Paris between the two World Wars. Its principal goal is to arrive at a better understanding of how these networks contributed to the discursive construction of evolving cultural identities and anti-imperial nationalisms among the foreigners and colonial subjects residing in Paris. By analysing various “groups” of people, with a particular focus on anti-imperialist intellectuals, the project is situated at the intersection of migration history, colonial history and intellectual history, seeking to bring together strands of scholarship that so far have too often been compartmentalized into subfields. In doing so, this research builds on a valuable body of historical scholarship about the imperial/colonial nature of the France of the Third Republic. However, by looking specifically at the interactions between groups that so far have usually been treated in isolation from one another, the projects seeks to go significantly beyond the existing historiography. It thereby aims at further complicating straightforward dichotomies between metropolitan and imperial/colonial history, as has been demanded by postcolonial scholars over the last decades.

Keywords: humanities,history,modern history,colonial history
The Interplay of Large Scale Structure and the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (LSSVSCMB)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-12-01
End date: 2015-11-30
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation was released when the universe was only 380,000 years old, and since then it has been propagating through the entire visible universe until reaching us. In its journey, the CMB witnesses how the first stars formed, contaminating the inter galactic medium with the first heavy elements, how the Large Scale Structure (LSS) was assembled through gravitational interaction and how the universe has recently entered a phase of accelerated expansion. All these episodes have left their imprint on the intensity and polarization anisotropies of the CMB, by means of either resonant or Compton scattering, atomic and molecular collision emission processes, and blue/red-shifting induced by gravitational potential wells in the LSS. Therefore, a joint study of CMB and LSS constitutes a crucial tool for understanding those largely unknown episodes, and goes timely with the outcome of CMB experiments like ACT or PLANCK, and LSS surveys like BOSS, J-PAS or EUCLID, in which the candidate is participating. Here we propose a combined study of the optical data to be provided in the next few years by the J-PLUS/J-PAS surveys with CMB multifrequency maps (either from WMAP or those being currently produced by PLANCK): our goal is to address the problems associated to Dark Energy and the accelerated expansion of the universe (by looking at the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect and the galaxy cluster/group abundance versus redshift), the universal thermal history and the search for the local missing baryons (by cross correlating the electron distribution traced by galaxy catalogs with CMB maps). The timing of this project fits perfectly with the analysis and data release of both J-PLUS and PLANCK surveys, and provides both data legacy and expertise in preparation for the european space mission EUCLID.

Keywords: physical sciences - cosmology - cosmic microwave background radiation - large scale structure - dark energy
Exotic quantum phases in graphene and other modern nanomaterials - physical foundation for quantum information technology (EXOTICPHASES4QIT)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Poland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2015-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Project covers theoretical/computational studies of exotic phases of quantum matter (especially with fractional and non-Abelian quantum statistics) in graphene and other modern nanomaterials. It is aimed at both fundamental effects and application in future graphene nanotechnology (especially in quantum information technology, via the concept of topological quantum computation). Major goals are: (i) implementing powerful computational methods acquired during the preceding IEF (large scale configuration interaction, quantum Monte Carlo, density functional theory) for application in modelling electronic structure and many-body effects in nanostructures; (ii) understanding new many-body effects in low-dimensional systems (especially those related to emergence of exotic electronic phases), applicable in quantum information technology; (iii) building a research group focused on nanoscience/nanotechnology, benefitting from collaboration with University of Cambridge established during the IEF. Project’s success relies on Applicant’s experience (mostly in fundamental research, but also in teaching and leadership), previous and gained during the preceding IEF, and on superb quality of research groups with whom collaboration has been established during the IEF (Cambridge, Oxford, Penn State). The main results will be: (i) improved understanding of the studied phenomena; (ii) shared collaboration between group at host institution (WrUT) and host of previous IEF (Cambridge), including student/lecturer exchange and joint research.

Keywords: physics of semiconductors,electronic,magnetic and superconductive properties,quantum mechanics
Post-transcriptional Control of the Aire-Driven expression of self-antigens in the Thymus (CADET)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: France
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-08-01
End date: 2015-07-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Immune tolerance is key to the maintenance of the integrity of organisms against foreign invaders with respect to self-constituents. Deregulation of this mechanism promotes the occurrence of life-threatening autoimmune diseases that affect 5-10% of the general population. Previously, the transcriptional activator (Aire) was shown to play a key role in immune tolerance. Indeed, Aire induces medullary epithelial cells in the thymus (MECs) to synthesize and present a large repertoire of peripheral self-antigens (a “self-shadow”), leading to the clonal deletion of self-reactive maturing T cells and thereby protecting against autoimmune manifestations. In addition to activating transcription, preliminary results indicate that Aire induces 3’UTR shortening of its sensitive transcripts in MECs, and that these cells show an accumulation of miRNAs. The goal of our project is to describe a post-transcriptional control of the Aire-driven expression in the thymus that leads to higher levels of Aire-dependent self-antigens, and to identify key molecular players involved in this mechanism. We first propose to confirm that Aire-induced transcripts have shorter 3’UTR ends by mRNA high-throughput sequencing in primary MECs, and that these transcripts escape a miRNA-mediated post-transcriptional repression in a MEC cell line. We will also seek factors involved in Aire-triggered 3’UTR shortening by performing a lentivirus-based RNAi screen of a set of RNA-binding proteins in an in vitro model that we will set up. Finally we will validate some of the best candidates in vivo by generating knock-down mice using a high-speed lentigenic approach based on oocytes infection with lentiviruses delivering targeting short-hairpin RNAs. Altogether the expected results should uncover an important layer of control of self-antigen expression in the thymus mediating immune tolerance, and provide new potential targets for therapeutic intervention in autoimmune diseases.

Keywords: autoimmunity,central tolerance,3'utr ends,micrornas,rna interference,lentigenics
Visualizing the structure and function of elusive membrane receptor proteins of the human cell (MEMBRANE PROTEINS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Denmark
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-08-01
End date: 2015-07-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Knowledge of the structure of proteins can provide an in-depth understanding of biology and lead to critical insights into the origins of human disease. Numerous proteins important in biology and disease are, however, not amenable to structural analysis by traditional methods. A family of proteins that are notoriously difficult to study are membrane proteins. Membrane proteins are extremely important to study as they play pivotal roles in most biochemical processes of the cell, account for up to 25 percent of all proteins in humans, and represent nearly two-thirds of the proteins that can be targeted by drugs. These proteins are, however, difficult to access experimentally due to their hydrophobic nature and because they need to be associated with lipids from the cell membrane. Most techniques are not readily compatible with the combination of lipids and proteins, especially those that are used to reveal the three-dimensional structure of proteins (i.e. NMR spectroscopy or x-ray crystallography). Alternative techniques are needed to gain insight into the structure of membrane-bound proteins. We propose to meet this challenge by employing an alternative technology that use mass spectrometry to measure the hydrogen/deuterium exchange (HX) of proteins in solution. The objective of this project proposal is to apply HX-MS technology to study two ”difficult” membrane proteins of key biological function: (1) the T-cell receptor (TCR) and (2) the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR). By inserting these receptors into nanoscale lipid bilayer discs and measuring the HX of the proteins, we will extract detailed information about their higher-order structure and molecular interactions using only small amounts of material at dilute biological conditions. The proposed project is innovative as we combine nanotechnology with alternative analytical methodology to supply critical and currently missing structural details about two important cell-surface receptor proteins.

Keywords: membrane proteins,structural biology,instrumental techniques,mass spectrometry,nanotechnology,drug-receptor interactions,cancer,immunology
Mediterranean Cities in Conflict: Urban Wars, Inter-Ethnic Coalitions and the Prospects for Peaceful Coexistence in Lebanon and Israel/Palestine, 1918 to the present (PEACEMED)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Hungary
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2011-12-01
End date: 2015-03-01
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 75000.0
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This research aims at mapping inter-ethnic relations in contested cities in the Eastern Mediterranean by comparing urban dynamics in Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. While most of the geopolitical scholarship on ethnonational conflicts in the region has focused on the territorial struggles between rival nation-states and other regional actors, this project proposes a historical anthropology of intra-urban borderlands consisting of ethnic groups sharing the same city. Political adversaries, Lebanon and Israel share nevertheless a fundamental commonality: they both politicized the Ottoman legacy of communal autonomy and religious sectarianism. Rescaling ethnic conflicts from the regional to the urban arena, this project proposes a “bottom up” analysis of the political mobilization of territoriality, identity, religion and nation. To this end, the research examines how urban space, violent conflict and national identities have been both represented and produced in contested cities since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Against the background of a century-long conflict between the Jewish and Palestinian national movements in Israel/Palestine and the sectarian struggles over political power between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, this project studies the relations between opposing community-building efforts in war-torn urban settings. Focusing on cities like Beirut, Sidon, Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, I historicize the problematic place they occupy in the popular, political and sociological imagination. Through ethnographic and historical analysis I show how Jewish, Muslim and Christian citizens, implicated in relations of interdependence, strive to define their respective collective identity in relation to the nation. These processes serve as a lens through which the research engages a wider set of questions in political sociology and urban anthropology regarding ethnic violence, citizenship, and identity-making as embedded in practices of “making place.”

Keywords: social sciences,anthropology,urban sociology,human geography,urban governance and decision making,arabic studies
Revisiting immunomodulatory functions of IL10 by examining human knock-outs (RIFEK)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Life-long training and career development
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG, 2011)
Start date: 2012-02-01
End date: 2016-01-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 100000.0
EU funding (EUR): 100000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Objectives We have discovered that early-onset inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can be caused by mutations in IL10 or its receptor. This project aims to identify further patients suffering from IL10/IL10 receptor deficiency and to clarify the pathomechanism causing the severe phenotype of the patients. Design The project will investigate patients with early-onset IBD. Patients will have blood samples taken, white blood cells will be separated, DNA isolated and functional assays and genetic analyses carried out. Intestinal tissue samples will be stained by using immunohistochemical methods. Methodology: We will investigate different stages of IL10/STAT3 signalling in patients' white blood cells using ELISAs and/or Western blot; abnormalities will be confirmed by gene sequencing. Treg cells and Th17 cells will be analysed using flow cytometry or immunohistochemistry; function of Treg cells will be examined using commercially available tests. The role of cytokines other than TNF will be examined by challenging cells with different stimuli and subsequent analysis using chemiluminescence-based cytokine arrays. Neutrophil function and apoptosis will be examined using cytokine arrays, expression of pro- and anti-apoptotic proteins using Western blot and real-time PCR. Investigation of therapy resistance to immunosuppressive drugs includes analysis of NF-kB and NFAT pathways and, if necessary, the use of gene expression assays. Scientific and medical opportunities of the study This project may (i) identify further patients with IL10- or IL10 receptor deficiency; (ii) clarify the role of Th17 and Treg cells in the intestine of IL10/IL10 receptor deficient patients; (iii) investigate the role of cytokines other than TNF in the pathogenesis of the disease, (iv) shed light on the impact of neutrophils on the clinical phenotype; and (v) discover the mechanism why patients' cells are resistant to therapy with immunosuppressive drugs.

Keywords: il10,il10 deficiency,il10 receptor deficiency,stat3 signalling,autoimmune disease,early-onset inflammatory bowel disease