ERC Synergy Grant, recent awardees

Myosin II–independent contraction of actin filaments in membrane nanotubes

Mostafa Ashraf · Raman Research Institute · IN

The ability to generate active stresses within filamentous actin matrices is a fundamental and evolutionarily conserved process driving locomotion and morphogenetic changes in cells. The generation of pushing forces by actin polymerization is reasonably well understood, and is known to drive lamellipodia based motility and filopodial extension. Actin filaments decorated with myosin motors can also generate contractile stresses as in the cell cortex or in cytokinetic rings. In this article we use

POMC AMPKα1 deletion drives male-specific BAT thermogenesis and obesity resistance

Ismael González‐García · Universidade de Santiago de Compostela · ES

Proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (ARC) play a critical role in energy homeostasis. 5'-adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a serine/threonine kinase, which acts as the main energy sensor in the cell. The heterotrimeric AMPK results from the combination of a catalytic α subunit (α1, α2) with two regulatory subunits, β (β1, β2) and γ (γ1, γ2 and γ3). Hypothalamic AMPK plays a key role in the control of energy balance, but current e

Age at First Marriage or Cohabitation Among First-, Second-, and 2.5-Generation Immigrant Women, Finland 1987–2020

Citlali Trigos-Raczkowski · University of Helsinki · FI

Immigrants and their descendants are increasingly forming families across Europe, yet little is known about how immigration background shapes first union entry in emerging immigration contexts. Here, we examine whether immigrant generation, age at arrival, and sending region are associated with entry into opposite-sex first unions for women in Finland from 1987 to 2020. Treating cohabitation and direct marriage as competing events, we estimate cause-specific hazards in separate accelerated failu

Video compression for spatiotemporal Earth system data

Gustau Camps‐Valls

Large-scale Earth system datasets, from high-resolution remote sensing imagery to spatiotemporal climate model outputs, exhibit characteristics analogous to those of standard videos. Their inherent spatial, temporal, and spectral redundancies can thus be readily exploited by established video compression techniques. Here, we present xarrayvideo, a Python library for compressing multichannel spatiotemporal datasets by encoding them as videos. Our approach achieves compression ratios of up to 250x

Chemist Eye: a visual language model-powered system for safety monitoring and robot decision-making in self-driving laboratories

Francisco Munguia-Galeano · University of Liverpool · GB

The use of robotics and automation in self-driving laboratories (SDLs) can introduce additional safety complexities, beyond those already present in conventional research laboratories. Personal protective equipment (PPE) is an essential requirement for ensuring the safety and well-being of workers in all laboratories, self-driving or otherwise. Fires are another important risk factor in chemical laboratories. In SDLs, fires that occur close to mobile robots, which use flammable lithium batteries

the ethics of AI enabled synthetic DNA

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO · NO · €5,859,854

The spiral helix structure of DNA is instantly recognisable. It holds a powerful place in the public imagination. The central role of DNA in concepts of identity, family, health, and life itself is reinforced by specialised legal and regulatory frameworks. While designing DNA from scratch is beyond human capability, AI-enabled design and modeling have opened new horizons with synthetic DNA (synDNA). SynDNA allows the creation of organisms with no evolutionary counterparts. This could be seen as

Land and life in the Anthropocene: Landscape reform

ERASMUS UNIVERSITEIT ROTTERDAM · NL · €8,333,333

How can we learn to live on earth in new ways? This is the challenge of the Anthropocene. We propose a novel 4Ps framework to investigate land–life dynamics, which, for the first time, will connect perspectives on human–nonhuman relations (Partners), property-making (Property), land regimes (Profit) and land–climate systems (Planet). We will draw on critical perspectives from both environmental humanities and agrarian studies, bringing together diverse traditions from human–nonhuman anthropology

The role of Turbulence in the Physics of Clouds

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · DE · €13,685,754

Earth’s dominant cloud type per area covered is Stratocumulus. These low-level, shallow, and Earth’s dominant cloud type per area covered is Stratocumulus. These low-level, shallow, and horizontally spread-out clouds cover one-fifth of the Earth’s surface. Changes in cloud cover may amplify rather than mitigate global warming but the magnitude of this is highly uncertain. One of the greatest challenges in climate science is to predict how clouds in general, and stratocumuli in particular, will c

Capturing and cONtrolling coniCal intErsections in Real Time

POLITECNICO DI MILANO · IT · €9,998,941

Conical intersections (CIs) are regions in the potential energy surface of molecules where different electronic energy levels intersect, leading to the breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation and promoting non-adiabatic transitions between electronic states. CIs preside over essential ultrafast processes in photobiology, photochemistry, and materials science as they can be viewed as “doorways” through which a photoexcited vibrational wave packet (WP) is efficiently funnelled to a lower-e

DNA for Reconfigurable Nano-Opto-Mechanical Systems

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · UK · €9,033,975

Micro- and nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS, NEMS) have enabled highly successful technologies, encompassing acceleration sensors, inkjet cartridges, digital mirror projectors, and more. However, despite decades of chip development in the semiconductor industry, fabrication and energy costs remain high with poor materials utilisation and we lack devices that are reconfigurable on the nanometer scale. In contrast to these top-down approaches, DNA nanotechnology has emerged as a powerful botto

Genome control by DNA-looping motors: from folding to function

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT · NL · €10,000,000

Our genome is not merely an information code but also a physical object: a long polymer of DNA with a dynamic three-dimensional organisation that is crucial for its function. Recently, we and others discovered that SMC protein complexes are a novel class of remarkable molecular motors that extrude loops of DNA. While insights into how this motor activity shapes chromosomes are revolutionising our understanding of chromosome structure, it is becoming clear that SMC motors are also key to controll

Fostering Learning and Adaptation through Predictability

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA · IT · €3,977,438

The FLAP project explores the intricate relationship between environmental predictability, early-life conditions, and avian cognition. Environmental predictability refers to the consistency of environmental cues linked to responses, while cognitive abilities include flexibility, inhibitory control, and attentional focus. We hypothesise that birds’ early understanding of predictability can have lasting effects on their cognition and temperament. FLAP examines this question across ontogeny (how co

Magnetically enhanced electrocatalysis

FUNDACIO INSTITUT CATALA D'INVESTIGACIO QUIMICA · ES · €12,417,798

In the last years, electrochemistry and electrocatalysis are increasing their impact across several fields. A major driving force comes from the promise of substituting current fossil-fuel powered thermal methods in the industry by electrochemical alternatives, driven by renewable electricity. However, electrochemical methods are still far from reaching the desired target performance. In this landscape, the recent discovery of magnetic fields enhancing electrocatalytic processes offers a plausib

On the Degradability of Protein Aggregates by Autophagy

UNIVERSITAT WIEN · AT · €9,980,111

The removal of misfolded and aggregated proteins is essential for cellular homeostasis and organismal health. The accumulation of protein aggregates is associated with several devastating neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease. It has been generally assumed that autophagy has the ability to degrade large aggregates, and considerable efforts are underway to harness this pathway to remove disease-associated aggregates for therapy. However, it is becoming clear that large, solid p

Verification of Probabilistic Security Systems

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · UK · €7,944,004

Critical digital infrastructure is increasingly threatened by attacks such as payment fraud, data breaches, and ransomware. Formal methods have been developed to rigorously analyse security protocols, which are the backbone of current digital security. Notably, automated tools, such as ProVerif, have been vital in analysing real-world protocols including TLS and Signal.A significant limitation in current formal methods stems from abstracting probabilistic behaviours to simplify the analysis. Th

Covalent Chaotropic Membrane Transport for Biotherapeutic Delivery (CARAMEL)

UNIVERSIDAD DE SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA · ES · €9,949,929

Finding new synthetic compounds that facilitate membrane transport of impermeable bioactive molecules constitutes one of the grand scientific challenges in chemistry, biology, and medicine. Until today, the design principles of artificial transporters have been mainly restricted to membrane-targeting molecules with segregated hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains. We propose a disruptive strategy that uses boron clusters as membrane carriers that abandon the classical amphiphilic topology and expl

Digital RF Power - Time-Domain-RF-Power Signal Generation

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT · NL · €9,993,525

Wireless communications has made fantastic progress. Yet, the gravest concern is the relentless exponential increase in energyconsumption of next-generation networks that adopt massive multi-input/multi-output (mMIMO) technology (e.g., in 5G/6G).Without any major breakthroughs, these networks will devour a big portion of the global electricity production in 2030. The chiefculprit is the incumbent analog-intensive radio-frequency (RF) transmitter (TX) architecture of its front-end part, which inv

GENomes Evolve in a Landscape of TEs

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · UK · €9,998,525

Understanding how genomes work is intimately entangled with understanding how they evolved. Although most individual mutations are single-base, more sequence is changed through structural variation, which itself is in large part driven by transposable elements (TEs), frequently with greater functional and reproductive consequences. Here we will take a multi-pronged and interdisciplinary approach to advance our understanding of how the genomes of multicellular eukaryotes and their TEs co-evolve,

Fire safety in space exploration

CENTRALE LILLE INSTITUT · FR · €13,774,718

The FireSpace research proposal aims to address the critical challenge of fire safety in space exploration, particularly in environments with increased oxygen concentrations, reduced pressure, and reduced gravity. The main objective is to generate fundamental knowledge on the fire behavior of materials used in spacecraft and habitats under these extreme conditions and to develop strategies for mitigating fire risks. This will be achieved through a combination of experimental investigations, the

Beyond Modification: Defining Hidden Roles of snoRNPs in Ribosome Assembly

UNIVERSITAET GRAZ · AT · €9,993,362

The assembly of new ribosomes is a conserved and tightly regulated process required for the growth of all living beings. Successful ribosome production requires the coordinated action of hundreds of cellular factors, including small nucleolar ribonucleoprotein particles (snoRNPs). Human snoRNP defects or alterations in snoRNP expression are linked to bone marrow disorders, neurodegeneration, and cancer. We recently discovered that a specialized class of snoRNPs play central yet underappreciated

Laboratory Underground for Nuclear Astrophysics New Observatory for Solar Neutrino Reactions

HELMHOLTZ-ZENTRUM DRESDEN-ROSSENDORF EV · DE · €13,989,810

Nuclear astrophysics studies the processes that generate energy and control the chemical makeup of the universe. One area of nuclear astrophysics has recently entered the 1% precision domain: Big Bang nucleosynthesis. However, another area of nuclear astrophysics with even greater importance is still lagging behind: Our Sun. Here, the precision breakthrough is still missing, and hampering not only the solar but all stellar models. LUNANOVA ideally combines a great effort from nuclear experiment,

Northern Peatlands in the face of climate warming and abrupt changes

STOCKHOLMS UNIVERSITET · SE · €12,562,113

CLIMPEAT aims to transform our understanding and ability to quantify the response of northern peatlands to climate change and their feedback on future warming. Northern peatlands hold huge stocks of vulnerable carbon and nitrogen, and their release risks amplifying climatic warming. Increasingly prevalent reports of abrupt changes to peatland environments from thawing permafrost, extreme fires and droughts suggest massive reorganisation of Arctic and Boreal ecosystems, with impacts lasting sever

Unlocking the neurovascular interface of peripheral nerves in homeostasis, disease and repair

OSPEDALE SAN RAFFAELE SRL · IT · €10,000,000

The extensive network of peripheral nerves develops concurrently and in close contact with the vascular system. This spatial and functional relationship persists into adulthood, forming a neurovascular (NV) interface that shields the vulnerable neural tissue through a blood-nerve barrier (BNB), akin to the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Despite its pivotal role in peripheral nervous system (PNS) health, our understanding of the BNB is limited, impacting the design of therapies for PNS disorders link

Harmonic Analysis with Lean Formalization

RHEINISCHE FRIEDRICH-WILHELMS-UNIVERSITAT BONN · DE · €6,443,439

Recent advances in formalization have brought the longstanding vision of machine-verifiable mathematics within reach. Formed by world leading experts in harmonic analysis and formalization, HALF is the first research initiative to concurrently achieve breakthrough results in a foundational mathematical area while formalizing them in the proof assistant Lean.HALF tackles pivotal and long-standing open problems in harmonic analysis, with an emphasis on multilinear and nonlinear operators. These fu

Hydrothermal iron from the earth’s interior as fertiliser of photosynthesis in the ocean

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €13,567,192

HARVEST investigates how iron released from submarine volcanoes stimulates the growth of phytoplankton, especially in nutrient-poor ocean regions. Iron is known to be a limiting nutrient for photosynthesizing plankton, but research has mostly focused on iron delivery via atmospheric dust. The contribution of iron from hydrothermal sources – leached out of hot rock along the volcanically active plate boundaries – has been largely overlooked. This process, however, may drive a significant componen

AdaptAIR: Climate Adaptation through Artificial Ice Reservoirs (AIRs) in the Himalayas

KING'S COLLEGE LONDON · UK · €9,999,443

Shrinking glaciers and more frequent extreme weather events threaten the water security of 55 million people living in the Himalayan Mountain range. Artificial ice reservoirs (AIRs) – annually created stores of ice formed each winter through diverting streams or pumping groundwater into the air – are being rapidly implemented across the northern-most Indian Union Territory of Ladakh. However, the construction of AIRs has been conducted without consideration of the social and environmental contex

Popular Government in Global Perspective: History, Principles, Institutions, and Experimentations

UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN · BE · €9,258,028

Representative government is characterized by the guarantee of basic political liberties, the centrality of elections, restricted avenues for citizen participation, and the relative independence enjoyed by representatives. It has become the dominant alternative to authoritarian government worldwide, to a point where it has eclipsed the diversity of ways to organize collective self-government. This is regrettable because representative government 1) relies on elitist premises that are increasingl

THREE STOP CODONS TO GET OVER TO FLOURISH

MIKROBIOLOGICKY USTAV AV CR V.V.I · CZ · €9,755,098

An accumulating body of evidence reveals that the Genetic Code, canonically interpreted in codons of three nucleotides, is not universal. In dogma challenging findings, we have observed in unicellular protists a remarkable malleability of genetic decoding that is mostly governed by tRNAs that interpret codons as having different meanings depending on their location in the genome. For example, coding sequences of our model protist Blastocrithidia nonstop are rich in stop codons and unique tRNA ar

Mitochondrial Contact Site Functional Diversity Revealed by Molecular Memory, Smart Microscopy, and Correlative Cryo-EM Tomography

ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE · CH · €12,278,709

Mitochondria are central to modern eukaryotic life, but how they carry out their functions in space and time within the cellular milieu is remarkably enigmatic. Contributing to the complexity of this question, mitochondria face dual existential challenges: supporting their life cycle as self-reproducing, DNA-containing organelles; and supporting the energetic and signaling needs of the host cell. A universal feature in how mitochondria address these challenges is via engagement in membrane conta

Co-evolutionary dynamics of viral pathogens and human antibody response

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €9,999,997

Vertebrates, like ourselves, use adaptive immune cells to protect themselves from pathogens. Predicting mutations of these pathogens, together with the immune response, is essential for the design of vaccines and therapies. CoEvolve will map the co-evolution of immune repertoires and viral populations, to forecast likely properties of future infecting strains and to design interventions that improve immune control.Much effort has been devoted to evolving viral pathogens, but most studies focus e

The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Development of Europe

UNIVERSITY OF LANCASTER · UK

AbstractFrom the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, slave traders of mostly European origin violently transported more than 12.5 million African men, women, and children to the Americas. This was the largest forced transoceanic migration in human history. Scholars have focussed on the effects of this migration on African and American history, while treating the slave trade’s effects on European societies as marginal. This supposition of marginality stems from two biases in existing research:

Red teaming the H0 Tension

UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA · ES · €12,041,153

Despite the spectacular success of the standard cosmological model over the past two decades, recent observations from large sky surveys and distance measurements with a broad range of cosmological probes suggest cracks to the accepted paradigm: differences now appear in measurements of quantities the current cosmological model predicts as equal. These are called “tensions”. The most important tension concerns the Hubble parameter, H0, which quantifies the expansion rate of the Universe now, som

Uncovering Lost Knowledge from the Ancient Library of Herculaneum: Overcoming Damage and Reviving the Human Experience using Physical Evidence, AI, and the Structuring of Diverse Data

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II · IT

The loss of something precious triggers an immediate instinct to find it. But what if the quest does not end there? We see it and find it, yet the precious object is irreparably damaged, and its true knowledge is locked away behind its damage, frustratingly denying us access to the information it holds. In such cases, the object essentially remains lost. Each day, in fact, treasured relics bearing unique witness to the human experience are lost to decay and damage due to the elements of the envi

When and where do we reach the limits of adaptation to riverine flood risk?

GFZ HELMHOLTZ-ZENTRUM FUR GEOFORSCHUNG · DE · €9,997,114

As climate change and urbanization of low-lying areas increase flood risk, accelerated flood adaptation by households is urgently required (e.g. elevating homes, flood proofing), in addition to adaptation by the government (e.g. dikes) and insurance (cover residual risk). However, there are limits to the adaptability of societies. For instance, social vulnerability factors such as low income or high age may reduce households’ adaptation efforts leading to higher physical vulnerability of their h

Ecological Archaeologies of the Afrotropics

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO · NO · €12,089,947

The growing climate crisis and threats to biodiversity have alerted the scientific community of the need to develop a clearer understanding of what has driven landscape changes and how these have impacted biodiversity and ecosystems. The lack of observationally constrained quantitative estimates of those impacts have led to large differences in the scenarios currently used for climate simulations. Nowhere is this more pressing than in the Afrotropics—a biogeographical region of nearly one billio

Modulation of Liver Metabolism/Inflammation at Different Disease Stages by Leveraging ADAR-based RNA Editing

EBERHARD KARLS UNIVERSITAET TUEBINGEN · DE · €9,969,748

RNA base editing, catalyzed by ADAR enzymes, is a natural process that diversifies protein function by modifying mRNA. Redirecting ADAR activity with RNA-based drugs holds significant promise for correcting genetic mutations and uniquely enables precise modulation of protein function. However, major challenges remain to fully unlock this potential.In this collaborative effort, we present a target discovery platform and demonstrate in vivo proof-of-concept (PoC) that targeted RNA base editing can

Party Systems and Social Cleavages in the Post-Ottoman Space of the MENA Region

USTAV MEZINARODNICH VZTAHU V.V.I. · CZ · €9,846,714

Chronic instability in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is linked to the difficulties political systems face in arbitrating conflicts and divisions within societies. Political parties and party systems play a crucial role in channeling social demands, articulating various political offers, and building compromises. Yet, there exists no comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of party politics in the MENA. The CLOSER project aims to address this gap using new empirical evidence,

Real-time endoscopic diagnosis and therapy of gastrointestinal tumors through multimode nonlinear fibers

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA · IT · €6,396,343

MULTIPROBE introduces a revolutionary photonic technology that represents a significant advancement in the field of optical diagnostics and therapy. Our approach is based on cutting-edge research into pulse propagation within nonlinear complex structures. We are developing an endoscopic device that seamlessly combines optical biopsy and cold atmospheric plasma treatment. This dual-functionality device harnesses the spatiotemporal control of powerful light in multimode fibers, which were previous

Zee-Zoom-Zap: a new paradigm for cancer theranostics

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · DK · €10,000,000

We propose a disruptive concept overcoming the fundamental limit of concurrently achieving specific, high-resolution imaging at depth in tissue. Our Zee-Zoom-Zap concept will serve as a one-stop-shop by combining early detection of cancer through small lumens (‘zee’), non-invasive “biopsies” (‘zoom’), and local therapy (‘zap’).The main challenge in realising early detection of cancer is to overcome the fundamental limitation in concurrently achieving specific, high-resolution imaging at the cell

Innovative New Strategies in Generating High-impact Chemical Transformations

UNIVERSITAET REGENSBURG · DE · €9,984,944

Earth's growing population puts immense pressure on ecosystems due to increasing demands for natural resources, which are transformed into materials or energy for human use. Chemical catalysis is our primary tool for converting molecules, and advancements over the last century have made these processes more sustainable. While catalysis holds promise for addressing the urgent need for efficient, sustainable resource conversion, current discovery and optimization methods are too slow to meet globa

Translational Control by Molecular Chaperones: The Unexplored Mechanisms Coordinating Protein Synthesis and Proteostasis in Health and Genetic Reprogramming

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · DE · €10,828,378

CHAPEROME aims to establish a new concept in which molecular chaperones regulate central aspects of mRNA translation in human cells under physiological conditions, in response to proteotoxic stress, and during cellular differentiation. Recent findings indicate that the folding of translation factors relies on specific chaperone proteins to achieve their functional states. We hypothesize that chaperones play a pivotal role in aligning translation rates, efficiency, and mRNA selection with the cel

Accelerating SUStainable TECHnological trajectories with computational chemistry and machine learning

UNIVERSITA DI PISA · IT · €9,761,394

SUSTECH addresses a critical paradox at the heart of modern society: synthetic chemicals have been instrumental in societal advancement in their manifold uses ranging from materials to fertilizers and pharmaceuticals. Yet, they pose escalating risks to human health and environmental sustainability. There is an urgent need to reorient technological development toward safer and more sustainable alternatives. This project aims to generate a comprehensive understanding of the technological pathways

Universal Equation for Non Equilibrium Correlations in Interacting Particle Systems

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €8,062,008

An open system out of equilibrium exchanges matter, energy, or information with its surroundings through directed currents that break time-reversal symmetry. Far from equilibrium, the arrow of time becomes crucial. While equilibrium physics is well explained by statistical physics, understanding non-equilibrium systems is a major challenge in modern physics. Do universal laws exist far from equilibrium? How can complex systems’ dynamics be characterized?Interacting particle systems (IPS), driven

Real-Time Super-Resolution Ultrasound Imaging using the Erythrocytes

Sebastian Kazmarek Præsius · Technical University of Denmark · DK

Strongly reducing sediments hinder restoration of a eutrophic coastal marine ecosystem

Niels van Helmond · Radboud University Nijmegen · NL

Abstract Anthropogenic activities are causing deoxygenation of coastal waters leading to degradation of such ecosystems globally. In the Dutch Southwest Delta, coastal management has turned tidal waters into marine lakes. The ensuing stagnation and stratification in combination with eutrophication has caused a decline in water quality, including decreased oxygen (O 2 ) saturation. Restoring such systems is challenging as exemplified by Lake Veere, which was reconnected to the tidal marine Easter

Imaging the Dynamics of Electrons with Attosecond and Angstrom resolution

DEUTSCHES ELEKTRONEN-SYNCHROTRON DESY · DE · €13,975,000

IDEAA targets the synergistic creation of experimental and theoretical toolboxes, leveraging innovative attosecond time-resolved X-ray techniques, to capture electron dynamics within molecules with unprecedented ångström and attosecond resolution in space and time. Access to the electron time scale in molecules has opened tremendous new perspectives to direct chemistry through pathways otherwise not accessible by conventional chemistry, ultimately creating novel light harnessing approaches that

CenAGE, a 'Centromeric' view on AGEing: unveiling centromere instability in ageing

INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE · FR · €9,968,201

Ageing is the primary risk factor for chronic diseases. Amongst the ageing hallmarks, genomic instability has emerged as a unifying cause of ageing, since it drives most of the other hallmarks, namely senescence and chronic inflammation. These hallmarks are all typically portrayed by the aged immune system, with compelling evidence pointing to genomic instability in immune cells as a driver of organismal ageing. Intriguingly, while the role of telomeres, mutations, transposons, etc, in age-relat

An absolutely dated mid-Holocene English yew chronology offers new opportunities for archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research

Tatiana Bebchuk · University of Cambridge · GB

Research on Holocene climate variability and human history greatly benefits from annually resolved and absolutely dated tree-ring chronologies. The quality and quantity of such records, however, decline back in time, with little tree-ring evidence available for the Early and Middle Holocene. Here, we present a tree-ring width (TRW) chronology from 100 subfossil yews (<i>Taxus baccata</i> L.) excavated from peat-rich soils in the Fenland region of eastern England. To precisely date the record, we

Cell-mediated sculptable living platforms as highly efficient hybrid units to bioengineer human microtissues

UNIVERSIDADE DE AVEIRO · PT · €9,999,343

Geometrical, mechanical, and biochemical signals are master regulators of differentiation and other cellular processes. Biomaterials have been used to create artificial 3D niches recapitulating such favourable cues, traditionally optimized through progressive and laborious design-build-test-learn cycles. In native environments, however, cells dynamically interact and modify their surroundings, engaging in feedback loops that alter their phenotype and trigger collective effects. Based on such pri

Spatially patterned organoids: regionalization, cell fate and lamination in cortical development and neuronal migration disorders

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €9,202,804

The development of the mammalian cerebral cortex depends on the precise control of cell proliferation, migration, and neuronal diversity along both radial and tangential dimensions which ensure cortical regionalization and lamination and ultimately the formation of functional areas. These processes depend on the formation of focal organizing centers within the early neural plate. These centers secrete morphogens in gradients to pattern the developing cortex at short range and locally produce the

LUMES LUng cancer Metastasis Evolutionary Studies

KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN · SE · €11,542,341

Metastatic disease, describing the development of secondary malignant growths at a distance from a primary site of cancer, is associated with over 90% of cancer-related deaths. There exists a significant unmet clinical need to better understand the biology of aggressive cancers leading to metastatic disease and the underlying mechanisms that can facilitate the metastasis. Previous studies exploring metastasis have suffered from scarcity of samples, insufficient resolution and breadth of experime

Integrating the physics and social-psychology of crowd movement

FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM JULICH GMBH · DE

Since the late 19th century scientists have tried to understand human movement in crowds. Although research has demystified crowds (they are neither swarms, homogeneous, nor irrational), coordinated movement in crowds remains a scientific puzzle. We know crowds have different repertoires (walking, forming lanes, queuing) and can rapidly transition between them. This behaviour is important for practical safety reasons and for fundamental understanding of mass behaviour. But current models do not

Falling behind unequally: labour market outcomes of Italian couples after childbirth*

Michele Bavaro · Scuola Normale Superiore · IT

This study explores how childbirth differently shapes the career trajectories of men and women within the same couples, with a particular focus on gender disparities in experiencing downward labour transitions following the birth of their first child. Using a unique survey-administrative linked dataset, we track couples’labour market trajectories to analyse transitions from employment to unemployment, full-time to part-time employment, and higher-paid to lower-paid jobs. Additionally, the datase

Waves, Physics, Information, and Computation

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT BERLIN · DE · €9,864,001

From Marconi’s telegraph without wires to today’s cellular networks, wireless communication has shaped our world, with deep impacts on virtually all aspects of society. This astonishing development is the result of parallel progress in physics (propagation, antennas, radio-frequency (RF) devices, semiconductors) and engineering (information theory, digital signal processing, computer architectures). Nevertheless, the ever-growing demand for wireless capacity is pushing the current technology tow

Probe of the first microseconds of the Universe with cosmological magnetic fields

UNIVERSITE PARIS CITE · FR

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure constitute the threesolid observational grounds of modern Cosmology. However, we currently lack a probe of the state ofthe primordial plasma during the first microseconds of the Universe’s history. Surmounting this frontierin our knowledge of the Universe is particularly compelling, since during this period, crucial beyond-Standard-Model phenomena should have happened: the thermalisation of the Universe, the spontane

Ultimative Photovoltaics

ALBERT-LUDWIGS-UNIVERSITAET FREIBURG · DE · €9,985,893

The transition towards a society powered by 100% renewable energy necessitates the widespread de-ployment of photovoltaics. This poses a challenge due to the limited availability of resources and space. To address this, breakthrough technologies that consume fewer resources and achieve higher conversion efficiencies than the dominant silicon technology are required. The overarching goal of UltiMatePV is to re-invent the modern solar cell and open the gate to a new generation of resource-saving p

The gender wealth gap and the role of private pension wealth in Great Britain

Brian Nolan · University of Oxford · GB

Abstract Research on gender wealth gaps is hampered by the fact that most wealth surveys gather information on wealth at the household or family level rather than for individuals, and also often do not include pension wealth. Here we exploit the rich data on individual wealth including private pension wealth (occupational and personal) obtained by the British Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) to assess the gender wealth gap in Great Britain between 2006–08 and 2018–20, with a particular focus on th

Greenland’s Melting Firn and Ice Sheet Response

Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland · DK · €13,007,197

TheThe FirnMelt ERC Synergy project focuses on the Greenland Ice Sheet’s reaction to surface melting across its vast firn plateau, currently covering almost 90 % of its surface. Firn is the up to 100 metres thick, porous near-surface layer of compressed snow. Most of Greenland’s firn plateau experienced only occasional melt in the past but ever rising temperatures increase melting and it is uncertain how much of the melt refreezes or runs off. Current state-of-the-art firn models were built on t

Generative machine learning for combined process control and materials design

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €9,314,934

GEMPROMISE aims to tackle the grand challenge of materials science, namely to identify the process parameters leading to a structure with targeted properties and performance. Compared to the current trial-and-error approach, mastering the Process-Structure-Property-Performance (Proc.→Struc.→Prop.→Perf.) relationships would speed up materials discovery with a huge societal impact (e.g., for energy transition). From a fundamental standpoint, there is no theory for these relationships. Thanks to hi

Deciphering the role of adipose tissue in cardiac health and disease: ADIPOhealth

FUNDACION SECTOR PUBLICO ESTATAL CENTRO NACIONAL INVESTIGACIONES ONCOLOGICAS CARLOS III · ES · €10,176,526

Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases (CVD), primarily due to its disruption of heart metabolism and the alteration of crucial signaling pathways involved in maintaining cardiac function, including those regulating energy homeostasis, myocardial contractility, and stress response. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanisms for these effects remain poorly understood. Obesity leads to changes in the secretion, by adipose tissue (AT), of metabokines—proteins, peptides, metabolites

Politcal Parties in Africa and Democracy

UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE · UK · €9,957,415

Democracy across Africa is in decline (V-Dem 2024), with Africa’s political parties widely blamed as a major source of democratic weakness. Yet, in at least some African countries, parties appear to be playing important roles in defending and expanding democracy, and we currently lack a clear understanding of how, and under what conditions, they engage in this activity. This has critical implications for both our theoretical knowledge, and practical democracy support efforts. We request an ERC S

Coordination behaviour in travel mode choice: An experiment on autonomous vehicle services

Thomas O. Hancock · University of Leeds · GB

• We examine travellers’ choices between autonomous vehicles (AVs) and human-driven vehicles (HVs) under different information conditions. • A repeated mode-choice game was implemented where participants made decisions based on varying levels of information about travel outcomes. • Mixed multinomial logit (MMNL) models were estimated to analyse the factors influencing travellers’ choices. • Learning patterns, heterogeneous preferences, and fairness concerns significantly influence mode choice in

The biology of innate behaviour

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · UK · €9,983,139

Instinctive or innate behaviours such as eating, social interaction, mating, parental care, defence and aggression, are fundamental for survival and reproduction. Innate behaviours do not need to be learned, are encoded by developmentally hard-wired subcortical circuits and are conserved across mammalian species. In this highly ambitious synergistic research programme, which builds on our track record of discoveries, our aim is to deliver a step-change in the understanding of mammalian innate be

Photon-based scalable quantum information science

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · DK · €11,490,257

A grand challenge of our age is to develop platforms for quantum information processing. The optical photon plays a key role: it allows quantum information to be transmitted over long distances and the encoded quantum information is robust, making photons attractive qubits for quantum computing. Resource states consisting of a small number of entangled photons constitute the fundamental building block that subsequently can be fused into larger entangled states by interference – a simple operatio

Tracing and harnessing the ancestry of RNA-guided nucleases

FOUNDATION IMMUNE ENGINEERING FOR GLOBAL CHILD AND ADOLESCENT HEALTH · CH · €10,717,446

The phylogenetic, biochemical and functional diversity of these linked RGNs suggest a common origin that gave rise to the innumerable variations we observe today. However, little is known about these ancestors and the evolutionary paths that led to their modern counterparts. Recently, our team showed that reconstructed ancestors of Cas9 and Cas12a RGNs exhibit flexible substrate recognition and collateral activities distinct from any modern counterpart. This work sets the stage to uncover the ev

Connected Communities in early medieval Europe

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN · NL · €11,194,464

The Connected Communities project aims to re-evaluate the traditional image that, after the collapse of the Roman state in the West, a united and interconnected Europe disintegrated into a fragmented continent divided into a series of ethnic kingdoms. The image created by the writers of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages still determines much of what is thought about the post-Roman ‘migration period’. Yet these writers belonged to the political and intellectual elite of the population, wri

Rebuilding interphase nuclei into mitotic chromosomes

UNIVERSITAT ZURICH · CH · €10,137,286

The remarkable morphological transformation that cells undergo during mitosis has been studied for >140 years, but how mitotic chromosomes are built from interphase nuclei remains unknown and challenging to study. We propose to uncover the mechanisms for this process at high-resolution in cells and in vitro, a task that requires coordinated implementation of innovative experimental designs in several disciplines. We will engineer mutant and hybrid cell lines that enter mitosis with minute-by-min

The Life Cycle of a Memory Trace: a New Understanding of Learning and Memory from Circuits to Synapses and Molecules

HUN-REN Kiserleti Orvostudomanyi Kutatointezet · HU · €9,782,317

In MemoryLoci, we seek to understand the mammalian brain’s remarkable capacity to learn and remember. Episodic memory is central to most cognitive efforts and requires robust mechanisms to encode and retain salient features of our experiences while forgetting spurious details. What are the neural substrates of a memory trace, and how does the brain arbitrate among experiences for long-term storage? These central questions remain unresolved due to pervasive experimental roadblocks to our mechanis

The Causes of the Global Increase in Early Onset Colorectal Cancer

CENTRE INTERNATIONAL DE RECHERCHE SUR LE CANCER · FR · €10,396,565

Colorectal cancer diagnosed under 50 years of age has been rapidly increasing over recent decades such that early onset colorectal cancer is soon expected to become the leading cause of cancer-related death in young adults. The cause of the increased incidence is not known. We have developed extensive pilot data supporting the hypothesis that, over recent decades, a global increase in the prevalence of mutagen-producing microbes in the colonic microbiome of infants has caused increased mutation

Current and future shifts of snow regimes in extreme environments

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO · NO · €9,999,956

The UN Decade of Action on Cryospheric Sciences aims to reduce uncertainties regarding the causes and effects of changes in snow, ice, and permafrost. Snow is a major contributor to these uncertainties due to the incomplete understanding and representation of snow processes in climate models. SnowShifts seeks to significantly enhance our comprehension of snow volume and mass, their non-linear dynamics and properties and, specifically, snow regime shifts within the Earth and climate systems. This

Investigating alternative trajectories for human demographic growth in temperate northern Holocene societies

UNIVERSITY OF YORK · UK · €10,496,252

After the end of the last Ice Age, warmer and more stable climates of the Holocene led to the development of entirely new kinds of food systems which in turn triggered population booms across mid-latitude environments globally. These momentous changes are often reduced to a simple linear narrative that tracks progression from mobile foraging to settled farming and from there to urbanisation and state formation. This ‘agri-centric’ narrative is problematic because in most cases behaviours typical

Robustness and plasticity of epithelial architectures

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · UK · €8,480,623

"Animal cells display characteristic, cell-type specific shapes that are precisely adapted to cell function. Cell shape alterations are a hallmark of pathology, commonly used in diagnostics. Yet, cells can also rapidly change shape in response to molecular or mechanical signals. How the balance between cell shape stability and plasticity is achieved is not understood. Tight coupling between shape robustness and function is particularly important in epithelial cells, which adhere to each other

Probing the non-perturbative regime of Quantum Electrodynamics with extreme light

COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES · FR · €13,937,624.75

The NP-QED project aims at testing the predictions of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) – the theory of light matter interactions – in yet unexplored, extreme regimes. The first of these is the strong-field regime of QED, which begins when light amplitude hits the threshold of vacuum breakdown, occurring at the Schwinger field limit ~1018V/m. At this threshold, it is predicted that a light beam can deflect another light beam in a vacuum – violating Maxwell’s equations- and even generate electron po

East African Mountain social ecological dynamics (AFRI-CAN)

UNIVERSITY OF YORK · UK · €9,988,220

Mountains globally are under pressure from a perfect storm of changing climates, growing populations, biodiversity threats and agricultural transformations; challenges that increasingly impact not just mountain communities, but also the surrounding lowlands that rely on highlands for the provision of resources, most obviously water. But such changes have global impacts too, since mountains are often hotspots of biodiversity and act as carbon sinks. These services provided by ecosystems are refer

On Erdős’ last equation

Florian Luca · Stellenbosch University · ZA

For a positive integer <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="n greater-than-or-equal-to 2"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:mo> ≥ </mml:mo> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">n\ge 2</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> , we look at the number of solutions of the Diophantine equation <disp-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns

Phonological cognisance and allied linguistic representations: acquisition, bilingualism, change and script

STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITEIT · NL · €10,090,148

PAAL's objective is to investigate the interaction of phonological representations with cognisance, and their relationship to script. We view cognisance as part of the native speaker's core knowledge of their language.This includes generalisations about constraints on phonological representations in terms of features, size and shapes of morphemes, tone and metrical structures. Cognisance is not identical to the phonological representation of particular lexical items

MOLECULAR QUANTUM DYNAMICS IN LOW TEMPERATURE CONDENSED PHASE ASTROCHEMISTRY

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · DE · €12,085,363

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has ushered in a new era in observational astrochemistry. JWST's ability to obtain infrared spectra of molecular ices condensed on interstellar dust grains in dense, star-forming clouds and in protoplanetary disks is expected to revolutionize the field, since these ices are known to be important sources of complex organic molecules. On a fundamental level, the physico-chemical behavior of these ices obeys the laws of molecular quantum dynamics occurring in l

Nanoscale X-ray tissue imaging: understanding the pathophysiology of hepatitis E infection

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN · IE · €6,073,099

A driving force behind biomedical innovation lies in disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment. This requires a comprehensive understanding of how pathogens exploit living organisms across molecular, cellular, organismal, and population levels. Treatment of disease often relies upon interventions that restore the normal structure and function of cells. However, it is currently challenging to visualise and quantify detailed cellular changes within whole tissues in response to disease. Soft X-ra

Mathematics of Scattering Amplitudes

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · DE · €9,986,500

MaScAmp proposes a new paradigm for fundamental interactions in physics in the form of a unified mathematical approach to scattering amplitudes. The project brings together a multidisciplinary team with expertise in pure mathematics and theoretical physics who will develop a set of novel and efficient algorithmic methods with applications in mathematics, particle physics and gravity.Discoveries in many areas of fundamental physics depend upon a detailed understanding of the scattering of particl

Recycling versus loss in the marine nitrogen cycle: controls, feedbacks, and the impact of expanding low oxygen regions

GOETEBORGS UNIVERSITET · SE · €9,905,916

RECLESS will predict how ongoing ocean deoxygenation impacts microbial nitrogen transformations and thereby the future availability of nitrogen to support oceanic primary production and carbon sequestration. Microbial conversions of bioavailable nitrogen to dinitrogen in oxygen-depleted waters currently account for ~30% of the marine nitrogen loss, despite oxygen-depleted waters making up just 0.1% of the ocean volume. Models predict accelerating expansion of oxygen depletion, which entails incr

The Medieval Book and Networks of Northern Europe c. 1000-1500: Texts, Crafts, Fragments

UNIVERSITETET I BERGEN · NO · €13,069,110

Medieval books were instrumental in shaping European history, communicating rituals, stories and ideas as they were read, copied and shared. To modern scholars they illuminate trade, craft, religious, social and intellectual networks. Less than 10% of the European corpus survives, and in Scandinavia the situation is far worse. However, by historical accident a very high number of Latin fragments – c. 50.000 – from these precious books have been preserved. CODICUM will study and analyse the Nordi

Decoding endothelial cell BEhavioral MOSAICism within single vessels

FUNDACIO INSTITUT DE RECERCA CONTRA LA LEUCEMIA JOSEP CARRERAS · ES · €10,624,448

Endothelial cells (ECs) form a dynamic monolayer lining the lumen of vessels. While single-cell data have revealed high degrees of heterogeneity amongst ECs at the inter- and intra-organ levels, the prevailing notion has long been that vessels themselves are composed of largely similar ECs. Instead, data from our labs challenge this view by showing that vessels are built of highly diverse ECs displaying different behavioral properties, a feature we term intravessel EC behavioral mosaicism. Whil

Deep learning analysis of imaging and metabolomic data to accelerate antibiotic discovery against antimicrobial resistance

INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE · FR · €10,968,734

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most pressing global health problems of our times. To counteract AMR, we urgently need new antibiotics, particularly with novel modes of action (MoA). However, while typical antibiotic screening pipelines can identify compounds that impair bacterial growth, they are unable to predict drug targets and MoA so must be followed up by time-consuming target identification steps. By synergizing our expertise in microbiology, genetics, advanced microscopy, me

Tracing the origin of clonal pathogenesis

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · UK · €9,936,185

Epithelial cancers are thought to evolve through a competitive process of mutation and selection in which the serial acquisition of oncogenic mutations confers an increasing fitness advantage, culminating in neoplastic transformation, tumour invasion, and metastasis. This programme often initiates through a phase of field cancerization in which mutant clones expand within the context of physiologically normal-looking tissue. To mitigate the risks associated with field cancerization, protection s

Metabolism-driven division of minimal cell-like systems

RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN · NL · €5,000,000

Building a synthetic cell from molecular components is one of the grand scientific and intellectual challenges of the 21st century, and requires interdisciplinary skillsets to design and integrate biochemical modules at different levels of hierarchy. Great progress has been made in the fundamental understanding and reconstitution of key features, such as metabolic reaction networks and replication machinery. However, their successful synergistic integration in minimal cells still lags far behind

Molecular Ecology of Medieval European Landscapes

UNIVERSITETET I TROMSOE - NORGES ARKTISKE UNIVERSITET · NO · €13,537,645

MEMELAND will pioneer the creation of Europe's first species-level ecological history, spanning the Roman era to the present day. Our research will unveil the persistent medieval influences in contemporary landscapes and biodiversity. This historical insight will inform proactive land management, conservation, and heritage-informed restoration, crucial for climate change mitigation. Our approach involves sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA), lipid biomarkers, multi-method chronologies, and archaeob

Handshake Complexes of Chiral Nanoparticles and Proteins

ASOCIACION CENTRO DE INVESTIGACION COOPERATIVA EN BIOMATERIALES- CIC biomaGUNE · ES · €9,272,460

Chirality, or the absence of mirror symmetry, is omnipresent in both biological and abiological forms of matter. Rapid progress has recently been achieved in the synthesis of chiral inorganic nanoparticles (NPs), of great interest because of the giant optical activity observed in individual NPs and their assemblies. Such nanostructures yield chiral features at multiple length scales, resulting in a huge diversity of chiral morphologies. The field is expanding toward connecting chirality across t

Mutations in healthy tissues: a double-edged sword for tissues homeostasis

THE FRANCIS CRICK INSTITUTE LIMITED · UK · €9,808,142

Healthy tissues become progressively populated of clonally expanded cells that have acquired somatic mutations. Often these mutations modify cancer genes promoting cell plasticity, self-renewal, and growth, all features known to decline with ageing. Despite being pervasive across tissues and persistent throughout life, only rarely mutant cells become pathogenic. Here we hypothesise that somatic mutations enhance tissue integrity by increasing the fitness of stem/progenitor cells (SPCs) to counte

Store-And-Forward Energy Grid

RHEINISCH-WESTFAELISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN · DE · €11,169,627

Electrical power systems are experiencing significant challenges because of the substitution of fossil-based power plants with inverter-based renewable energy sources. This transition pushes power systems to the limits; first severe blackouts have already emerged in developed countries. Although applied for more than 100 years, the rigid coupling of the entire power system infrastructure to a global synchronous 50Hz-frequency is now turning into a liability, making a fundamental paradigm shift i

Dynamical and Arithmetical Model Checking

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · DE · €7,451,252

Discrete dynamical systems pervade the quantitative sciences, and lie at the heart of central computational challenges in a wide variety of areas, from program analysis and computer-aided verification to neural networks and theoretical biology. Such systems are typically simple to describe, yet give rise to a rich algorithmic and mathematical theory that is replete with easily stated and compelling open problems. One such example is the famous Skolem Problem: does the orbit of a given linear dyn

Mapping Occult Sciences Across Islamicate Cultures

UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN · BE · €8,954,000

“Mapping Occult Sciences Across Islamicate Cultures” (MOSAIC) is the first major project to investigate Islamic and Eastern Christian occult-scientific sources, spanning from late antiquity to the nineteenth century and from Iberia to India, in a vast continuum of languages (Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Turkish). It is generally acknowledged that occult sciences—alchemy, astrology, geomancy, lettrism, magic and a wide range of other operative and prognosticative disciplines—are integral to an

Light Emitting Silicon Germanium

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN · NL · €13,999,317

Our vision is to revolutionize information and quantum technologies by blending photonic and electronic functionality onto a single chip. This long-standing challenge has remained unattainable because chips, fabricated by mainstream silicon technology, cannot emit light. Computer chips would be much faster and consume far less energy if they would operate with light. In addition, optical functionality will be transformative for quantum computation since silicon technologies are by far the most s

From RNA-peptide coevolution to cellular life at heated air bubbles

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT DORTMUND · DE · €5,972,920

The origin of life on Earth is one of humanity's profound mysteries that lacks scientific answers. We aim to answer this fundamental question by performing pioneering experiments starting from the Darwinian evolution of RNA and peptides to the emergence of cellular life, all in a single environment with only a small selection of starting molecules. We are an interdisciplinary team with diverse backgrounds in chemistry, physics, and biochemistry, and we have a proven track record of strong interd

The Hidden Weapon. Blockade in the Era of the Two World Wars

NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU · NO · €9,881,766

The main aim of BLOCKADE is to investigate how blockades shaped the course, outcome and aftermath of the world wars. In both wars, belligerents sought to blockade their enemies, cutting them off from vital resources such as food, oil, information and capital to hasten their defeat. Existing research is contradictory and fragmentary, leaving us in the dark as to the scope and the effects of blockades, just as the world is confronted with new blockades.Our hypothesis is that understanding the bloc

Logic in Reverse Redux. Illegitimate Argumentative Moves in the Arabic, Byzantine, Hebrew and Latin Medieval Traditions

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR

Bad arguments have never been in short supply. The same holds for the scholarly interest they have elicited both in their own right and as a cautionary tale about everything that can go amiss when we argue. This is hardly surprising. Asking what is wrong with flawed arguments is tantamount to investigating the very rules and principles of argumentation – only in reverse. Fallacy Studies have flourished in recent years (especially under the label of «critical thinking»). Without notable exception

Comparative Connectomics: Revealing change and conservation in whole brain circuits across evolution

UNITED KINGDOM RESEARCH AND INNOVATION · UK · €11,927,316

Animals display remarkable diversity in their behaviors, yet very little is known about how nervous systems evolve to generate suchvariation. CircuitEvolution will answer two fundamental questions:1. How does brain wiring change across species as novel behavioral traits evolve?2. What core features of brain circuits are deeply conserved across species?We will use electron microscopy connectomics, the only method that enables unbiased, brain-wide structural analysis of the synapticconnectivity be

Reconstructing Embodied Musical knowledge At the Keyboard

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PAVIA · IT · €8,031,361

The fundamental objective of REM@KE is to reconstruct the sound and the function of lost musical instruments and to develop new theoretical, empirical, and practical tools to explore the embodied musical knowledge emerging from the relationships between these instruments and their performers. Among the great variety of objects of the past that inhabit museums, musical instruments are in a category of their own: if kept silent, music cannot be; if played, their materiality is endangered. These in

The evolution of suprasegmental morphology in West Nilotic

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY · UK · €9,876,341

NILOMORPH sets out to explain how linguistic evolution took a highly unexpected turn in one family of languages spoken in East Africa. They have evolved a morphological system where multiple grammatical categories are expressed simultaneously within a single syllable, through subtle modulations of its phonological properties. For example, in the Dinka language the word tèm, meaning ‘to cut’, can be made to mean ‘she cuts it for someone’ by lengthening the vowel, changing the low tone to high, an

Phase-space-inspired numerical methods for high-frequency wave scattering: from semiclassical analysis through numerical analysis to open-source software

UNIVERSITY OF BATH · UK · €8,725,537

Designing fast and reliable algorithms to numerically simulate the behaviour of high-frequency acoustic and electromagnetic waves is a longstanding open problem in computational mathematics. Furthermore, these waves underpin a plethora of communication and imaging technologies; therefore any progress towards solving this problem will have wide impact.The project aims to design, analyse, and implement in open-source software new methods for the numerical solution of high-frequency acoustic and el

The Bacillus subtilis circadian clock: from molecules to mutualism

LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN · DE · €8,301,946

Circadian clocks are biological timekeepers. They structure processes - from molecular pathways to behavioural attributes - over the 24h day. They are pervasive in eukaryotes yet remain almost completely unknown in bacteria. We propose to address this major knowledge gap by capitalising on our recent breakthrough discovery of a circadian clock in Bacillus subtilis. Our unpublished data reveal that robustness of the B. subtilis circadian clock increases when co-cultured with either the plant Arab

Open 2D Quantum Simulator

EBERHARD KARLS UNIVERSITAET TUEBINGEN · DE · €9,981,952

OPEN-2QS aims to deliver a disruptive change in our capabilities of analog quantum simulation of open 2D many-body systems. For the first time, this will allow us to investigate quantum matter with competing coherent and dissipative processes over extremely long times - a regime that is inaccessible by current technology. This will open a new window for the discovery of emergent dynamical phenomena and states of matter, such as quantum glasses. As any system in Nature eventually couples to an en

Re-engineering symmetry breaking in development and evolution

HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAET ZU BERLIN · DE · €10,569,181

Scientists have long sought to understand how complex multicellular organisms generate their final form. Yet despite considerable progress, demonstrating predictive knowledge sufficient to re-engineer development according to design, remains a grand challenge. Addressing this challenge is not only fundamentally important, but also critical to the future of regenerative medicine and agriculture. Development depends on coordinated symmetry breaking events resulting from diverse mechanisms, ranging

Central roles of mycobacterial type VII secretion systems in intra- and inter-kingdom warfare

STICHTING VU · NL · €10,837,150

Bacteria interact with their environment via specialised secretion systems that deliver proteins outside of the cell. Due to a bias in research efforts, for many years such systems were assumed to be unique to Gram-negative bacteria. A major exception is the type VII secretion system (T7SS), which is widespread in Gram-positive bacteria and actinobacteria, including the important human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The T7SS is a complex secretion apparatus that exports folded proteins and

Metamaterial Interfaces for Quantum Electronics

DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET · DK · €13,296,909

The quest to design materials with tailored properties is a driving force for new scientific and technological horizons and is critical for addressing the grand challenges of humanity. Our proposal introduces an innovative concept in condensed matter and materials science: heterostructures built upon the fusion of 2D van der Waals materials and freestanding transition metal oxides (TMOs), forming a new compound metamaterial where the interface itself plays a crucial and active role in the proper

The geometry of temporal cognitive maps CHRONOLOGY

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR

Experiencing the world and inferring its causal structure rely on the flexible temporal organization of information in the brain, enabling future planning in thoughts and actions. Understanding how the brain maps events in time is essential, yet surprisingly little is known about the neural mechanisms by which the brain represents time and uses it for computations. Based on the observation that complex neural activity accompanies the mental evaluation of time across species, our project aims at

Engineering an integrated platform for generation of human blood stem cells from pluripotent sources

FUNDACIO INSTITUT HOSPITAL DEL MAR D INVESTIGACIONS MEDIQUES · ES · €9,919,393

Life-saving blood cell replacement depends on voluntary donors. Availability is a challenge for specific groups, and 25% of patients needing blood stem cell transplants lack a compatible donor. The ideal alternative is clinical-scale production of Haematopoietic Stem Cells (HSC) from laboratory-maintained tissue-compatible sources, to provide an off-the-shelf source of blood cells. HSC are generated in the aorta/gonad/mesonephros region of the embryo, expand in the foetal liver, and are maintain

CUSTOM-MADE NEURONS FOR CELL THERAPY IN PARKINSON’S AND HUNTINGTON’S DISEASE

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO · IT · €10,000,000

The rising incidence of age-associated neurodegenerative diseases, due to increased life expectancy, poses a challenge to the brain's limited regenerative capabilities. Stem cell-based therapies offer promise for addressing crucial neuron loss, particularly in Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases (PD and HD). Ongoing first-generation stem cell trials, replacing damaged neurons with healthy ones, represent a notable advancement. However, their impact is constrained by a ‘one-cell-fits-all’ gener

Neuronal implementation of cognitive maps for navigation

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · DE · €9,992,890

Intelligent behavior is based on internal models of the world that enable mental simulations and strategic planning. A leading model to study such “cognitive maps” are networks of place cells and grid cells in the mammalian hippocampal-entorhinal system. These neurons are active at defined locations and collectively represent a physical environment as a low-dimensional topographic map in neural activity space. However, a mechanistic understanding of the underlying computations and their biologic

A Novel Understanding of Pandemic Disease in Preindustrial Europe (1300-1800): Combining History, Machine Learning and Natural Sciences

UNIWERSYTET MIKOLAJA KOPERNIKA · PL · €9,999,375

Born from years of interdisciplinary collaboration, EUROpest aims to articulate the complex ways in which social-ecological systems shape epidemics. It builds on resilience and actor-network theories to advance its own eco-bio-social paradigm that embraces a multi-causal understanding of disease transmission and disease impacts on human societies and ecosystems. While striving to develop and validate a general theoretical model, it takes the well-documented and highly diverse world of late medi

Geomagnetic Excursions and Reversals: Establishing their Atmospheric and Climatic Effects

GFZ HELMHOLTZ-ZENTRUM FUR GEOFORSCHUNG · DE · €9,997,634

The intensity of Earth’s magnetic field, which forms an important shield for our habitat, drops dramatically during geomagnetic excursions and reversals (termed GERs). The Laschamps excursion (~41 000 years ago) occurred during profound climatic changes, possibly leading to drastic effects on the biosphere. While impacts of GERs on the atmosphere can be expected, the magnitude, time scales, and even the direction/sign of effects on our habitat are unknown. The significantly weakened magnetic fie

SKIN-like TWO-Dimensional materials-based elecTRONICS conformable to rough surfaces

UNIVERSITA DI PISA · IT · €9,896,897

The goal of SKIN2DTRONICS is to demonstrate the large scale integration (LSI, transistor count larger than 1000) of soft and thin (skin-like) electronic devices on ultra-flexible substrates, capable of conformally adapting to any rough and curved surface. This vision will be realized by atomically thin two-dimensional materials (2DMs) that possess compelling properties for this application: high electronic performance, environmental stability, low toxicity and cytoxicity, and extreme resilience

Natural Auditory SCEnes in Humans and Machines: Establishing the Neural Computations of Everyday Hearing

UNIVERSITEIT MAASTRICHT · NL · €8,622,811

In an office, on a metro, or at home, diverse sounds may be surrounding you: a computer fan, footsteps and indistinct chatter, distant cars, the train slowing down. These sounds shape our environmental awareness, even when visual cues are absent. Despite its ecological relevance, understanding how our brain parses the acoustic scene into semantic objects remains a major scientific challenge. Moreover, individuals with hearing impairments, including those relying on hearing aids or cochlear impla

Learning in single cells through dynamical internal representations

MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · DE · €11,133,873

Cells continuously sense and interpret the external signals coming from their time-varying environments to generate context-dependent responses. This is true for the entire tree of life, ranging from bacteria and unicellular eukaryotes to neurons forming networks in the developing brain. Identifying the fundamental principles and underlying mechanisms that enable cells to interpret their complex natural surroundings and adequately respond remains one of the fundamental questions in biology. Conc

Smart Detectors for Darkfield X-ray Imaging

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN · DE · €10,840,961

The main objective of this project is to improve the early detection and accuracy of lung disease diagnosis by developing a novel detector concept for dark-field X-ray imaging - a novel method with great potential for the assessment of pathological changes in the alveolar microstructure of the lung as recently discovered in initial patient studies. Our research will focus on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the third leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for more than 3.2 mi

Mathematicae Lingua Franca: Bridging the Linguistic Gap Between the Mathematician and the Machine

INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE EN INFORMATIQUE ET AUTOMATIQUE · FR · €9,981,317

In the recent years, proof assistants have shown their astounding ability to tackle the complete formalisation of large pieces of mathematics, with the celebrated certifications of the Feit-Thompson theorem, of the Kepler conjecture, and more recently, the resolution of Scholze liquid tensor challenge. We believe that the time is ripe to demonstrate that they can tackle mathematics in the flexible and semi-formal way it is created and exchanged by the mathematicians. To that purpose, we aim to d

Advancing Digital Democratic Innovation

UNIVERSITE TOULOUSE CAPITOLE · FR

The Advancing Digital Democratic Innovation (ADDI) project will pioneer the study of digitally augmented forms of civic participation for preference formation and elicitation. While digital technology has, for some time now, been widely seen as being in direct conflict with the needs of a well-functioning democracy, ADDI will realise the true potential of digital technologies in the democratic space. The project will be led by four well-known researchers with expertise in participatory platform

Exploring the chemical foundations for rocky exoplanets around Sun-like stars

UNIVERSITAT BAYREUTH · DE · €10,076,633

Billions of rocky worlds likely exist around Sun-like stars in our Galaxy. Yet, attempts to understand these exoplanets lack information on the elements that compose them, the geodynamic processes that drive them, and the atmospheres that cloak them. To meet these cross-disciplinary challenges, three PIs at three institutes have combined forces to break new ground in understanding fully-formed silicate+metal+fluid (i.e. ‘rocky’) exoplanets. By synergizing astronomical data analysis with planetar

The system of shape representations in cognition, development and across languages

NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU · NO · €10,459,256

We address a gap in research on the bi-directional effects of language on thought and thought on language, and the developmental pathways that transmit interactions between language and cognition from one generation to the next. The significant empirical advances we propose will result in a unified, cross-disciplinary theory which addresses language diversity through the dynamic interaction of language and cognitive systems across languages and cultures. To this end, we select shape as a core sp

Atypical Liquid Crystal Elastomers: from Materials Innovation to Scalable processing and Transformative applications

UNIVERSITE DU LUXEMBOURG · LU · €8,477,534

ALCEMIST challenges the conventional engineering mindset where passive static components (beams, wires, joints) are driven by active dynamic ones (motors, dampers, sensors); our innovative materials enable the combined functionality in a single component. This bold ambition is feasible because our research will unlock the full potential of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), unique responsive materials that reversibly change shape, colour, adhesive or damping properties, triggered by stimuli like

Unraveling the Mysteries of Vibrational Strong Coupling

TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY · IL · €9,967,125

Polaritonic Chemistry is a new and exciting field that has emerged from the fusion of chemistry and cavity quantum electrodynamics. In this innovative realm, and specifically under Vibrational Strong Coupling (VSC), hybridizing molecular vibrations with electromagnetic cavity modes has been shown to modify the rate and yield of reactions, solvent polarity and other molecular properties, in the absence of any illumination. The prospects for VSC as a versatile tool for chemistry and materials scie