ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

"In the last 10 years, power electronics has moved significantly towards the electric grid, making it more flexible and decentralized. Still important challenges remain. One of the most thrilling is re-inventing the distribution transformer after more than 125 years since its first use in the electrification of a city. In fact, actual distribution transformers can no longer fulfill the requirements of a modern electric grid highly dominated by distributed sources and new sizable loads, like heat pumps and electric vehicles. This project proposes the invention of a novel “Smart Transformer” (ST), based on a modular architecture of units made by power electronics converters, that will be able to manage the energy and the information flows among sources and loads in the distribution area with the goal of decoupling it from the rest of the bulk power system. Actual proposals of Smart Transformers cannot compete in terms of cost, efficiency and reliability with traditional transformers. This project has decided to take this challenge with a paradigm shift in how to approach it and a new set of methodologies. The breakthrough results of this research will be obtained taking the following high-risk high-gain bet: significantly influence the efficiency and the reliability of the Smart Transformer by routing the energy flows among its power converter units. A new understanding of how the energy flows are managed by the modular connection of power converter units will guide the design of new architectures for the ST allowing different routes for the energy. Graph theory will be used to find optimal paths for the energy flows with the goal of maximizing efficiency and reliability. The energy flows will be managed by relying on information coming from the electric distribution system sensors (requirements) and from the power module sensors (constraints). The holy grail of this research is to provide a new durable heart to the electric distribution system."

1 996 720 €

Start date: 2014-05-01, End date: 2019-04-30

Understanding of the normal and diseased brain crucially depends on reliable knowledge of its microstructure. Important functions are mediated by small cortical units (columns) and even small changes in the microstructure can cause debilitating diseases. So far, this microstructure can only be determined using invasive methods such as, e.g., ex-vivo histology. This limits neuroscience, clinical research and diagnosis. My research vision is to develop novel methods for high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 3T-9.4T to reliably characterize and quantify the detailed microstructure of the human cortex. This MRI-based histology will be used to investigate the cortical microstructure in health and focal cortical degeneration. Structure-function relationships in visual cortex will be elucidated in-vivo, particularly, ocular dominance columns and stripes. Specific microstructural changes in focal cortical degeneration due to Alzheimer’s disease and monocular blindness will be determined, including amyloid plaque imaging. To resolve the subtle structures and disease related changes, which have not previously been delineated in-vivo by anatomical MRI, unprecedented isotropic imaging resolution of up to 250 µm is essential. Methods for high-resolution myelin and iron mapping will be developed from novel quantitative MRI approaches that I have previously established. Super-resolution diffusion and susceptibility imaging will be developed to capture the neuropil microstructure. Anatomical imaging will be complemented by advanced high-resolution functional MRI. The multi-modal MRI data will be integrated into a unified model of MRI contrasts, cortical anatomy and tissue microstructure. My ambitious goal of developing in vivo MRI-based histology can only be achieved by an integrative approach combining innovations in MR physics, modelling and tailored (clinical) neuroscience experiments. If successful, the project will transform research and clinical imaging.

2 000 000 €

Start date: 2014-09-01, End date: 2019-08-31

Flowering plants exhibit a variety of different life cycles. This variation contributes in nature to adaptation to diverse environments and in agriculture to optimising crop yield. Annual monocarpic species flower once during their life, produce seeds and then undergo generalized senescence leading to death of the plant. By contrast polycarpic perennials survive seed production and live for many years flowering repeatedly. Most of our major crops are monocarpic annuals but perennials predominate in many ecological niches. Perennials exhibit phenotypic traits that would be advantageous for crops, such as an extended growing season, long duration of flowering and seed set as well as longer roots that more efficiently utilize nutrients and water supply. The high productivity of perennials explains their current use as sources of biomass. I propose here to use the progeny of hybrids between annual and perennial species in the Brassicaceae to isolate genes that confer key differences between these life histories. The utility of such genes in improving annual crops will then be tested. Arabis alpina and Arabis montbretiana are sister species that are respectively perennial and annual. We produced hybrids between these species and from them derived segregating populations by backcrossing. Here I propose to extensively genotype and phenotype these populations to identify genes promoting or suppressing senescence after flowering as well as those controlling the duration and extent of flowering. Orthologues of these genes will be identified in closely related Brassica species and alleles conferring perennial traits introduced into annual oil seed rape using genetic as well as transgenic strategies. Particularly those genes suppressing senescence and extending the duration of flowering will be tested for their effects on yield. This knowledge-based approach to introducing perennial traits into annual crops is expected to generate novel phenotypic variation that enhances yield.

2 490 624 €

Start date: 2014-02-01, End date: 2019-01-31

"Surfactants are molecules of enormous scientific and technological importance, which are widely used as detergents, emulsifiers or for the preparation of diverse nanostructures. Fascinating abilities regarding the formation of self-organized structures, like micelles or liquid crystals, originate from their amphiphilic architecture, which comprises a polar head group linked to a hydrophobic chain. While almost all known surfactants are organic, a new family of surfactants is now emerging, which combine amphiphilic properties with the advanced functionality of transition metal building blocks. The current project aims at the synthesis of unique inorganic surfactants (I-SURFs), which contain multinuclear, charged metal-oxo entities as heads, and their exploration with regard to additional redox, catalytic or magnetic functionalities. A particular challenge is the creation of smart surfactant systems that can be controlled via external stimuli. While thermotropic liquid crystals and their adjustment in electric fields (enabling LCDs) have been studied in depth, very limited research concerns the control of self-assembled amphiphilic structures by use of magnetic fields. It is obvious that exposure to a magnetic field has inherent advantages over electric fields for controlling structures in water. I-SURFs with single-molecule magnets as heads will be thus prepared and studied. Another groundbreaking task is the creation of I-SURFs with additional catalytic activities. Since catalytic heads can be positioned via self-organization, for instance on the surface of micellar aggregates, catalytic relay systems can be assembled with a second catalytic species in proximity to the first. Thus, cooperative effects in catalytic tandem reactions will ultimately be observed. These examples show that frontier research on I-SURFs is of outstanding relevance for supramolecular science and will certainly pave the way toward new technological applications with great benefits to society."

1 863 546 €

Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2019-02-28

Super-sensitive detection mechanisms offer numerous opportunities for fundamental science in fields such as biophysics and chemistry and are a highly needed advancement for applied fields such as medicine, environmental pollution monitoring and defence. Developing sensors that are even capable of detecting single molecules has therefore become an important field of research. At this moment there is a growing demand for a stable and sensitive molecular sensing method because the available sensing methods are insufficient. Dr. Kocer and her group have developed a sensory device based on biological ion channels. Ion channels are extremely sensitive transmembrane protein pores that open and close in response to chemical, electrical or mechanical stimuli. Dr. Kocer has built unique knowledge and expertise on the channel functioning that allows her to modify the sensory characteristics of these channels towards the detection of a certain analyte. Via a unique fabrication method a sensory chip has been constructed where ion channels can be reconstituted into an artificial bilayer lipid membrane. This has led to the development of a molecular sensing platform able to detect a large variety of analytes at the single molecule level. To maximise the full potential of the ion channels, we will explore in which fields a molecular platform can fulfil major unmet needs and develop a reliable molecular sensing platform. To achieve these goals, we will conduct market research, develop a sound commercialisation strategy, IPR strategy and a product development plan within the ERC PoC project. The project outcomes will be consolidated in a business plan and presented to investors including venture capitalists and other strategic partners.

149 835 €

Start date: 2014-04-01, End date: 2015-03-31

"Recently, automatic speech and speaker recognition has matured to the degree that it entered the daily lives of thousands of Europe's citizens, e.g., on their smart phones or in call services. During the next years, speech processing technology will move to a new level of social awareness to make interaction more intuitive, speech retrieval more efficient, and lend additional competence to computer-mediated communication and speech-analysis services in the commercial, health, security, and further sectors. To reach this goal, rich speaker traits and states such as age, height, personality and physical and mental state as carried by the tone of the voice and the spoken words must be reliably identified by machines. In the iHEARu project, ground-breaking methodology including novel techniques for multi-task and semi-supervised learning will deliver for the first time intelligent holistic and evolving analysis in real-life condition of universal speaker characteristics which have been considered only in isolation so far. Today's sparseness of annotated realistic speech data will be overcome by large-scale speech and meta-data mining from public sources such as social media, crowd-sourcing for labelling and quality control, and shared semi-automatic annotation. All stages from pre-processing and feature extraction, to the statistical modelling will evolve in ""life-long learning"" according to new data, by utilising feedback, deep, and evolutionary learning methods. Human-in-the-loop system validation and novel perception studies will analyse the self-organising systems and the relation of automatic signal processing to human interpretation in a previously unseen variety of speaker classification tasks. The project's work plan gives the unique opportunity to transfer current world-leading expertise in this field into a new de-facto standard of speaker characterisation methods and open-source tools ready for tomorrow's challenge of socially aware speech analysis."

1 498 200 €

Start date: 2014-01-01, End date: 2018-12-31

Chronic mucosal inflammation and tissue damage predisposes patients to the development of colorectal cancer. One hypothesis is that the same factors important for wound healing, if left unchecked, also promote tumorigenesis. Tight control by a sensor of tissue damage should induce these factors to promote tissue repair, while limiting their activity to prevent development of cancer. IL-22, a prototypical tissue repair factor, plays an important role in a wide variety of intestinal disease including infection, wound healing, colitis, and cancer. Indeed, IL-22 has protective and detrimental effects dependent on the milieu and disease suggesting that proper regulation is required. IL-22 expression is directly regulated, additionally a soluble IL-22 receptor (IL-22 binding protein; IL-22bp), can bind and neutralize IL-22. We reported recently that sensing of intestinal tissue damage and components of the microbiota via the NLRP3 or NLRP6 inflammasomes led to a down regulation of IL-22bp, thereby increasing bioavailability of IL-22. IL-22, which is induced during intestinal tissue damage, exerted protective properties during the peak of damage, but promoted tumor development if not controlled by IL-22bp during the recovery phase. Accordingly a spatial and temporal regulation of IL-22 is crucial. Hence, global administration or blockade of IL-22 is unlikely to be therapeutically beneficial. We are using several newly generated conditional knock-out (cCasp1-/-, cIL-18R-/-, cIL-18-/-, cIL-22R1-/-), knock-in (IL-22 BFP), and gnotobiotic mice, aiming to analyze the cellular and microbial network regulating the IL-22 – IL-22bp axis at a resolution previously unfeasible. Our results will provide novel insights into the network between microflora, epithelium, and immune system regulating tissue regeneration and tumor development, and can lead to therapies for potentially a wide variety of intestinal diseases, such as infection, colon cancer, IBD, or wound healing.

1 498 392 €

Start date: 2014-01-01, End date: 2018-12-31

The Internet has evolved from a mere communication network used by tens of millions of users two decades ago, to a global multimedia platform for communication, social networking, entertainment, education, trade and political activism used by more than two billion users. This transformation has brought tremendous benefits to society, but has also created entirely new threats to privacy, safety, law enforcement, freedom of information and freedom of speech. In today’s Internet, principals are amorphous, identities can be fluid, users participate and exchange information as peers, and data is processed on global third-party platforms. Existing models and techniques for security and privacy, which assume trusted infrastructure and well-defined policies, principals and roles, fail to fully address this challenge. The imPACT project addresses the challenge of providing privacy, accountability, compliance and trust (PACT) in tomorrow’s Internet, using a cross-disciplinary and synergistic approach to understanding and mastering the different roles, interactions and relationships of users and their joint effect on the four PACT properties. The focus is on principles and methodologies that are relevant to the needs of individual Internet users, have a strong potential to lead to practical solutions and address the fundamental long-term needs of the future Internet. We take on this challenge with a team of researchers from relevant subdisciplines within computer science, and with input from outside experts in law, social sciences, economics and business. The team of PIs consists of international leaders in privacy and security, experimental distributed systems, formal methods, program analysis and verification, and database systems. By teaming up and committing ourselves to this joint research, we are in a unique position to meet the grand challenge of unifying the PACT properties and laying a new foundation for their holistic treatment.

9 257 000 €

Start date: 2015-02-01, End date: 2021-01-31

Metastatic disease is still largely unexplored, poorly understood and incurable. Accumulating evidence indicates that cells and mediators of the immune system can facilitate metastasis. Neutrophil accumulation in cancer patients has been associated with metastasis formation. In mouse tumor models, neutrophils have been reported to be pro- or anti- metastatic, but the underlying mechanisms involved in either function remain largely elusive. This proposal outlines a research program aimed at resolving the pro-metastatic role of neutrophils in breast cancer, as our preliminary data indicate that neutrophils proactively mediate breast cancer metastasis. Using a state-of-the art spontaneous breast cancer metastasis mouse model, we will mechanistically study how neutrophils facilitate metastasis formation and how mammary tumors provoke the metastasis-facilitating function of neutrophils. Building upon my previous studies and our current data, we will focus on the unexplored crosstalk between the adaptive immune system and neutrophils in facilitating spontaneous metastatic disease. These crucial questions will be addressed by undertaking a multidisciplinary approach, involving sophisticated mouse models for metastatic breast cancer, RNA sequencing on tumor-associated neutrophil populations, state-of-the-art mouse engineering, intravital imaging and in vivo neutrophil manipulations. Moreover, we will validate our findings from the mouse metastasis model in human breast cancer samples. We will determine the metastasis predicting power of the identified murine pro-metastatic neutrophil-specific pathways by immunohistochemistry and multi-parameter immunofluorescence on breast cancer samples and blood of untreated patients of which clinical follow-up is available. Thus, we will identify novel molecular pathways that can be targeted to selectively inhibit the pro-metastatic activity of the immune system.

1 999 360 €

Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2019-02-28