Dragon09/odtu_chatbot huggingface dataset:
brain research and integrative neuroscience network for covid19

the brain research and integrative neuroscience network for covid19 brainn will advance the research and innovation capacity of the university of cyprus ucy as indicated in the widening participation strengthening the era work programme by twinning with three advanced partners in brain research maastricht university um kings college london kcl and ghent university ugent through networking activities training and coordinated actions brainn will develop an innovative applied neuroscience approach to characterise the effects of covid19 on brain health and to elevate the standards of assessment diagnosis prognosis and treatment of patients with mental health and cognitive problems due to covid19 the um kcl and ugent teams have complementary worldrenowned expertise in neuroimaging noninvasive neurostimulation and digitalised assessment methods extensive research management experience and active interest in postcovid research engaging these teams as partners will provide the required mentoring and training towards a focused and systematic approach to neuroscience research in a mutually beneficial manner to raise the research profile of ucy as well as strengthen the research management and administrative skills of ucy staff brainn will benefit all partners as the standardisation of assessment and treatment protocols will expedite data collection and will safeguard the sustainability and future expansion of the network through interdisciplinary research and development of novel methods and technologies brainn will contribute to personalised treatments bringing both ucy and cyprus to the scientific forefront additionally brainn will address the brain drain challenge that has increased in cyprus over the recent years and contribute to the reduction in the burden created by covid19 the knowledge and methodologies produced will extend beyond brainn since they will be applicable to other conditions affecting brain health even when covid19 is eradicated
development and evaluation of nutritional strategies to reduce and prevent obesity in shift workers

shift work is an independent risk factor for the development of overweight and obesity as shift workers represent a huge target group throughout many sectors in europe obesity and associated diseases stress national health systems unhealthy food choices snacking high sugar intake preferences for spicy and sweetfatty foods were reported for this group which are likely the main causes for becoming obese the underlying mechanisms for these changed eating patterns remain to be resolved potential explanations are alterations in metabolic health conditions eg microbiome and inflammation taste perception and circadian misalignment empirically proven solutions are urgently needed to benefit national health systems and reduce the development of obesity and increase the wellbeing of shift workers in the euthis project aims to identify mechanisms and environmental and lifestyle factors leading to obesity in shift workers and to develop and evaluate products and strategies with consideration of the behavioural and relational level to support healthy eating patterns the project will focus on both healthcare female dominated and industrial workers male dominated two major sectors where working in shifts is common we will combine existing and new knowledge on nutritional behavioural perceptual and physiological determinants of unhealthy food choices in a crosssection trial and consider personal needs and wishes based on the latter results promising strategies technical solutions and products will be developed and tested within the target group in specific interventions during all steps stakeholders health work organisations shift workers representatives companies policy makers and scientists will be involved with the results new insights in the nutritionrelated mechanisms involved in the development of obesity among shift workers will be identified and tailored strategies benefitting shift workers and employers will be developed
digitizing other economies a comparative approach

how do longstanding primarily nonindustrial noncapitalist societies adopt and adapt digital technologies in their daily practices and systems of values classical anthropological theory once arranged basic economic types on an evolutionary ladder ranging from huntergatherers horticulturalists pastoralists and agriculturalists to industrialists today the existence of these economies other than industrialism are correctly approached not as anachronisms but as contemporaneous to postindustrial life still research on digitization has largely taken place in post industrial contexts meaning we know next to nothing about how different types of longstanding economies adopt and adapt digital technologies at the same time researchers have stipulated that digitization threatens global economic diversity by comparing digitization to processes of colonization they have argued that digital technologies facilitate assimilation into postindustrial economic systems and their often capitalist values by virtue of their technological design this project empirically investigates these claims through indepth ethnographic research among huntergatherers brazilian amazon pastoralists kyrgyz republic horticulturalists solomon islands and indigenous agriculturalists india who have long resisted assimilation into industrialcapitalism additional ethnological comparison of the four sites will offer unique macrolevel insights into the possibilities for economic diversity in the digital age finally the project advances a novel theoretical and methodological approach that advances both ethnographic research and ethnological comparison this approach recognizes the significance of both technological design and contextual adaptations and provides tools for new research agendas not just on digital industrialcapitalism but on diverse economic systems and values
engineering vasoactive probes for brainwide imaging of molecular signaling

brain function depends on spatiotemporally defined brainwide signaling via molecules such as neurotransmitters no current technology can measure signaling molecules throughout the brain with sufficient spatial and temporal resolution in living mammals this poses a major roadblock for understanding how molecular neuronal communication coordinates wholebrain functionmagnetic resonance imaging mri currently provides the highest brainwide resolution dynamic imaging of blood flow and oxygenation in the finely arborized vasculature socalled functional mri fmri is the only method that can visualize wholebrain function in mammals and humans however mri is inherently insensitive which precludes it from accessing molecular signaling that occurs at submicromolar concentrations and fmri cannot resolve neurotransmitter signaling underlying measured hemodynamic signalsi previously designed proteinbased vasoactive sensors named avatar that directly cause hemodynamic signals in fmri in response to target molecules at low nanomolar doses without using radioactive or metallic components they can be genetically encoded and also pave the way for noninvasive brain delivery through the vasculature critical for translational applications in primates and humanshere i will combine my expertise in synthetic biology and in vivo molecular imaging to develop my proofofconcept work into a robust preclinical neuroimaging method along three objectives1 engineering avatars that convert neurotransmitter signaling into hemodynamic signals2 brain delivery via noninvasive routes3 application for fmri of brainwide neurotransmitter signaling in rodentsmy project will provide neurotransmittersensing avatars to turn fmri into molecular fmri and bridge the longstanding gap between molecular nuclear imaging and functional hemodynamic imaging avatars will visualize how brainwide molecular signaling dynamics shape healthy and pathological brain function
on the evolutionary significance of wild animal reproductive microbiomes

our view of microbes has recently undergone a paradigm shift the socalled microbiome revolution previously seen as unwanted harbingers of disease it is now widely recognised that microbes can be beneficial and that the millions of microbes living in and on the bodies of animals and plants ie the microbiome can have profound effects on host biology however with the exception of the human vaginal microbiome the microbiome revolution has largely overlooked the reproductive microbiome this is especially true for wild animals yet if we are to understand the evolutionary significance of hostassociated microbiomes it is critical to study them in natural populations where hosts exhibit greater genetic variability and are exposed to greater levels of environmental and microbial complexity the aim of this proposal is to determine whether reproductive microbiomes impact host fitness and evolution in wild animals and reveal the role of host genetics and immune functioning in shaping reproductive microbiome variability i will leverage a unique wild system the house sparrow that can be studied in natural populations and in the lab and for which i have recently pioneered the use of microbiome transplant techniques that allows me to disassemble and reconstitute natural microbiomes of nestlings first i will determine the fitness consequences and heritability of reproductive microbiomes in a wild population second i will validate the impact of reproductive microbiome variability for reproductive success using novel in vivo microbiome transplants third i will uncover the genetic basis of reproductive microbiome variation fourth i will establish whether host immune functioning shapes reproductive microbiome composition altogether i will significantly advance our understanding of the causes and more importantly the consequences of reproductive microbiomes for host biology and evolution
functions of genomic hypomethylation in gametogenesis

replication in s phase duplicates not only the genome but also the epigenome to ensure cell identity is propagated and genome stability maintained in daughter cells epigenome propagation in development has been understudied due to lack of appropriate methods even though replication is widely accepted to be a primary vehicle through which programmed epigenetic changes occur in vivo in mammalian germline development the epigenome is reprogrammed via impairment of the epigenome maintenance network by dividing without maintaining core components of the epigenome primordial germ cells harbor genomes devoid of the crucial repressive mark dna methylation hypomethylation is destabilizing because it derepresses transposable elements despite this oocytes arrest in a hypomethylated state regaining methylation only in preparation for ovulation as part of puberty in parallel twothirds of the oocyte pool dies around birth in mammals and the features delineating oocytes that survive this process from those that die are unclear i propose that hypomethylation is alternately selected for and against across gametogenesis specifically that hypomethylation a positive feature in primordial germ cells but a deleterious feature in the female germline after sex specification to test this we will develop novel transgenic mouse models and technologies to study epigenome propagation in vivo and utilize stateoftheart sequencing mass spectrometry microscopy and metabolic labelling approaches by developing a method for tracking dna molecules and their associated methyl marks across division in live animals and embryos we will establish an unprecedented technology for understanding epigenome propagation in development cumulatively this work will uncover the functions and consequences of global hypomethylation in the germline and provide groundbreaking insights into the nature of mitotic and intergenerational epigenetic inheritance in vivo
alloptical photoacoustic imaging for neurobiology

measuring the electrical activity of neurons in vivo is of paramount importance to understand the underlying principles of the brain current imaging techniques fail to capture this activity across the entire brain with sufficient spatial or temporal resolutions while leaving brain tissue intact nonlinear fluorescence microscopy the most widespread optical imaging modality in system neurobiology provides optical diffraction limited resolution and high frame rate but is limited to shallow depth due to light scattering in tissue singleneuron activity in brain regions deeper than one millimeter can therefore not be probed combining widefield optical excitation and ultrasonic detection photoacoustic imaging has emerged in the last decades as a powerful technique to image of optically contrasted objects embedded deep inside biological tissue it relies on the emission of ultrasound waves upon the absorption of a light pulse as ultrasound are only weakly scattered when propagating in soft tissue optically absorbing structures can be reconstructed from the sole measurement of the ultrasound field at the tissue surfacethe highest spatial resolution is currently achieved using optical sensors of pressure waves which exhibit a better sensitivity to high ultrasound frequencies compared to conventional piezoelectric detectors however singlecell resolution is still beyond the reach of such sensors and the underlying sequential acquisition process prevent from imaging at sufficient frame rate to address this challenge i will develop new sensors and associated interrogation techniques with 1 high acquisition speed and 2 high sensitivity at high acoustic frequencies to resolve temporally and spatially the activity of single neurons this will enable to 3 image noninvasively neuronal activity at unprecedented depth of several millimeters in vivo in the mouse brain
clonal dynamics and mitochondrial dysfunction in hematopoiesis following chemotherapy

chemotherapy can cause significant damage to healthy tissues especially in the hematopoietic system as a result cancer survivors may experience bone marrow damage manifested as cytopenias which increase the risk of infections and bleeding despite this there has not been a thorough examination of these events including the clonal dynamics of hematopoiesis after chemotherapy exposure due to a lack of methodologies to perform lineage tracing in humans in vivo to address this i will study the effects of chemotherapy on the clonal dynamics of hematopoiesis mitochondrial dysfunction and genetic integrity in young cancer survivors i will analyze samples obtained before during and after treatment using emerging singlecell multiomic approaches to effectively capture mitochondrial dna mtdna genetic variation for inferences of clonal dynamics and studies of mtdna damage by combining mtdnabased clonal inferences with wholegenome sequencing wgsbased detection of somatic nuclear dna mutations i will provide deep phylogenies with scalable singlecell resolved clonal measurements of perturbed hematopoiesis following chemotherapy moreover orthogonal analysis of dna methylation and chromatin accessibility data will yield new molecular insights into chemotherapyinduced accelerated aging and mitochondrial dysfunction a hallmark of aging this project sets out to gain quantitative and fundamental insights into the longterm molecular defects of chemotherapy in young cancer survivors potentially paving the way for new interventions to improve the quality of life of this emergent population
european open compute architecture for powerful edge

cape european open compute architecture for powerful edge aims to redefine the landscape of edgecloud computing infrastructures by developing the edgemicrodatacenters emdcs and ehps as a new unit of computing for datadense edge environments the project designs and showcase an innovative open hardware platform that is dynamically composable via cxl to answer the end user needs emdc and ehps provides an open high density platform for heterogeneous computing units xpu riscv architectures all based on industrystandard form factor comhpc that is supported by a robust ecosystem of original equipment manufacturers oems within europe ensuring wide accessibility and adoption to allow end users to be digital sovereign eg manage the governance of data ai models applications deployed across an edgefirst edge to cloud continuum cape will employ a cloudagnostic overlay known as infrastructure from code ifc this innovative approach abstracts the complexities inherent in diverse cloud computing infrastructures and services empowering software developers to deploy applications effortlessly across the edgetocloud continuum this is achieved without necessitating extensive knowledge of the underlying cloud infrastructure enabling deployments across onpremise and offpremise public and private cloud environments with minimal complexitycapes solution will be validated in 3 use cases the management of intelligent electric energy microgrids edge ai and satellite communications all usecases will evaluate riscv epi and cxl solutions each usecase will be evaluated on technical economical and sustainability aspects and benchmarked against legacy hardware in local clouds against edgeoptimized data centers
single microwave photon detection for hybrid quantum information processing and quantum enhanced sensing

the waveparticle duality is one of the counterintuitive traits of quantum mechanics the fundamental constituents of matter and light can be either apprehended as corpuscules or waves depending on the choice of the measurement apparatus in the case of light one can either decide to measure the quadrature of the electromagnetic field or count the photons impacting the detector these two modalities come with pros and cons the first one is sensitive to both the phase and the amplitude of the field but at the cost of a fundamental noise associated to vacuum fluctuations while the latter is only sensitive to the energy of the field but at the photons lie at the heart of the human experience they are the most direct way to sense our immediate material environment a light source irradiates material objects in its surroundings and depending on their composition materials will reemit the incident light with slight variations in intensity and color in the course of the last century the meaning of imaging has been considerably broadened scientific and technological advances have enabled the detection of single quanta of light from further away at smaller scales and on a considerable enlarge portion of the electromagnetic spectrum at one extremity of the spectrum the field of microwave quantum optics 110 ghz has emerged as a powerful tool to probe quantum systems we have recently demonstrated highperformance single microwave photon detection based on elementary superconducting circuits based on this novel method a new window on new material systems is opened at unprecedented sensitivities this proposal aims at the improvement of the newly developed single microwave photon detector for the exploration of new luminescent systems in the microwave domain in particular the detection of individual paramagnetic electron spins for quantum computing and quantumenhanced sensing applications and the search of one of the leading darkmatter candidates axions
expresstec from launch to first mvp

over 600k annual new cases of breast cancer worldwide carry poor prognosis mutations in the gene pik3ca but since 2020 a targeted therapeutic option piqray alpelisib became available exclusively from novartis however due to the still unsatisfactory response rates the uptake by doctors and the adherence by patients has been limited eligibility is established at present by assessing the pik3ca status in tumour dna via companion diagnostic cdx tests from qiagen and roche however we found that the level of expression of the pik3ca mutations measured in tumour rna associates with prognosis and is more accurate to predict the presence of the final mutated protein the drug targethence we are developing an innovative cdx expresspik that goes beyond the present ones to test the expression of mutations and correctly identify the patients who will benefit from treatment our higher accuracy will increase doctors confidence in prescribing expresspik profitable for expresstec and investors and the better response rate beneficial to patients will promote patient uptake and treatment adherence profitable for novartisthe total global expresspik market is over 600 k patients per year the european patent pending secures the use of mutation expression levels in clinical diagnosis for treatment with piqray and other drugs in clinical trials we are validating the technology and planning to reach the mvp within a yearwomen techeu will support developing our business knowledge and acumen as well as provide the access to the industry and investors network we are lacking we hope to make a change in the survivorship of breast cancer patients whilst setting an example of female entrepreneurship in a region with high unemployment and low biotech investment
synthetic chimeric antigen receptors hijacking nitrenium ions for targeting therapy and safety of next generation t cell therapy

chimeric antigen receptor car t cell therapy is a promising approach for cancer treatment with remarkable clinical outcomes car t therapy involves the isolation of patients t cells that are genetically modified with an engineered antigen receptor to attack cancer cellsdespite the great promise the rapid activation and proliferation of car t cells can lead to serious side effects in addition car t therapy is challenged by limited effectiveness difficulties in infiltrating solid tumors targeting of healthy cells cell exhaustion and an expensive lengthy and personalized manufacturing process over the past years researchers have explored many strategies to improve and control car t cell function and to develop more universal car t cell platforms yet an offtheshelf approach that allows full control of car t effector function that is flexible in use and can be obtained at low manufacturing costs is currently not availableto address above challenges i will develop a highly innovative universal synthetic car syncar t cell platform where the antigen receptor is easily adaptable by using synthetic functionalized targeting ligands to control t cell effector function in space and timeat the basis of this proposal lies the use of highly reactive and activatable aryl nitrenium ions for protein modification drug delivery and as novel class of therapeutics i will 1 tune nitrenium ion reactivity for bioconjugation and drug activation 2 use enzymeactivatable nitrenium ion precursors for synthetically modified antigen receptors 3 develop novel nitrenium ionbased prodrug strategies to improve car t efficiency and 4 use innovative bioorthogonal chemistry to control car t activity in time and spacein this work i will develop beyond the stateoftheart chemical biology methods and molecular targeting tools to control potentiate and tune t cell activity with the ultimate goal to broaden the car t targeting landscape to solid tumors and beyond
macrocycles for drug discovery

better drugs are one of the most efficient and sustainable ways to improve health care a key strategic orientation in horizon europenew drug modalities such as macrocycles are expected to be a key enabling technology for this strategic perspective the goal of mc4dd is to train the next generation of european medicinal chemists in a multidisciplinary environment to promote european drug discovery competitiveness directly by advancing knowhow on macrocycles and longterm via the skills carried on by the researchers trained in the doctoral network