Project acronym PhenoTECH
Project Large-scale platform for motion detection and fluorescence imaging in zebrafish models of neurological disorders
Researcher (PI) Edor KABASHI
Host Institution (HI) ASOCIATIA TRANSYLVANIAN INSTITUTE OF NEUROSCIENCE
Country Romania
Call Details Proof of Concept (PoC), ERC-2019-PoC
Summary The PhenoTECH project aims to develop a novel technology with high-throughput capacity for screening and phenotyping of genetic models of disease. PhenoTECH will enable an unprecedented capability to monitor and control multiple parameters that will significantly contribute to advancing fundamental and biopharmaceutical research, strongly accelerating discovery of novel treatments for debilitating neurodegenerative diseases. PhenoTECH’s immediate impact will be on the ERC Consolidator Grant, ALS-Networks, where we intend to utilize the power of zebrafish for high-throughput functional screens to uncover defective cellular pathways and to identify therapeutic targets for ALS and related neurodegenerative disorders. High-throughput phenotype-based screening efforts have until now been hampered by the lack of technology that would allow for parallel monitoring of behavioral, cellular and physiological markers of disease. To overcome this limitation, PhenoTECH will build an innovative platform for automated phenotypic analysis consisting of three modules: i) custom designed multiwell plates with the capacity for in-well perfusion of solutions, greatly facilitating and optimizing drug delivery, wash-out, temperature and oxygenation control; ii) state of the art motion (motor) tracking with analysis of spontaneous and evoked locomotion of zebrafish larvae; iii) fluorescence detection of genetically-encoded transgenic line reporters to enable live monitoring and imaging of cellular processes and neuronal activity. By combining these three capabilities, PhenoTECH will surpass any existing commercial product on the market and will enable low-cost, large-scale screening capability for development of efficient treatments to neurodegenerative diseases. PhenoTECH will have a strong societal and economic impact by providing a technological leap forward that will boost fundamental and biopharmaceutical research & development.
Summary
The PhenoTECH project aims to develop a novel technology with high-throughput capacity for screening and phenotyping of genetic models of disease. PhenoTECH will enable an unprecedented capability to monitor and control multiple parameters that will significantly contribute to advancing fundamental and biopharmaceutical research, strongly accelerating discovery of novel treatments for debilitating neurodegenerative diseases. PhenoTECH’s immediate impact will be on the ERC Consolidator Grant, ALS-Networks, where we intend to utilize the power of zebrafish for high-throughput functional screens to uncover defective cellular pathways and to identify therapeutic targets for ALS and related neurodegenerative disorders. High-throughput phenotype-based screening efforts have until now been hampered by the lack of technology that would allow for parallel monitoring of behavioral, cellular and physiological markers of disease. To overcome this limitation, PhenoTECH will build an innovative platform for automated phenotypic analysis consisting of three modules: i) custom designed multiwell plates with the capacity for in-well perfusion of solutions, greatly facilitating and optimizing drug delivery, wash-out, temperature and oxygenation control; ii) state of the art motion (motor) tracking with analysis of spontaneous and evoked locomotion of zebrafish larvae; iii) fluorescence detection of genetically-encoded transgenic line reporters to enable live monitoring and imaging of cellular processes and neuronal activity. By combining these three capabilities, PhenoTECH will surpass any existing commercial product on the market and will enable low-cost, large-scale screening capability for development of efficient treatments to neurodegenerative diseases. PhenoTECH will have a strong societal and economic impact by providing a technological leap forward that will boost fundamental and biopharmaceutical research & development.
Max ERC Funding
150 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2020-10-01, End date: 2022-03-31
Project acronym SafeNet
Project Safe Networks using P4 Programs
Researcher (PI) Costin RAICIU
Host Institution (HI) CORRECT NETWORKS SRL
Country Romania
Call Details Proof of Concept (PoC), ERC-2019-PoC
Summary Programmable hardware dataplanes such as the Barefoot Tofino enable unprecedented network flexibility, promising an ever-evolving set of network functionalities at hardware speeds, and are being rolled out in production. However, programming such dataplanes is very difficult as numerous bugs have been found even in trivial programs: accesses to uninitialized header fields, header stack underflows or overflows and processing of dropped packets. Verifying P4 programs before deployment is a great solution to make P4 programs safe. Recent research in this direction has shown that many bugs can be caught if (1) we know the concrete table entries at verification time (Vera, our work in Sigcomm 2018), or (2) if programmers express which rules are likely to appear in practice (p4v in Sigcomm 2018). Both approaches impose a high burden on the programmer, which reduces their applicability. In the CORNET ERC Stg project we have developed af4, a verification tool that finds all bugs and automatically fixes P4 programs without needing programmer input. The key insight behind our work is that verification need not consider all table entries because certain table entries will always result in faulty behavior for all matching packets and thus cannot appear in a correct deployment. af4 automatically generates predicates that filter out buggy table entries. If bugs are still reachable after predicate inference, af4 automatically adds a minimal number of keys to the existing tables and generates predicates that remove all bugs in the programs we tested. In this project we will explore the feasibility of commercial exploitation of af4: a) we will conduct a market study to understand potential customers; b) we will study possible approaches to commercialise af4 including open-source + consulting, cloud-based, or closed-source, and c) take steps towards commercialisation including the development of alfa-testing tools to be given to prospective customers.
Summary
Programmable hardware dataplanes such as the Barefoot Tofino enable unprecedented network flexibility, promising an ever-evolving set of network functionalities at hardware speeds, and are being rolled out in production. However, programming such dataplanes is very difficult as numerous bugs have been found even in trivial programs: accesses to uninitialized header fields, header stack underflows or overflows and processing of dropped packets. Verifying P4 programs before deployment is a great solution to make P4 programs safe. Recent research in this direction has shown that many bugs can be caught if (1) we know the concrete table entries at verification time (Vera, our work in Sigcomm 2018), or (2) if programmers express which rules are likely to appear in practice (p4v in Sigcomm 2018). Both approaches impose a high burden on the programmer, which reduces their applicability. In the CORNET ERC Stg project we have developed af4, a verification tool that finds all bugs and automatically fixes P4 programs without needing programmer input. The key insight behind our work is that verification need not consider all table entries because certain table entries will always result in faulty behavior for all matching packets and thus cannot appear in a correct deployment. af4 automatically generates predicates that filter out buggy table entries. If bugs are still reachable after predicate inference, af4 automatically adds a minimal number of keys to the existing tables and generates predicates that remove all bugs in the programs we tested. In this project we will explore the feasibility of commercial exploitation of af4: a) we will conduct a market study to understand potential customers; b) we will study possible approaches to commercialise af4 including open-source + consulting, cloud-based, or closed-source, and c) take steps towards commercialisation including the development of alfa-testing tools to be given to prospective customers.
Max ERC Funding
150 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2021-05-31
Project acronym TYPARABIC
Project Early Arabic Printing for the Arab Christians. Cultural Transfers between Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Near-East in the 18th century
Researcher (PI) IOANA FEODOROV
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTUL DE STUDII SUD EST EUROPENE
Country Romania
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2019-ADG
Summary The main objective of the Project is to examine the circumstances and outcomes of printing in Arabic with Arabic type in the 18th century Greater Syria (modern Syria and Lebanon), for Byzantine-rite and Catholic Arab Christians. It addresses the connections between Eastern Europe and the Arab Christians of the Ottoman Empire and the social progress brought by the print culture. It focuses on the transfer of printing technology from Moldavia and Wallachia (the Romanian Principalities) to the Ottoman provinces, for the benefit of the Arab Christians. It aims to yield a systematic, detailed inventory of the Arabic books printed in 1701-1800 in the Romanian Principalities and Greater Syria. Several other objectives are included: circumstances of the opening of Arabic presses in Ottoman-ruled provinces; the Antiochian Christians’ ties to Moldavia, Wallachia and Ukraine; the Western European printers’ support to Catholic Arabs; the role of printing in preserving Christian traditions and sanctioning the usage of Arabic in the Church; the contribution of printing to the Arab Renaissance (Nahḍa, 1820s). Presses to be surveyed: in Moldavia and Wallachia, Snagov (1701), Bucharest (1702) and Iași (1743-1747); in Greater Syria, Aleppo (1705-1711), Deyr el-Shuweyr (1734-1800) and Beirut (1750-1753). Other presses will be considered: Qozhaya (Lebanon), where a Book of Psalms was printed in 1610 in Syriac and Arabic (with Syriac type); and Istanbul, where a Turkish-language press worked after 1727 with Arabic type. The study corpus encloses forty-five books so far, with possible additions. They will be surveyed in terms of their content (Greek and Syriac sources, Arabic versions and their authors, variations, printing programmes) and their form (formatting, iconography, ornaments, artistic influences). The Project focuses on philological and codicological themes, addressing print culture, Christian Arabic literature and cultural transfers between Eastern Europe and the Arab East.
Summary
The main objective of the Project is to examine the circumstances and outcomes of printing in Arabic with Arabic type in the 18th century Greater Syria (modern Syria and Lebanon), for Byzantine-rite and Catholic Arab Christians. It addresses the connections between Eastern Europe and the Arab Christians of the Ottoman Empire and the social progress brought by the print culture. It focuses on the transfer of printing technology from Moldavia and Wallachia (the Romanian Principalities) to the Ottoman provinces, for the benefit of the Arab Christians. It aims to yield a systematic, detailed inventory of the Arabic books printed in 1701-1800 in the Romanian Principalities and Greater Syria. Several other objectives are included: circumstances of the opening of Arabic presses in Ottoman-ruled provinces; the Antiochian Christians’ ties to Moldavia, Wallachia and Ukraine; the Western European printers’ support to Catholic Arabs; the role of printing in preserving Christian traditions and sanctioning the usage of Arabic in the Church; the contribution of printing to the Arab Renaissance (Nahḍa, 1820s). Presses to be surveyed: in Moldavia and Wallachia, Snagov (1701), Bucharest (1702) and Iași (1743-1747); in Greater Syria, Aleppo (1705-1711), Deyr el-Shuweyr (1734-1800) and Beirut (1750-1753). Other presses will be considered: Qozhaya (Lebanon), where a Book of Psalms was printed in 1610 in Syriac and Arabic (with Syriac type); and Istanbul, where a Turkish-language press worked after 1727 with Arabic type. The study corpus encloses forty-five books so far, with possible additions. They will be surveyed in terms of their content (Greek and Syriac sources, Arabic versions and their authors, variations, printing programmes) and their form (formatting, iconography, ornaments, artistic influences). The Project focuses on philological and codicological themes, addressing print culture, Christian Arabic literature and cultural transfers between Eastern Europe and the Arab East.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2021-07-01, End date: 2026-06-30
