| 1 | 2DPolyMembrane | 101.167.472 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101167472 | Ultrathin Two-Dimensional Polymer Heterostructure Membranes Enabling Unidirectional Ion Transport | Current separation technology is crucial for many aspects of human life and accounts for ~15% of the world’s energy consumption. While the particle flow through separation columns is directional at the atomistic scale, undirected Brownian motion dominates in state-of-the-art membranes. 2D membranes have the potential to overcome this intrinsic deficiency and shift the paradigm of particle transport from disordered Brownian motion to unidirectional flow.
We will develop unprecedented 2D polymer heterostructure membranes (2DHMs) combined with functionalized graphene. They offer ultimate thinness (leading to shortest diffusion lengths), precision pore geometry/size (resulting in high size-selectivity, even for hydrogen isotopes), and high functionality (fostering chemical/charge selectivity and ionic gating), making them ideal membrane materials to realize selective and unidirectional ion transport. We will combine our complementary expertise in theory and prediction, chemical design, and on-water/liquid surface synthesis, as well as in-situ ion transport investigations to develop robust 2DHMs.
We will synthesize 2DHMs in the form of horizontal and vertical heterostructures, for which reliable structure-property correlations will be established. We will take advantage of lattice vibrations, nuclear quantum, and electrochemical effects, and consequently reformulate classical diffusion theory to consider these game changers. As a result, we will achieve innovative 2DHMs for selective proton and ion transport with high permeance, laying the foundations for the next-generation membrane technologies.
2DPolymembrane will unlock the unique opportunities of 2DHMs for innovative energy device integrations (proton/aqueous metal batteries, fuel cells, and reverse osmotic power generators), where the merits of ultrathin precision 2DHMs will result in the highest selectivity and highest particle flow, and thus a fundamental device performance beyond the state-of-art. | Grégory Schneider, Thomas Heine, Xinliang Feng | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Zur Forderung Der Wissenschaften Ev (DE), Technische Universitaet Dresden (DE), Universiteit Leiden (NL) | Germany | 0,00 | Synergy Grants | Synergy | SyG | 2024 | 01/04/2025 | 31/03/2031 | €10,000,000 |
| 2 | CeLEARN | 101.167.121 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101167121 | Learning in single cells through dynamical internal representations | 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. Conceptual views so far have been mainly guided by molecular biology descriptions, suggesting that cells are controlled by a genomic program executing a pre-scripted plan. Our goal is to develop an alternative conceptual framework: cells generate internal representations of their external ‘world’, which they utilise to actively infer information about it and predict changes, in order to determine their response. We will formalise this concept in a theory of single-cell learning, by combining information theory concepts to quantify the predictive information from the internal cell representations, with dynamical systems theory to explain how these encodings are realised. We will interrogate experimentally systems across all scales of biological organization: bacteria (B. subtilis), single-cell organisms (Paramecium, Tetrahymena) and neuronal cell culture models. By studying them in a comparative manner, we aim at identifying generic molecular mechanisms through which single-cell learning is realised. The acquired understanding will enable us to address in vivo how single neurons during D. melanogaster development learn to form, stabilize or eliminate axonal branches, to generate stereotyped synaptic patterning under highly-variable conditions. We argue that providing a broader and generic definition of learning will serve as a unifying framework, linking disparate areas and scales of biology, and offering a basis for addressing fundamental biological questions. | Aneta Koseska, Dietmar Schmucker, Jeremy Gunawardena, Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo | Harvard Global Research And Support Services Inc. (US), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Zur Forderung Der Wissenschaften Ev (DE), Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn (DE), Universidad Pompeu Fabra (ES) | Germany | 0,00 | Synergy Grants | Synergy | SyG | 2024 | 01/04/2025 | 31/03/2031 | €11,133,873 |
| 3 | COGNECTOMICS | 101.167.289 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101167289 | Neuronal implementation of cognitive maps for navigation | 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 biological implementation remains elusive. Using new methods for brain-wide activity imaging during behavior, members of our team discovered an abundance of place cells in the telencephalon of zebrafish. We will combine this approach with volume electron microscopy to reconstruct large-scale connectivity in the same brains at synaptic resolution and with transcriptomic profiling to identify molecular cell types, taking advantage of small brain size. The joint analysis of network connectivity and population dynamics will allow us to determine how functional properties of place cells are established by interactions between specific subsets of neurons across brain areas, and how network structure constrains population activity to topographically organized attractor manifolds. The results will disambiguate computational models that make conflicting assumptions about network connectivity. We will further explore the emergence of cell types during development and the concomitant structural and functional maturation of neuronal circuits. The relevance of cognitive maps for neuronal computations and behaviors involving internally generated predictions will be explored by activity measurements in a virtual reality and by functional manipulations of genetically targeted neurons. Capitalizing on the unique combination of expertise among team members, this project is expected to fundamentally advance our mechanistic understanding of biological and potentially artificial intelligence. | Drew Robson, Herwig Baier, Jennifer Li, Rainer Friedrich | Friedrich Miescher Institute For Biomedical Research Fondation (CH), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Zur Forderung Der Wissenschaften Ev (DE), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Zur Forderung Der Wissenschaften Ev (DE), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Zur Forderung Der Wissenschaft | Germany | 0,00 | Synergy Grants | Synergy | SyG | 2024 | 01/04/2025 | 31/03/2031 | €9,992,890 |
| 4 | MetaDivide | 101.167.181 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101167181 | Metabolism-driven division of minimal cell-like systems | 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, due to often largely different experimental approaches. MetaDivide will bring together two groups of world-leading scientists with complementary expertise in biochemistry and biophysics to address this gap. Poolman and Schwille will combine their mastery of membrane systems and protein machineries to establish a blueprint for coupling metabolic networks to cellular modules for spatiotemporal regulation and force-induction for division. By this, we aim to reconstitute in a minimal system one of the most stunning and central features of cellular life: The autonomous division of proto-cellular compartments by encapsulated self-organizing macromolecular machinery, driven by a self-sustaining energy metabolism. We will test our hypothesis that the otherwise separately researched features of life: Metabolism, Cell Division and Genome Segregation are mechanistically linked in the emergence of cellular life. Besides the great technical advance in synthetic biology, this will be a huge accomplishment in the understanding of biological mechanisms in today’s organisms, which in living cells are often obscured by their immense molecular complexity. Moreover, our new fundamental insights on the main principles underlying cellular life will advance application-driven research: By elucidating the mechanisms of out-of-equilibrium reaction networks and cell division, we will obtain insight that may inform the future development of generic small molecules to curb bacterial proliferation. | Bert Poolman, Petra Schwille | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Zur Forderung Der Wissenschaften Ev (DE), Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (NL) | Netherlands | 0,00 | Synergy Grants | Synergy | SyG | 2024 | 01/01/2025 | 31/12/2030 | €5,000,000 |
| 5 | SKIN2DTRONICS | 101.167.218 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101167218 | SKIN-like TWO-Dimensional materials-based elecTRONICS conformable to rough surfaces | 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 to mechanical deformations.
With the increasing pressure towards ubiquitous electronics (wearables, Internet-of-Things, smart patches, etc.) it is urgent to develop electronics that can be easily integrated on the surface of everyday objects and, in the case of health monitoring applications, on a variety of rough biological surfaces. Today’s conformal electronics is mainly based on conformal sensors with flexible and stretchable electrodes interfaced to bulky silicon chips, responsible for processing. This approach is prone to mechanical failures, especially at the solderings, as the connection between the conformal and solid components remains very challenging.
In SKIN2DTRONICS, we propose to integrate not only the sensors and leads in the conformal device but also a large number of transistors to incorporate signal processing within the conformal device, through the development of the needed technology to integrate 2DMs-based transistors and sensors at the LSI.
To demonstrate the potential of the developed technology, we will address an unsolved issue in medicine, i.e., the lack of real-time monitoring of post-surgery brain tumour growth and recurrence. The research will rely on the complementary conjuncture of four fields: sensors, 2D-based electronics, flexible electronics and biomedical engineering that the PIs of the consortium bring, each of them recognized experts in their respective fields and with a valuable experience in leading ERC projects. | Andras Kis, Andres Castellanos-Gomez, Gianluca Fiori, Kostas Kostarelos | Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior De Investigaciones Cientificas (ES), Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (CH), Fundacio Institut Catala De Nanociencia I Nanotecnologia (ES), Universita Di Pisa (IT) | Italy | 0,00 | Synergy Grants | Synergy | SyG | 2024 | 01/05/2025 | 30/04/2031 | €9,896,897 |
| 6 | VASC-IMMUNE | 101.167.362 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101167362 | Targeting the vascular-immune interface to induce anti-tumor immunity | In this ERC Synergy Grant, we will characterize the vascular-immune interface in melanoma and glioblastoma and explore the perivascular niche as a site for local anti-tumor immune activation.
Cancer immunotherapy has made tremendous progress in the last two decades, but a vast majority of cancer patients do not benefit from this progress yet. Refinement of established immunotherapies will undoubtedly increase response rates. However, conceptually brave new therapies must be developed to make additional breakthroughs.
The tumor vasculature plays a key role in orchestrating anti-tumor immunity by regulating recruitment and activation of T-cell and other immune cells. We propose to make a detailed characterization of vascular immune landscapes in melanoma and glioblastoma and to utilize this to optimize vascular-immune crosstalk and immune response as a new breakthrough immunotherapy.
This proposal builds upon new knowledge on how immune hubs can form around tumor vasculature, which to a large part is based upon novel findings and development by the applicants (1, 2) on the importance of perivascular antigen-presenting niches in activating, sustaining, and executing CD8 and CD4 T-cell-mediated immune attacks on cancer. We will develop tumor vessel targeting AAV vectors that can enable therapeutic induction of immune hubs in cancer. This new form of immunotherapy will be evaluated alone and in combination with established cancer immunotherapies.
Combined, our research teams are in a unique position to achieve this goal. Synergistic advancements will be obtained by joining Dimberg’s expertise in the vascular and immune microenvironment in tumors (especially glioblastoma); Tüting’s expertise in tumor immunology and cell plasticity (especially melanoma); and Essand’s expertise in translational gene therapy and cancer immunotherapy. The project is timely, and if successful can bring immunotherapy to the next level, rendering new hope to millions of cancer patients. | Anna Dimberg, Magnus Essand, Thomas Tüting | Otto-Von-Guericke-Universitaet Magdeburg (DE), Uppsala Universitet (SE), Uppsala Universitet (SE) | Sweden | 0,00 | Synergy Grants | Synergy | SyG | 2024 | 01/02/2025 | 31/01/2031 | €9,453,750 |
| 7 | 2C-RISK | 101.162.653 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101162653 | Climate Change and Human (Im)Mobility: The Role of Compound and Cascading Risks | The 2C-RISK project is the first to comprehensively analyze the interrelated effects of compound and cascading climatic and non-climatic risks on human mobility worldwide and to pioneer the empirical assessment and quantification of climate-related immobility. Climate change can have major implications for human mobility through its impacts on security, livelihoods, health and well-being, potentially leading to increased displacement and migration. At the same time, not everyone affected decides to move, and climatic risks and related impacts can also lead to heightened immobility. Patterns in (im)mobility are crucially shaped by a range of drivers and moderators influencing who becomes mobile, when, and why. While the multicausal nature of climate-related (im)mobility has been recognized, there are considerable gaps in the understanding of how climatic risks interact with other compound drivers and risks in influencing mobility outcomes. Considering risks in isolation may miss crucial interdependencies between different risk types and related impacts over time and space. Exploring these interdependencies can fill in the missing links as to when and why households become mobile under climatic stress, and when and why they decide or are forced to stay put despite difficult circumstances. To this end, the 2C-RISK project: (1) provides novel estimates of the effects of compound and cascading climatic and non-climatic risks and impacts on mobility outcomes; (2) advances empirical research on climate-related immobility; and (3) employs innovative nowcasting and projection methods to explore potential changes in mobility in the short and long term. By laying novel foundations for understanding the conditions under which climate-related (im)mobility occurs and by identifying populations in situations of heightened distress, the 2C-RISK project will contribute to more informed policies aimed at safeguarding the well-being of populations in a changing climate. | Roman Hoffmann | Internationales Institut Fuer Angewandte Systemanalyse (AT) | Austria | 0,00 | Starting Grants | Social sciences & humanities (SH) | SH7 – Human Mobility, Environment & Space | 2024 | 01/03/2025 | 28/02/2030 | €1,499,933 |
| 8 | 2D-PULSES | 101.163.180 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101163180 | 2-Dimensional Phase-sensitive ULtrafast SpEctroScopy: unravelling photo-induced reactions by multi-dimensional Raman | We propose the construction and development of a visible/ultraviolet (UV) two-dimensional resonance Raman (2DR) setup with phase-sensitive detection to tackle ultrafast Chemical, Physical and Biological processes. Light-induced reactions cover a broad range of phenomena, from screening of photo-damage in skin upon UV irradiation to carrier relaxation in opto-electronic devices and energy conversion in proteins. Their lowest hierarchical level lies in the interplay of nuclear motion and normal mode couplings, such as funnelling the absorbed energy to the solvent via molecular oscillations in nucleobases, electron-phonon/phonon-phonon couplings in graphene, vibrational cooling in hemeproteins. Nature has intricately coupled vibrational degrees of freedom to facilitate light-energy conversion into synergistic nuclear motions, ruling femtochemistry and femtophysics. Conventional spectroscopic methods project structural information along specific normal coordinates, providing limited insights into these coupled motions. 2DR combines the structural sensitivity inherent to the Raman process with a multi-dimensional scheme, yielding frequency correlation spectra that encode information on the vibronic mode couplings across the entire vibrational manifold. Critically, the development of 2DR and its application to light-driven processes has been hindered by technical and conceptual hurdles. Among them: 1) 2DR realizations have been confined to restricted visible regions, while most biomolecules require spectral tunability and/or UV excitations; 2) vibrational signatures recorded by 2DR can be assigned both to vibrational (anharmonic) mode couplings as well as to (harmonic) high-order Raman transitions. The set up of the proposed novel 2DR approach will circumvent these limitations, establishing an interdisciplinary research team toiling over unsolved problems in which the ultrafast and multidimensional facets play a key role. | Giovanni Batignani | Universita Degli Studi Di Roma La Sapienza (IT) | Italy | 0,00 | Starting Grants | Physical sciences & engineering (PE) | PE4 – Physical & Analytical Chemical Sciences | 2024 | 01/11/2024 | 31/10/2029 | €1,498,750 |
| 9 | 3DGenomeSearch | 101.163.751 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101163751 | Sifting through the 3D Genome: Computational Models of Homology Search in DNA Repair | Homology-directed repair is an essential, evolutionary conserved DNA repair pathway that accurately restores genetic information lost due to double-stranded breaks. Its key step is the ‘homology search’, where the broken DNA end locates its matching sequence, typically located on a sister chromatid, to use as a repair template. Despite its significance, the biophysical mechanism of this search within the complex environment of vertebrate genomes remains debated. Emerging hypotheses propose that this search is driven by ‘nucleoprotein’ filaments comprised of repair proteins bound to the broken DNA ends, that actively traverse the nuclear space to find and recognize homologous sequences. We will explore this mechanism by developing quantitative biophysical models that integrate the latest experimental insights on the 3D architecture of sister chromatids and dynamics of nucleoprotein filaments. Our specific aims are: (1) Model the homology search in 3D to understand how broken DNA sites navigate the complex nuclear environment and identify homologous sequences on intricately folded vertebrate sister chromatids. (2) Explore the microscopic mechanisms that drive the large-scale motions and efficient homology search by nucleoprotein filaments. (3) Understand the role of filament-driven homology search in the pairing of homologous chromosomes during meiosis. By integrating these complementary aims, we will build a detailed biophysical, mechanistic picture of homology search. We will calibrate our models against genomic and microscopic datasets, and test their predictions in collaborations with several experimental biology groups. This modeling will provide mechanistic insights into homology search, rigorously test long-standing hypotheses, and generate predictions to guide future experiments. The proposed research will significantly advance our understanding of this key DNA repair process and its potential roles in maintaining genome stability and meiotic recombination. | Anton Goloborodko | Institut Fuer Molekulare Biotechnologie Gmbh (AT) | Austria | 0,00 | Starting Grants | Life Sciences (LS) | LS1 – Molecules of Life: Biological Mechanisms, Structures & Functions | 2024 | 01/01/2025 | 31/12/2029 | €1,500,000 |
| 10 | 3DnanoGiant | 101.163.799 | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101163799 | 3D integrated photonic nanostructures with Giant optical nonlinearity | Photonics has a major impact on technological innovations and can revolutionize the field of computing and data processing due to its high bandwidth, speed, and low power consumption. This has already happened for data communication via fiber-optic connections, while light processing in embedded systems is still performed by electronics via power-hungry optical-electrical conversion.The future development of integrated photonics is then waiting for new integrable materials that can advance the functionality of photonic chips towards all-optical signal processing at very low light intensities. While linear operations and parallel matrix multiplication can be efficiently performed by light, nonlinear optical functions are notoriously difficult to implement because they require a suitable medium for efficient photon-photon interaction. Currently, there is a lack of materials with large third-order nonlinearity, high speed and easy processability and integration in 2D and 3D structures.3DnanoGiant aims to develop new nonlinear photonic materials that can be integrated into heterogeneous functional platforms or chiplets. To this end, I will exploit the giant optical nonlinearity of liquid crystals (ten orders of magnitude larger than that of silicon), for new formulations and lithographic strategies by which the liquid crystals will be confined in a printable nano-porous polymer network. Their 3D nanopatterning will enable the production of multidimensional hybrid nonlinear photonic devices, from all-optical 2D logic gates and ultrafast nonlinear activation functions to self-oscillating 3D photonic crystals. In parallel, the propagation, interaction and polymerization of solitons in a 3D(+1) space will lay the foundation for a new unsupervised bottom-up 3D printing technology.
The goals of 3DnanoGiant will redefine the state-of-the-art in integrated nonlinear photonics with practical and versatile heterogeneous chip for fast and energy-efficient optical processing. | Sara Nocentini | Istituto Nazionale Di Ricerca Metrologica (IT) | Italy | 0,00 | Starting Grants | Physical sciences & engineering (PE) | PE11 – Materials Engineering | 2024 | 01/01/2025 | 31/12/2029 | €1,500,000 |
