Dragon09/odtu_chatbot huggingface dataset:
coupling morphogen dynamics with mechanics in the control of form and pattern

embryogenesis entails both the generation of cell type diversity and largescale morphogenetic movements sculpting the forming body axes how patterning and morphogenesis are each individually controlled is increasingly understood yet how these fundamental processes are coordinated remains an open question in biology my recent work in zebrafish gastrulation a crucial developmental stage where the germ layers are specified and shaped provided a conceptual framework for how patterning and morphogenesis can be coupled by morphogen signalling however how a small set of highly conserved morphogens mechanistically controls a striking diversity of biological functions across many developmental systems remains unclear especially as little is known on how morphogen signalling encodes the mechanical forces organizing morphogenesis we hypothesize that examining the multiscale interplay between morphogen dynamics and mechanics will provide the missing link to understand how the emergence of pattern and form are coordinated by a handful of morphogens using both zebrafish embryos and human 2d gastruloids we aim to uncover1 how the dynamics of morphogen signalling encodes the mechanical properties organizing morphogenesis2 how cell and tissue mechanics in turn modulate morphogen signalling dynamics and robust patterning 3 how cells decode dynamical mechanochemical inputs to instruct cell fate and patterningtowards these goals we will combine our expertise in biophysics and developmental biology with recent advances in livecell signalling reporters optogenetics biophysical tools and gastruloid models to quantitatively understand the design principles and molecular effectors of the crosstalk between morphogen dynamics and mechanics this will generate novel insights relevant beyond developmental biology with direct implications for engineering of organoid technologies regenerative medicine and our understanding of the evolution of form and pattern
the brain erythropoietin cycle as driver of adaptive neuroplasticity via functional hypoxia

cognitive disability and decline play key roles in neuropsychiatric conditions but lack effective therapies erythropoietin epo is a hypoxiainducible growth factor named after its original description in erythropoiesis we discovered by reverse approach human trials first that recombinant human rh epo has potent procognitive effects hematopoiesisindependent searching for mechanistic insight in mice we saw that rhepo markedly drives differentiationmaturation of pyramidal neurons and oligodendrocytes from nondividing precursors in cornu ammonis outside known neurogenesis areas in parallel rhepo dampens microglia this suggests that endogenous brainexpressed epo bepo acting in autoparacrine fashion has fundamental hitherto overlooked physiological significancebrepoci will pursue the groundbreaking hypotheses that i functional hypoxia is a physiological consequence of increased neuronal activity inciting an integrated response of many brain cell types and ii this activityinduced hypoxia stimulates bepo expression to optimize multicellular brain plasticity providing substantial hardware upgrade iii also brepoci postulates diverse epor in brain and will study their nature and contribution to these pivotal processes upon normoxia functional and inspiratory hypoxia iv rhepo treatment of intellectual disabilityautism caused by tbr1 or zbtb20 lossoffunction mutations will constitute a first mechanistic approach to specific brain pathologies translatable to humansthis erc project can build on acquired novel genetic mouse tools celltype specific epoepor mutants inducible hypoxia reporters multiomic mice sophisticated behavior tests mrimrs multiphoton imaging nanosims scsnrnaseq confocallightsheetelectron microscopy electrophysiology brepoci will illuminate rhepobepo effects on physiological brain functions and explore how it limits developmental delay intellectual disability or neurodegeneration
prodemocracy platform advocacy fostering social medias accountability to dissident voices under authoritarianism

digital platforms such as facebook and twitter have long touted themselves as defenders of freedom of expression yet their content moderation rules have faced global criticism amongst others for failing to tackle authoritarian repression of dissident voices government trolls successfully run malicious reporting campaigns that result in the platforms removal of activists posts and accounts meanwhile civil society under authoritarianism lacks means of legal recourse and can only engage in international advocacy to urge social media companies to implement safeguards to which extent have advocacy efforts for protection of prodemocracy content led to changes in digital platforms content moderation rules have these changes resulted in a more open online civic space for prodemocracy activism what limitations remain to address these questions and foster platform accountability for vulnerable users i will work under prof trisha meyers supervision at vrije universiteit brussel vub centre for digitalisation democracy and innovation cd2i at brussels school of governance bsog and sam gregorys secondment supervision at witness inc to achieve two main ri objectives first the project will build and test a theoretical model of prodemocracy platform advocacy based on original evidence from asian prodemocracy movements and their advocacy toward three social media platforms facebook twitter and telegram second the findings will be turned into two openaccess academic articles and three applied innovations including a best practice guide for prodemocracy activists a set of policy recommendations for social media companies and a digital advocacy resource for social media users i will disseminate and exploit these results via presentations at eight academic and three multistakeholder conferences publications on open research europe platform and five facilitation workshops with activists and meetings with social media companies
early life imprinting of b cell memory and its role in adult immunity

this proposal addresses the combined role of early life derived b cells in the adult immune system neonatal immune imprinting is now wellestablished concept it emphasizes the importance of the early life window to establish hostmicrobial mutualism and the setpoint for immune responsiveness later in life however the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying this immune programming are not well understood despite the ability of b cells to integrate and store complex immunological memory for a lifetime surprisingly little is known about its ability to confer the longitudinal effects of neonatal microbial instructionby timestamping b cells that arise early in life my research team resolved a selfsustaining network of igm and iga b and plasma cells that carry memory of neonatal exposure such early life origin b elob cells are unevenly distributed among immunophenotypically and anatomically defined b cell subsets and make up a substantial portion of the adult b cell pool in unimmunized mice these findings reveal pervasive neonatal antigenic imprinting of the adult b cell compartment challenging the assumption that the adaptive immune system is nave in the absence of deliberate immunization with this understanding arises an urgent need to dissect the formation and function of elob cell memory and their lasting impact on host protection and longterm homeostasis to this end we have built an unprecedented genetic toolkit leveraging the power of our timestamping approach to track and manipulate elob cell responses without perturbing aduloverarching hypothesis elob cells uniquely imprinted by developmental and microbial determinants early in life shape the trajectory of adult immune responses in health and diseaseaim 1 dissecting the formation of a complex elob cell layeraim 2 tracing elob cell derived antibodies and their contribution to adult b cell responsesaim 3 defining the role for elob cells in immunological tolerance
prototype spiked microcapsule based oral insulin pill for diabetes

diabetes is a chronic metabolic syndrome with millions of people affected globally caused by impaired glucose metabolism due to insufficient pancreatic insulin release or the development of insulin resistance to control the glycaemic load in the diabetic patient insulin needs to be administered by parenteral injection which causes patient compliance issues oral administration of insulin is the preferred route but there is no oral insulin on the market because of the hurdles it faces in the gastrointestinal tract oral administration is the preferred route but until now there is no oral insulin in the market because of the hurdle gastric ph and enzymatic degradation low permeability it faces in the gastrointestinal tract therefore there is an unmet need for oral insulin development to solve these problems we will use microneedle technology for development of oral insulin delivery microinsulin oral administration of microinsulin will be investigated at the level of physicochemical characterization preliminary safety assessment in in vitro and ex vivo models and pharmacokinetics and efficacy in in vivo rodent models high insulin intestinal absorption will be expected from the polymeric needle microcapsule via its piercing mechanism with controlled and localised release of insulin which will be facilitated by a polymer matrix and the permeatingenhancing cationic cyclodextrin polymer the objective of the project is aligned with the eus horizon 2020 programme focus area health demographic change and wellbeing and un sustainable development goal good health and wellbeing the global marie curie fellowship research will be conducted in partnership with the outgoing phase at a renowned institution from a third countries and incoming phase at eu country the team is well equipped with skill and infrastructure required for the project this will help bring advanced skills to eu countries and will have a significant impact on the fellows career
an edible microelectrofluidic biosensor for gastric enzyme quantification

edisens will deliver the first edible microelectrofluidic biosensor for enzyme activity quantification in gastric fluid that the human body can digest after completing its task this will be accomplished by integrating passive microfluidics electronics and bioreagents into an edible device fabricated with foodgrade materials the biosensor will find application in the detection of pancreatic diseases including pancreatic cancer today existing ingestible electronics represent a trilliondollar market yet they suffer from retention risk as they use nondegradable materials and heavily contribute to the accumulation of ewaste in the environment edisens will deliver a safetoeat device performing a rapid accurate enzymatic test on gastric fluid before being digested that eliminates the retention risk and does not require hospitalisation and disposal the proposed technology will be highly versatile and will be beneficial for applications beyond our immediate test case the transition to edible alternatives will spark the next generation of diagnostic devices for gastrointestinal tract monitoring which are safer noninvasive environment friendly and can be used at the point of care the project will start a change in the social perception of diagnostic devices where safe and familiar materials can be engineered to provide noninvasive diagnostic tools edisens works toward the vision that clinical testing will be as easy as eating candy one day this action is in line with the horizon europe global challenges program that promotes advanced noninvasive safer health technologies and a greener and more sustainable european society for the success of this action the researcher will utilise his experience in standard pointofcare and ingestible electronics exploit the supervisors expertise in organic and bioresorbable electronics and benefit from the stateoftheart laboratory at the center for nano science and technology istituto italiano di tecnologia
beyond neuroinflammation new concepts to elucidate the immune systems vital role in parkinsons disease

decades of research into parkinsons disease pd have fallen short in fully comprehending its mechanisms leaving us without a cure current treatments merely alleviate symptoms temporarily but are unable to impede the progression of the disease clearly pd research has hit a wall and new approaches are needed recent discoveries of the involvement of the peripheral immune system in pd have sparked a groundbreaking proposition by biceps pd must be considered a systemic disease with an immune response involving both brain and periphery thus to revolutionize pd research we must shift away from the neurocentric approach of past decades and extend our focus to studying the immune system outside the brain furthermore recent advancements such as systems biology and artificial intelligence aidriven data mining diagnosis and drug development hold significant promise for advancing pd researchtherefore biceps is uniting pd researchers immunologists and experts in ai and systems biology from leading european academic institutions startup companies and established pharmaceutical firms into a unique consortium the primary objective is to train a new generation of pd researchers with interdisciplinary expertise in these fieldsthis ambitious goal will be realized through an intensive training program that encompasses cuttingedge methodologies encourages innovation nurtures transferable skills and provides immersive handson research experiences thereby the biceps network aims to shape the future of pd research by adopting a fresh perspective and expediting the development of diagnostics and therapies for pd with a particular focus on the immune system
scalable continuous variable cluster state quantum technologies

continuous variable cv quantum technologies have in recent years made significant impact on the fields of quantum communication sensing and computing as signified by the detection of gravitational waves and demonstration of quantum advantage via gaussian boson sampling moreover the recent generation and manipulation of cv cluster states comprising thousands of entangled modes have direct implications for future developments of scalable cv quantum computing and networking systems in clustec we will pursue an interdisciplinary approach to unfold the full potential of cv cluster state technology by making conceptual and technical breakthroughs along three different directions first we will develop two complementary optical platforms for scalable generation of massive cv cluster states of different entanglement topologies and generation of hardware efficient errorcorrecting codes the two systems will be based on a wellestablished lowloss fiber platform and the emerging highly promising integrated photonics platform of thinfilm lithium niobate second we will develop and test radically new measurementinduced cv quantum computational and networking protocols and algorithms with certified quantum advantage and reallife applications third we will explore and develop theoretically and experimentally novel quantum errorcorrecting cv protocols and technologies that facilitate the realization of practical faulttolerant quantum technologies for quantum computing communication and sensing with true scalability potential with these activities clustec will create a new path towards scalable quantum technologies and accelerate the development of practical quantum technologies with potentially radical impact on european society and economy the results will pave the way for industrial uptake and exploitation in the near and long term and in turn support the development of european leadership and autonomy in emerging strategic technologies
from cell shape to organism shape the cellular basis for the evolutionary origin of animal morphogenesis

my work concerns a critical question how did the cellular mechanisms underpinning animal morphogenesis first evolve while the first multicellular ancestors of modern animals have left limited fossil traces insights can be gained by studying their closest living relatives the choanoflagellates this group of microeukaryotes has several features of high relevance to animal origins including temporal cell differentiation facultative multicellularity and a metazoanlike developmental gene toolkit importantly they have become amenable to functional genetics in the past few years we will study the molecular and cellular mechanisms of three morphogenetic processes in choanoflagellates 1 the formation of the collar complex a ring of microvilli surrounding the flagellum which represents an example of complex singlecell morphogenesis and has been central to hypotheses about animal origins
evolving organsonchip from developmental engineering to mechanical reevolution

evooc aims at developing smart mechanically active organsonchip platforms as clinically relevant in vitro setups to unravel mechanisms underlying tissue regeneration and progression of unmet diseasesa decade ago developmental engineering de proposed to model in vitro clinically relevant tissues replica by recapitulation of embryonic developmental events despite physical forces have recently been suggested as main driver of developmental processes mechanical conditioning never prevailed as key de strategy this is related to a lack in current in vitro mechanobiology setups mainly based on open loop systems which disregard the fact that native mechanical environment varies in time as function of tissue state itself evooc vision is to elevate mechanobiology as leading de approach through a groundbreaking paradigm named mechanical reevolution based on the highriskhighgain hypothesis that an iterative manipulation of mechanical forces is necessary to guide in vitro adult tissue development at unprecedented levels towards this vision i will deliver a new method evolving ooc evooc integrating three enabling functions move to apply nativeinspired mechanical forces to tissues in vitro sense to monitor their comprehensive effect on tissue development adapt to modulate forces as a function of tissue responses through machine learning mlbased algorithms towards an unsupervised tissue evolution i will take advantages of two paradigmatic testcases cartilage and heart to showcase the power of mechanical reevolution in guiding in vitro tissue physiological and pathological states towards the identification of a brandnew class of mechanotherapeutics for unmet pathologiesby combining principles of microfabrication de mechanobiology and ml evooc will revolutionize basic studies in tissue development and disease modeling facilitating innovative translational strategies to tackle tissue repair in manifold applications
prescription optics providing a universal lens for augmented reality eyewear

popular aims at developing the first generic augmented reality eyewear are platform covering the widest range of users and use cases in professional context leisure or in daily life the ordinarylooking glasses will provide visual wearable vestibular and social comfort making them suitable for allday use including personal ophthalmic correctionmajor innovations are related to compactness and invisible technology optical quality ultralow power consumption and long operation times integrating costefficiency aspects as well ssh aspects will be considered in all stages of the project by using a dual approach with an interplay between human driven design and multidisciplinary system engineering through iterative prototype testingpopular will develop all critical components namely ultralow power microdisplay with related optics and electronics innovative holographic lens mirror as well as application software and perform the integration into eyewear prototypes demonstration will be achieved by performing enduser tests with the prototypes in 3 realistic use case scenarios outdoor sports healthcare and logisticsthe consortium is a unique combination of crossfunctional experts representing the entire value chain it consists of 10 partners from 4 eu countries including 4 rtoaca 3 industrial companies of which 2 smes and 3 usecase partners in addition an advisory board of stakeholders and ethics experts will guide the popular consortium during the main steps of the projectthe innovation provided by the project provides a unique chance to the european industry becoming a leader in a growing market of are building on its worldwide leadership in the eyewear industry and its strong rd and innovation capabilities through the project demonstrations and the continuous support of the advisory board guidelines covering user design market and societal requirements will be developed supporting deployment in real scenarios
biocomposites in smart plastic transformation processes to pave the way for the largescale uptake of sustainable biobased products

the general objective of biouptake project is to ensure a sustainable uptake increase the use in a 39 of bioplastic composites through boosting a twin green and digital transformation in the european manufacturing industry in particular biouptake solution will focus scientific and technology efforts on developing flexible manufacturing processes to produce biobased endproducts for the construction medical and packaging sectors based on the combination of intermediate formats made of natural andor biobased synthetic fibres reinforced with biopolymers which are easily adaptable to new market demands the novel approach on which biouptake project relies is based on modularity or prefabrication a smart combination of intermediate formats organosheets tapes and pellets into a final endproduct which allows to overcome the current technical and environmental limitations to meet the demanding requirements of a specific sectorapplication where a single biobased material doesnt thus the synergistic potential of composite materials will pave the way for the integration and uptake of biobased materials in mass customised manufacturing manufacturing as a service three disruptive manufacturing processes based on conformal technologies will be developed within biouptake focused on the plastics manufacturing sector which is on the centrality of a variety of value chains and being demonstrated in 3 demo cases bathroom ceiling cabinet feet orthosis and garbage container lid sustainability criteria will be applied since the design phase to reach circularity by design obtaining products with more than 75 biobased content and decreasing ghg up to 33 biouptake solution does not request large investment in complex equipment too biouptake consortium is formed by 13 interdisciplinar and complementary partners 6 industries 4 rtos 1 academia and 2 other organizations the overall budget is 5994886 euros