Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Positioning of an artificial centrosome in a dynamic actin network (ASTER)

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: France
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 195914.88
EU funding (EUR): 195914.88
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The centrosome is one of the main microtubule-organizing centers in cells, spawning filaments that define the cell’s shape and polarity. Peculiarly, it is almost always positioned either at the center of the cell or at its periphery, rarely in between. Precise centrosome positioning is crucial: when positioned in the center, the centrosome has the fundamental task of integrating information from the whole cell via the microtubule network. Instead, its swift transition to the periphery is a key step of cell differentiation and polarization. Yet, despite its importance, the mechanism regulating this transition is unknown: several factors are probably involved and regulated in the process, including forces due to molecular motors or to the dynamics of the actin and microtubule networks. In particular, the role of the actin network inside which the microtubules are embedded is starting to be understood as a fundamental player, yet the precise physical mechanism is not understood. This project consists in resorting to the in vitro reconstitution of both the actin and the microtubule networks at the same time, to study their interaction in a minimal biomimetic system. Using an artificial centrosome spawning microtubules and embedding it inside an artificial actin cortex in a dynamic state, adding molecular motors to provide activity and confining it inside cell-sized microwells, we aim to understand how a sharp center to periphery transition can occur and what are the physical processes involved. The possibility to add different purified components one at a time will allow exploring what role factors such as motor- and polymerization-based forces or the mechanical coupling to a contractile actin network play, individually and combined, in defining and controlling precise centrosome positioning. The project paves the way for the understanding of centrosome positioning in cells but also represents an big step in the ongoing effort to build a synthetic cell "from scratch".

Keywords: centrosome positioning,in vitro reconstitution,synthetic cell,mechanobiology,actin microtubules composites,molecular motors,biopolymer networks,active gels,active matter,soft biological matter
Concomitant Reversal of Adrenal Insufficiency and Muscle Weakness to Enhance Recovery from Prolonged Critical Illness (AdrenalWeakness)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Panel description: Medical technologies  and tools for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases, therapeutic approaches and interventions , pharmacology, preventative  medicine, epidemiology and public health , digital medicine
Countries involved: Belgium
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2023-ADG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-10-01
End date: 2029-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499750.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499750.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Sepsis, complicated surgery or extensive trauma cause hyperinflammation-induced critical illness which requires vital organ support in an intensive care unit (ICU) in order to avoid imminent death. Although modern intensive care has reduced mortality, a large number of survivors continue to require such supportive care in the ICU sometimes for weeks or months. Once in this prolonged phase, typical ICU-acquired morbidities such as lingering organ failure, muscle wasting and weakness and vasopressor- and ventilator-dependency become the main drivers of poor short- and long-term outcome irrespective of the initial diagnosis upon admission. Research from our group has focused on two of these unresolved problems, namely ICU-acquired muscle weakness and ICU-acquired adrenal insufficiency, for which there is either no treatment or treatment has deleterious off-target effects that may fuel a vicious circle impairing short- and long-term recovery. Today, intensivists see these conditions as two separate pathophysiological entities, an assumption we think is false. We hypothesize that ICU-acquired adrenal insufficiency shares upstream underlying mechanisms with ICU-acquired muscle weakness, pathways that are currently unexplored and that can be manipulated with the potential to reverse both problems together. We will test this hypothesis via an experimental and a clinical track. The proposal starts from a novel, controversial idea, developed via experiments in a unique, clinically relevant and validated mouse model of sepsis-induced critical illness and via the study of human patients, and aims to close the loop with a proof-of-concept randomized controlled trial. Our ambition is to identify and test a novel compound, or combination of compounds, to concomitantly reverse adrenal insufficiency and muscle weakness in prolonged critical illness, while avoiding deleterious side-effects and aiming for synergy. Reaching this ambitious goal would represent ground-breaking progress.

Keywords: adrenal insufficiency muscle weakness critical care sepsis anterior pituitary neuroendocrinology
NITROgen GENetics and physIology fOr Ulva compressa Sustainability (NITROGENIOUS)

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: Ireland,Belgium
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-11-01
End date: 2026-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 215534.4
EU funding (EUR): 215534.4
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

NITROGENIOUS is an interdisciplinary project that will provide unprecedented knowledge on the genetics and metabolism of the green seaweed Ulva compressa for a sustainable and thriving aquaculture. Seaweed is the most rapidly expanding aquaculture sector with a potential to reduce the environmental impacts of terrestrial agriculture, to contribute to climate change mitigation and provide ecosystem services. The main application for the cosmopolitan Ulva compressa, with a high growth rate under various environmental conditions, are food, feed, bioremediation. However, its domestication and breeding are still in their infancy and companies are largely relying on wild harvest. NITROGENIOUS aims to elucidate genes and biochemical processes involved in nitrogen uptake and assimilation and to understand how they are impacted by increasing temperature, to improve yield and bioremediation capacity and to decrease the environmental impact of its farming. More specifically it will a) clone and characterize genes for nitrogen uptake, assimilation and regulation to open the way to modern breeding; b) advance the knowledge of U. compressa nitrogen metabolism under optimal conditions and determine how it is affected by increased temperatures and c) test at pilot scale the most promising strains obtained in the lab for bioremediation potential and biomass yield. Advanced methodologies will be employed in collaboration with the host lab scientific partners: chemically-induced mutagenesis, high-throughput phenotyping, whole genome sequencing, genome editing (in a secondment) and metabolic fluxes via liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Based on the results of the project, advantageous alleles could be selected from natural populations, and the physiological understanding gained will help optimizing N nutrition and cultivation techniques, to increase the production without increasing external input of fertilizers.

Keywords: macroalgae,ulva compressa,nitrogen uptake,nitrogen assimilation,seaweed aquaculture,bioremediation
AUTOnomous small and FLEXible vessels (AUTOFLEX)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Mobility
Destination: Clean and competitive solutions for all transport modes
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Norway,Denmark,Greece,Germany,Netherlands,Belgium
Call: Developing small, flexible, zero-emission and automated vessels to support shifting cargo from road to sustainable Waterborne Transport (HORIZON-CL5-2023-D5-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2026-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4499250.0
EU funding (EUR): 4499250.0
Participants: 9
Project status: SIGNED

To reduce the societal and climate impacts of transport, AUTOFLEX will develop solutions for enabling a modal shift from trucks to inland waterway transport, and for electrification of both modes. The key is to acknowledge that electrification of transport has an impact on vessel and vehicle operations and must therefore be tightly integrated with the transport operations by both modes (integration of cargo and energy distribution). The AUTOFLEX scope is therefore to: 1) Develop small autonomous un-crewed zero-emission inland vessels that can operate on underutilised waterways, that are resilient towards low water events, and are competitive. 2) Develop transport system components and an architecture that enables transhipment between modes, urban distribution, and strong competition with road transport. 3) Develop a combined cargo and energy hub (Stow&Charge) for generating and distributing electric energy for the transport system. 4) Develop new business models for operating the transport system, providing services for the transport system, and for offering services based on the transport system (e.g., energy and urban logistics). 5) Validate the ship concepts and transport system through simulation and quantitative analysis, scale model testing and demonstration, and full-scale demonstration. 6) Develop a roadmap for exploitation, recommendations to policy and industry, steps towards realisation, and propose KET interface standards. AUTOFLEX enables zero emission transport (waterborne and road), innovative port infrastructure, climate neutral and climate resilient waterway vessels, integration of shipping into logistic chains, safe and efficient fully automated and connected shipping, and competitive waterborne European industries.

Keywords: autonomy,shallow water,un crewed,multi modal,zero emission,energy hub,urban distribution,modal shift
Map and manipulate sleep oscillations to reveal their role in healthy cognitive development (SleepCog)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting 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 – In humans and all other organisms
Countries involved: Norway
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2023-STG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-04-01
End date: 2029-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Sleep is essential to all animal life. But why are sleep needs greater in young mammals? Evidence points to a key role in cognitive development. Sleep correlates with brain immaturity, and sleep dysfunctions are frequent comorbidities of neurodevelopment disorders. As screens invade their bedrooms, children are sleeping less and less, and learning disorders are on the rise. This is a growing public health concern. There is increasing evidence that poor sleep at critical development stages may facilitate the emergence of neural disorders. Yet this is only correlative, but not causal evidence. How does sleep architecture differ in immature brains? Are specific sleep oscillations needed for neural maturation? What type of neural computations do they support? Can sleep dysfunctions directly contribute to social, cognitive or learning impairments? These crucial questions are still largely unanswered due to technical limitations. I propose to harness new concepts and tools from diverse fields of research, to launch an ambitious program bridging neurodevelopment biology, systems neuroscience and sleep research. Because of our interdisciplinary approach, my team is in the unique position to pioneer breakthrough in vivo recordings and optogenetics in rat pups. I plan to record and decode neural activity from multiple brain areas, while automatically scoring sleep in freely behaving pups, this in order to elucidate the computational mechanisms at play during developmental sleep. I will combine high density recordings with recent advances in viral, molecular and CRIPSR tools to 1) Map and 2) Impair sleep – or associated oscillatory mechanisms, with the aim to reveal their 3) Impact on healthy development. My ambition is to set the stage for a new line of research in developmental systems neuroscience. I propose to study the emergence of neural computations, infer their roles across the lifespan, and reveal sleep as a prime target for therapeutics in development disorders.

Keywords: sleep,systems and computational neuroscience,hippocampus,learning memory,cognitive development,closed loop optogenetics,crispr,sharp wave ripples,place cells,grid cells,entorhinal cortex,rem,theta
The role of European cultural institutions in the circulation of European cinema and the development of Chilean film culture (1955-1989) (ECICH)

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: Belgium,United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-03-01
End date: 2026-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 175920.0
EU funding (EUR): 175920.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

This project studies the role of European cultural institutions (ECIs) depending on their Ministry of Foreign Affairs in promoting national cinemas abroad and developing local film cultures in Chile. It compares the role of the Instituto Italiano di Cultura, the Institut Français, the Centro Cultural de España, and the Goethe Institut in two key historical periods (1955-1973 and 1974-1989) in which these institutions were the main gatekeepers and providers of European cinema in Chile. The action will be hosted at the Visual and Digital Cultures Research Center (ViDi) of UANTWERPEN under director Prof. Philippe Meers’ supervision and at the Centre of Research in the Arts (CoRA) based at Oxford Brookes University under director Prof. Daniela Treveri Gennari’s supervision. Through an interdisciplinary approach in the line of New Cinema History, the research will analyse the transnational connections embedded in local film cultures and facilitated by cultural diplomacy. It aims to generate new empirical data on this under-researched area of study, from a peripheral and non-Eurocentric standpoint. Its objectives are: To identify European films that circulated in Chile thanks to ECIs, and the social and institutional networks involving this process; To explore the emerging imaginaries of “European”, “political” and “quality cinema” attached to this circulation and influencing local film cultures; and to analyse the local reception of these films and ideas. The methodology will combine archival and qualitative research, drawing on the researcher’s previous experience and her training at both the beneficiary institution and the secondment. The main results include an online open access database, network analysis and a qualitative dataset; the researcher’s training in cutting-edge academic skills and digital humanities; valuable inputs that can inform international cultural policies; and new collaboration networks between academic and non-academic international institutions.

Keywords: film cultures,new cinema history,european cinema,cultural diplomacy,latin america
Active Hybrid Photonic Integrated Circuits for Ultra-Efficient Electro-Optic Conversion and Signal Processing (ATHENS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Synergy grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: Germany,Switzerland
Call: ERC SYNERGY GRANTS (ERC-2024-SyG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-12-01
End date: 2031-11-30
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 13999999.0
EU funding (EUR): 13999999.0
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

Information and communication technology (ICT) crucially relies on the combination of two highly complementary fields: Microelectronics, which excels in processing and storing information using CMOS circuits and photonics, which is key to fast and efficient transmission of information over large distances. Electrical-to-optical conversion in photonic integrated circuits is what links both fields. While efficient conversion from optical signals to electrical signals is straightforward even at a single-photon level, electrical-to-optical conversion represents a key challenge – with respect to efficiency, bandwidth and noise. This challenge does not only affect optical communications, where efficient generation of broadband data signals is key, but also prevents photonic integrated circuits from unfolding their full impact in highly relevant emerging application fields such as microwave photonics, artificial intelligence or quantum technologies. ATHENS aims at overcoming this deficiency by establishing the foundations of a new class of photonic integrated systems that offer unprecedented electro-optic conversion performance. The project builds upon a synergistic selection of highly disruptive approaches on the material, process and device level, reaching from theory-guided engineering of organic electro-optic materials and novel ‘crystal-on-insulator’ integration platforms to disruptive concepts for broadband optical on-chip amplifiers based on ion implantation or parametric interaction and to highly flexible photonic-electronic system-integration concepts based on additive nanofabrication. These technologies are combined on a system level, building a base for groundbreaking demonstrations in hyperscale communications, millimeter-wave signal processing and quantum technologies. The project is borne by an interdisciplinary and highly complementary team of scientist from organic chemistry, solid-state physics, quantum technologies and communications engineering.

Keywords: exa scale photonic computation,exa scale photonic computation,cryogenic photonic interconnects
Crafting sustainable and health concerned low-calorie dairy and plant alternatives with innovative shellac-infused powdered matrices (SHELLACRAFT)

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: Chemistry
Countries involved: Poland,Denmark
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2026-09-01
End date: 2028-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 179006.16
EU funding (EUR): 179006.16
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Cow milk allergy, lactose intolerance, calorie intake concern, and soy allergy, presence of unpleasant off-flavors and lack of essential nutrients such as calcium all hinder the consumption of dairy products and plant-based dairy alternatives, respectively. Therefore, in the project, a novel concept of the creation of low-calorie alternatives (milk, yogurt mimic products) additionally fortified with sustainable plant-based bioactives and minerals will be ambitiously pursued by using a natural polymer shellac. Shellac is a sustainable food source, a biodegradable resin obtained from the secretion of lac insects (Kerria Lacca), being recognized as a safe food additive by the FDA. The distinguishing factors of shellac are: lipophilicity, surface activity, self-assembling properties, supramolecular interaction ability. What is more, it is also non-allergic and it can also form calcium–shellac microsphere; hence it is a promising starting material for the preparation of an allergen-free non-dairy milk alternative at low cost. To meet the low-calorie and bioactive-fortified goals, formulation and production of non-dairy milk and yogurt will be achieved by shellac as a main ingredient in combination with virgin coconut oil and xanthan gum. Appropriate drying technology will be used to form easy-to-apply powders that will serve as a base for the production of low-calorie dairy alternatives that will be preserved in the form of dehydrated products. The reconstituted products will be examined for physical and chemical properties, toxicity, organoleptic, digestibility, and bioaccessibility studies including new aspects of process contaminants determination (safety issue). This study provides new insight into the characterisation of new products and will aid in extending the scientific network for future collaboration. The SHELLACRAFT aims to develop a sustainable and allergen-free dairy-plant alternative platform for products that will meet various consumer demands.