Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Characterization of the role of morphogens during growth of the Zebrafish pectoral fin using advanced biophysical tools (MORFING)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-03-01
End date: 2012-02-29
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 173065.2
EU funding (EUR): 173065.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

During development an organ grows to a final size and shape and its cells acquire information about their position and differentiate according to their location. Morphogens play an important role in this process by coordinating growth and patterning of developing tissues. In this project the fellow will fully characterize the growth of the pectoral fin of the Zebrafish, a vertebrate, and study the role morphogens play herein, using a multidisciplinary, quantitative, biophysical approach. First, the kinetic parameters of growth during embryonic pectoral fin development will be quantified. For this purpose the fellow will establish a Digital Scanned Light-Sheet Fluorescence Microscope and transgenic Zebrafish expressing GFP-based mitotic phase biosensors. Next, the morphogen gradient parameters during the fin growth phase will be quantified using two-photon, spinning disc and DSLM microscopy. The fellow will establish transgenic Zebrafish lines expressing functional GFP fusions of the morphogens. The transport parameters of the morphogens will be quantified by performing FRAP and Photoactivation of the morphogens fused to suitable fluorescent proteins. Finally, he will quantify the signal transduction response to the morphogen, by using or establishing signaling biosensors for the different morphogens. By these four different approaches a comprehensive, quantitative picture of fin growth and the progression of morphogen gradients will be obtained. It will ultimately allow us to understand the underlying cell biology of gradient formation and how morphogens control patterning and growth in a relatively simple model system. The field of quantitative developmental biology is a new and emerging field. It therefore needs young researchers who are trained in this field. With the support of the IEF program the fellow will be able to become an independent researcher and in the future it will help him in establishing his own line of research in this growing field.

Keywords: natural sciences,developmental biology,animal growth,growth control,morphogens,quantitative,multidisciplinary,biophysical,limb growth
Organization, plasticity and perceptual functions of neuronal circuits in a higher olfactory forebrain area (ZEBRAFISHFOREBRAIN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-03-01
End date: 2012-02-29
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 242482.4
EU funding (EUR): 242482.4
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The brain processes sensory information in a succession of interconnected brain areas. Response complexity tends to increase with distance from the sensory organ, and neurons in higher brain areas exhibit complex response properties that may also reflect memory processes and behavioural associations. Little is known about how such complex representations emerge. I propose to confront this problem by studying forebrain olfactory processing in zebrafish, utilising the extensive studies available on initial processing in its olfactory bulb and its small, tractable brain size. I will focus on the zebrafish forebrain area Dp, homologous to the mammalian olfactory cortex. First, I aim to uncover principles of afferent and internal connectivity and their relation to sensory representation. Neurons impinging upon a single Dp neuron will be identified using a monosynaptically restricted transsynaptic labelling method, and will be related to the neuron’s sensory responses by 2-photon Ca2+ imaging. Optogenetics will complement this part by directly measuring how Dp neurons integrate their pre-synaptic inputs. Second, I will use behavioural manipulations to study how experience modifies sensory representation in the forebrain. To this end, I will use a simple conditioning paradigm to associate odours with either positive or negative behavioural consequences. Sensory representation in Dp will be performed after learning, to identify the effect of behavioural value on connectivity and representation. These results will provide insights into the structure, function and plasticity of neuronal circuits underlying computations in the forebrain.

Keywords: neurobiology,neurophysiology,behavioural biology,2-photon imaging,trans-synaptic labeling,zebrafish,olfaction,forebrain,optogenetics,channelrhodopsin-2,connectivity,decoding,classical conditioning
Calcium Propagation in Atrial Fibrillation (CPAF)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-03-01
End date: 2012-02-29
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 166800.0
EU funding (EUR): 166800.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Synchronized release of Ca2+ from the internal Ca2+ store of cardiac myocytes, the sarcoplasmic reticulum, is essential for a normal heart beat. This is obtained through a sophisticated subcellular organization, the dyad. In dyads, a cluster of release channels in the sarcoplasmic reticulum, ryanodine receptors or RyRs, face Ca2+ channels in the cell membrane, the dihydropyrydine receptors or DHPRs. DHPRs provide the Ca2+ influx that triggers opening of RyR. Ca2+ release can also propagate between RyR, leading to Ca2+ waves that can initiate arrhythmias. We hypothesize that RyR that are not within dyads have different properties that may facilitate wave-like propagation and arrhythmias. The objectives are (1) to identify and characterize RyR located between dyads in the sarcomeric space in healthy myocytes (2) to establish whether altered organization and properties of RyRs in chronic atrial fibrillation (AF) contribute to the contractile dysfunction and arrhythmia in AF. My stay in the host lab will provide a clinical and translational perspective to my current knowledge enhancing the potential impact of my research. An interdisciplinary approach for imaging of RyR with access to novel microscopic techniques in the Molecular engineering department and tools for image analysis with the Medical Imaging Center and ESAT will enhance my technological expertise.

Keywords: health sciences,cardiology,physiology,calcium,atrial fibrillation
Factors Affecting Training Transfer (FATT)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-11-01
End date: 2012-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 159100.0
EU funding (EUR): 159100.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Training transfer is defined as the extent to which trainees apply their knowledge, skills and attitudes acquired in training to the working situation. Training transfer has been discussed in a number of different of fields of human behavior including psychology, anthropology and economics. Generally, there are three groups of factors influencing training transfer. These factors represent aspects of trainee characteristics, training design, and work environment. However it has been argued that our understanding of real transfer issues is still incomplete. The question of how researchers with innovative ideas should proceed from this state is still open. Training transfer can not be successful if the trainee has no intention, has been called (training) transfer strategy, to transfer learned skills and knowledge to his/her workplace. Therefore, this project will explore the role of transfer strategy and its interaction with training design, trainee characteristics and work environment as these affect training transfer. The project has the potential to create a new framework for the development of a systematic approach of the transfer process. This is a novel approach never attempted in the existing literature. To our knowledge, none of the models that exist today explain the effect of combination of training design, trainee characteristics and work environment, with transfer strategy influence to explain and predict training transfer. The project provides an important further step toward understanding training transfer by taking into account the effects of other transfer-influencing factors. This research results are not only is directed to the academic community, but also to other possible beneficiaries such as policy makers or business leaders. It gives importance to the role of the participants&apos; transfer strategy, leading to increased effectiveness in the training transfer. In turn, the results can bring greater benefit to organizations that use training.

Keywords: social sciences,training effectiveness,training transfer,training design,trainee's characteristics,work environment,transfer strategy
Safer gene repair and targeting based on the monomeric meganuclease I-DmoI by design of homologous-recombination-inducing nickase activity (DMONICKASEDESIGN)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IIF, 2009)
Start date: 2011-04-01
End date: 2013-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 155417.0
EU funding (EUR): 155417.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

An important aspect of cancer therapy is the specificity of the treatment. Significant progress has been made in drug design. However, gene therapy by direct targeting of oncogenes has not yet met equal success. Among the most valuable tools are meganucleases, also known as homing endonucleases (HE). These enzymes recognize and cleave long (around 20bp) DNA sequences and have been shown to induce gene repair in vivo efficiently. The mechanism involves induction of homologous recombination (HR) by creating a double strand break (DSB) of DNA. HEs also have the significant advantage of being amenable to redesign for new target sequences. Applications have been demonstrated, for example, in the treatment of xeroderma pigmentosum, a condition associated with skin carcinomas. Unfortunately, inducing HR by DSB tends to produce genetic instabilities. A safer alternative would be to use single-strand-cleaving enzymes (nickases). However, this must be done retaining sequence specificity, a property unavailable in natural enzymes. Consequently, engineering is necessary. A promising candidate for redesign is the monomeric HE I-DmoI, but details of the mechanism, namely the role of metals in the active site and the precise timing of strand cleavage, must still be unraveled. X-ray and mutagenesis experiments performed at CNIO provided significant, although incomplete, evidence on those crucial aspects. Experimentally-supported theory and computational modeling can help clarify remaining incognitas, such as the strand preference of the enzyme. We will use state-of-the-art computational methods (ab-initio molecular dynamics, hybrid Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics and molecular modeling), to gain insight into aspects of the mechanism not seen in experiments, including the timing of strand cleavage. This knowledge could eventually lead to the design of a more effective and specific HEs to be used in gene therapy of skin cancer, and hopefully of other types.

Keywords: enzyme redesign,dna therapy,molecular biophysics,computational biology,structural biology
The Middle Class, Civil Rights and Popular Protest in Urban China (POPULARPROTESTCHINA)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IIF, 2009)
Start date: 2011-12-21
End date: 2013-12-20
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 166040.8
EU funding (EUR): 166040.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, political reform in China has been put on ice. The one-party state focused instead on turning China into an economic powerhouse that is on track to overtake Japan this year as the world’s largest economy after the US. For the EU, China is now its second most important trading partner. The world has become increasingly dependent on China for its economic growth. But for how long can China continue to enjoy the political stability that has underpinned its economic success and now underwrites global prosperity? Against a background of rising unemployment, a widening gap between rich and poor and rising expectations among its growing middle class, can the authoritarian regime continue to ignore popular demands for greater participation in politics? The Communist Party is facing more and more challenges from an increasing number of popular protests and demonstrations that have spawned new social movements to fight for civil rights. Surprisingly, it is homeowners’ rights groups in the cities that are in the vanguard of this new wave of protests. This project will create an alliance between one of Europe’s top centres for research on China and the prestigious politics department at Renmin university to analyse how homeowners’ rights movements are growing in China’s constrained political context. This alliance is part of a plan build the China Policy Institute at Nottingham into Europe’s leading centre for the study of democratization in China. The project will evaluate how homeowners’ groups have become the unlikely successors of the democracy movement of the 1980s. The findings will enable Europeans to assess the prospects for peaceful democratic change in China, or whether to prepare for the unthinkable consequences of widespread disruption in the world’s populous nation. The project will recommend actions that the EU can take to promote peaceful change and the development of China’s civil society.

Keywords: political science,sociology,social policy,chinese studies,policy studies,public administration,peace studies,economics,law,human rights
Breaking Tolerance - Combination of Virotherapy and Immunotherapy for Cancer Treatment (VIRAL&IMMUNE THERAPY)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2011-02-01
End date: 2013-01-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 153917.0
EU funding (EUR): 153917.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of this project is to enhance the efficacy of a tumour killing virus and break tolerance within the tumour to induce an immune response against the primary tumour and metastatic deposits. The proposed strategy requires three steps. First, the tumour immunological microenvironment needs to be reset as tumours utilize a variety of mechanisms to escape host immune system. Here, we propose to use the chemotherapeutic agent cyclophosphamide to temporally deplete suppressor T cells and recruit new dentritic cell progenitors. Second, to kill cancer cells, we propose to systemically deliver the potent tumour-killing (oncolytic) adenovirus ICOVIR15, which replicates selectively in cancer cells with pRB pathway mutations. In order to favour anti-tumour immunity, the ICOVIR15 will be genetically engineered to express cytokines that have been shown to be useful to stimulate anti-tumour responses such as granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and interferon-gamma (IFN-g). Moreover, IFN-g has also been shown to kill tumour-associated vasculature. The host group has been awarded with three “non-commercial” clinical research grants from the “Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias” of the Ministry of Innovation and Science of Spain to test ICOVIR5 in clinical trials. ICOVIR5 is being produced under Good Manufacturing Practices. If the novel GM-CSF or IFNg armed viruses show promising results at preclinical level, the host group will apply for other non-commercial research grants to test it in clinical trials. This project is also aimed at further developing the skills of the applicant in genetic engineering, virotherapy, immunology and working in different tumour models. The applicant would move from the UK to Spain. The applicant hopes to establish herself as an expert in the multidisciplinary areas of cancer gene therapy such as immunotherapy, angiotherapy and virotherapy.

Keywords: genetic engineering,genetically modified organisms,molecular biology,virotherapy,oncolytic,adenovirus,immunotherapy,cytokines,gm-csf,ifn-gamma,cancer,promoter,microrna,cyclophosphamide
New methods of aquatic hyperspectral light field analysis for concurrent characterisation of physical and bio-optical processes at small scales (AQUALIGHT)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Intra-European Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Spain
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-07-01
End date: 2012-11-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 161293.0
EU funding (EUR): 161293.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

There is a growing concern with the marine environment and societies fear the depletion of fish stocks, pollution and possible impacts of climate change such as the loss of biodiversity. Most of the biological diversity in the ocean relies on the presence of phytoplankton as primary producers and the first element in the oceanic food chain. With over 20,000 known species, the importance of these ubiquitous plants as a food source for the pelagos and as a potential sink of atmospheric carbon have been widely recognized. Traditionally, ship-based observations were the main source of oceanographic data but they can only ever provide spot measurements within a highly dynamic and heterogeneous environment. Likewise, satellite-based remote sensing of ocean colour has similar limitations as it can only probe the skin of the ocean. A third approach is currently being implemented which aims to fill this observational gap by deploying autonomous long-term underwater observatories that allow the study of multiple inter-related properties, variables, and processes in real time and over a range of time and space scales. These observatories fundamentally rely on non-intrusive optical measurements for data acquisition and recent technological advances such as the development of hyperspectral sensors have greatly increased their potential applications. For the first time, scientists can obtain non-intrusive continuous measurements at small-scales to observe the dynamics of underwater ecosystems in situ and in vivo. However, there is an urgent need to further develop the underlying theoretical frameworks and analytical methods in order to be able to use these new technologies to their full potential. AQUALIGHT will make an important contribution to this by developing new analytical methods for the detection and identification of phytoplankton functional types and species, including the characterization of dynamical processes such as growth, photoacclimation and turbulent transport.

Keywords: natural sciences,observing systems and operational forecasting,physical oceanography,ecosystem modelling,coastal ecosystems,marine biodiversity,applied optics
Social Networks: Algorithms, Privacy, and Security (SNAPS)

Framework: FP7 — People
Programme: Marie-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: International Incoming Fellowships
Action type: Support for training and career development of researchers (Marie Curie)
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IIF, 2009)
Start date: 2010-06-01
End date: 2012-04-01
Duration (months): 22.0
Total project cost (EUR): 158758.6
EU funding (EUR): 158758.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

A social network is a network where nodes correspond to individuals (usually, but they may be different entities, e.g. companies) and links indicate some relationship between them. This project is about the development of algorithms for online dynamic social networks, understanding influence processes, and the study of some issues related to security on social network. First we plan to build the algorithmic basis for the problems in the social networks. Our idea concentrates on stating basic combinatorial optimization problems in new settings that are driven by applications to real-time social networks. We plan to study NP-hard problems in a dynamic real-time setting and in the setting where a universal solution has to be stored in limited memory. The study of these problems is motivated by direct applications in social networks such as message broadcasting, clustering, and service localization. The ubiquitous connections through the various social networks put us on a continuous risk. First of all it becomes hard to retain privacy, as collectively these social networks contain sensitive private information. In addition, each social network we are contained in is a new possible threat for our computer system. It might be a source of spam or an entry point of a new virus. In this project we want to construct methods for data anonymization and game-theoretic models for virus and spam spreading in social networks. The applicant as well as the corresponding host form a unit well fit for the aforementioned tasks as they combine expertise related to all those topics.

Keywords: informatics,computer science,algorithms