Project acronym LArcHer
Project Breaking barriers between Science and Heritage approaches to Levantine Rock Art through Archaeology, Heritage Science and IT
Researcher (PI) Ines DOMINGO SANZ
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2018-COG
Summary LArcHer project aims at pioneering a new and more comprehensive way of understanding one of Europe’s most extraordinary bodies of prehistoric art, awarded Unesco World Heritage status in 1998: Levantine rock art (LRA). The ground-breaking nature of the project relies on combining a multidisciplinary (Archaeology, Heritage Science and IT) and multiscale approach (from microanalysis to landscape perspectives) to gain a holistic view of this art. It also aims at closing existing gaps between science and heritage mainstreams, to better understand the values and threats affecting this tradition and bring about a change in the way we understand, care, use and manage this millenary legacy. LArcHer aims are: a) Use cross-disciplinary knowledge and methods to redefine LRA (i.e. new dating techniques to refine chronology, new analytical methods to understand the creative process); b) Use LRA as a proxy to raise new questions of global interest on the evolution of creative thinking and human cognition (i.e. the timing and driving forces behind the birth of anthropocentrism and visual narratives in the history of prehistoric art); c) Develop new research agendas to set off complementary goals between science and heritage and define best practices for open air rock art conservation and management.
Spread across Mediterranean Iberia, LRA is the only European body of figurative art dominated by humans engaged in dynamic narratives of hunting, violence, warfare, dances and so forth. These scenes are unique to explore past social dynamics, human behaviour and cultural practices. As such, it is the only body of European rock art with potential to answer some of the new questions raised by LArcHer.
Key to LArcHer are the systematic recording and analysis of the art through 3D Digital technologies, management and data storage systems, GIS, physicochemical analysis of pigments and bedrock and comparative analysis with other major bodies of art with equivalent developments.
Summary
LArcHer project aims at pioneering a new and more comprehensive way of understanding one of Europe’s most extraordinary bodies of prehistoric art, awarded Unesco World Heritage status in 1998: Levantine rock art (LRA). The ground-breaking nature of the project relies on combining a multidisciplinary (Archaeology, Heritage Science and IT) and multiscale approach (from microanalysis to landscape perspectives) to gain a holistic view of this art. It also aims at closing existing gaps between science and heritage mainstreams, to better understand the values and threats affecting this tradition and bring about a change in the way we understand, care, use and manage this millenary legacy. LArcHer aims are: a) Use cross-disciplinary knowledge and methods to redefine LRA (i.e. new dating techniques to refine chronology, new analytical methods to understand the creative process); b) Use LRA as a proxy to raise new questions of global interest on the evolution of creative thinking and human cognition (i.e. the timing and driving forces behind the birth of anthropocentrism and visual narratives in the history of prehistoric art); c) Develop new research agendas to set off complementary goals between science and heritage and define best practices for open air rock art conservation and management.
Spread across Mediterranean Iberia, LRA is the only European body of figurative art dominated by humans engaged in dynamic narratives of hunting, violence, warfare, dances and so forth. These scenes are unique to explore past social dynamics, human behaviour and cultural practices. As such, it is the only body of European rock art with potential to answer some of the new questions raised by LArcHer.
Key to LArcHer are the systematic recording and analysis of the art through 3D Digital technologies, management and data storage systems, GIS, physicochemical analysis of pigments and bedrock and comparative analysis with other major bodies of art with equivalent developments.
Max ERC Funding
1 991 178 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30
Project acronym MATRIX
Project Novel mitochondria-targeted therapies for cancer treatment-induced cardiotoxicity
Researcher (PI) Borja Ibanez Cabeza
Host Institution (HI) CENTRO NACIONAL DE INVESTIGACIONES CARDIOVASCULARES CARLOS III (F.S.P.)
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), LS7, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Cardiac toxicity is one of the most frequent serious side effects of cancer therapy, affecting up to 30% of treated patients. Cancer treatment-induced cardiotoxicity (CTiCT) can result in severe heart failure. The trade-off between cancer and chronic heart failure is an immense personal burden with physical and psychological consequences. Current therapies for CTiCT are suboptimal, featuring poor early detection algorithms and nonspecific heart failure treatments. Based on our recently published results and additional preliminary data presented here, we propose that CTiCT is associated with altered mitochondrial dynamics, triggering a cardiomyocyte metabolic reprogramming. MATRIX represents a holistic approach to tackling mitochondrial dysfunction in CTiCT. Our hypothesis is that reverting metabolic reprogramming by shifting mitochondrial substrate utilization could represent a new paradigm in the treatment of early-stage CTiCT. By refining a novel imaging-based algorithm recently developed in our group, we will achieve very early detection of myocardial damage in patients treated with commonly prescribed cancer therapies, long before clinically used parameters become abnormal. Such early detection, not available currently, is crucial for implementation of early therapies. We also hypothesize that in end-stage CTiCT, mitochondrial dysfunction has passed a no-return point, and the failing heart will only be rescued by a strategy to replenish the myocardium with fresh healthy mitochondria. This will be achieved with a radical new therapeutic option: in-vivo mitochondrial transplantation. The MATRIX project has broad translational potential, including a new therapeutic approach to a clinically relevant condition, the development of technology for early diagnosis, and advances in knowledge of basic disease mechanisms.
Summary
Cardiac toxicity is one of the most frequent serious side effects of cancer therapy, affecting up to 30% of treated patients. Cancer treatment-induced cardiotoxicity (CTiCT) can result in severe heart failure. The trade-off between cancer and chronic heart failure is an immense personal burden with physical and psychological consequences. Current therapies for CTiCT are suboptimal, featuring poor early detection algorithms and nonspecific heart failure treatments. Based on our recently published results and additional preliminary data presented here, we propose that CTiCT is associated with altered mitochondrial dynamics, triggering a cardiomyocyte metabolic reprogramming. MATRIX represents a holistic approach to tackling mitochondrial dysfunction in CTiCT. Our hypothesis is that reverting metabolic reprogramming by shifting mitochondrial substrate utilization could represent a new paradigm in the treatment of early-stage CTiCT. By refining a novel imaging-based algorithm recently developed in our group, we will achieve very early detection of myocardial damage in patients treated with commonly prescribed cancer therapies, long before clinically used parameters become abnormal. Such early detection, not available currently, is crucial for implementation of early therapies. We also hypothesize that in end-stage CTiCT, mitochondrial dysfunction has passed a no-return point, and the failing heart will only be rescued by a strategy to replenish the myocardium with fresh healthy mitochondria. This will be achieved with a radical new therapeutic option: in-vivo mitochondrial transplantation. The MATRIX project has broad translational potential, including a new therapeutic approach to a clinically relevant condition, the development of technology for early diagnosis, and advances in knowledge of basic disease mechanisms.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 375 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym SUBSILIENCE
Project Subsistence and human resilience to sudden climatic events in Europe during MIS3
Researcher (PI) ANA B. MARIN-ARROYO
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE CANTABRIA
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Climate has long been proposed as a possible trigger-factor for the extinction of Neanderthals and the rapid colonization of Europe by Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH). Abrupt and acute oscillations of climate, as recorded from polar ice sheets, are particularly threatening as they can push ecosystems towards catastrophic outcomes. Under these conditions, the survival of a species critically depends on their adaptive skills. Understanding the exact role that these episodes could have had in the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition is then essential to unravel the real causes of Neanderthal demise and AMH success. To do this, SUBSILIENCE will identify the subsistence strategies adopted by both human species in response to those climatic changes at 20 key archaeological sites located across southern European peninsulas. By applying zooarchaeological and taphonomic analyses, the behavioural flexibility and resilience of each human species will be assessed. In addition, to enable effective testing, local terrestrial climatic and environmental conditions will be accurately reconstructed using stable isotopes from animals consumed, producing a unique, continuous and properly-dated general environmental framework, improving existing knowledge. Finally, to further explore the problem, an innovative procedure to estimate prey abundance, ecology and human behaviour, involving the estimation of the ecosystem carrying capacity, will be developed. This multidisciplinary and novel approach will provide, for the first time, accurate answers to questions concerning a) which particular subsistence patterns (if any) favoured AMH over Neanderthals while coping with the changing environment and b) the extent to which climatic oscillations affected Neanderthal extinction. In this, it will be of relevance to the study of Prehistory on a pan-European scale.
Summary
Climate has long been proposed as a possible trigger-factor for the extinction of Neanderthals and the rapid colonization of Europe by Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH). Abrupt and acute oscillations of climate, as recorded from polar ice sheets, are particularly threatening as they can push ecosystems towards catastrophic outcomes. Under these conditions, the survival of a species critically depends on their adaptive skills. Understanding the exact role that these episodes could have had in the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition is then essential to unravel the real causes of Neanderthal demise and AMH success. To do this, SUBSILIENCE will identify the subsistence strategies adopted by both human species in response to those climatic changes at 20 key archaeological sites located across southern European peninsulas. By applying zooarchaeological and taphonomic analyses, the behavioural flexibility and resilience of each human species will be assessed. In addition, to enable effective testing, local terrestrial climatic and environmental conditions will be accurately reconstructed using stable isotopes from animals consumed, producing a unique, continuous and properly-dated general environmental framework, improving existing knowledge. Finally, to further explore the problem, an innovative procedure to estimate prey abundance, ecology and human behaviour, involving the estimation of the ecosystem carrying capacity, will be developed. This multidisciplinary and novel approach will provide, for the first time, accurate answers to questions concerning a) which particular subsistence patterns (if any) favoured AMH over Neanderthals while coping with the changing environment and b) the extent to which climatic oscillations affected Neanderthal extinction. In this, it will be of relevance to the study of Prehistory on a pan-European scale.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym TRADITION
Project Long-term coastal adaptation, food security and poverty alleviation in Latin America
Researcher (PI) Andre Carlo COLONESE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2018-COG
Summary TRADITION aims to understand the long-term trajectory of human interaction with coastal resources and its legacy to present day small-scale fisheries in Latin America. Founded on traditional knowledge rooted in the past, small-scale fisheries are a crucial source of food and livelihood for millions of people worldwide, and play a pivotal role in poverty eradication in developing countries. A thorough recognition of the cultural and socio-economic significance of Latin American fisheries requires a temporal component that only archaeology and history can provide. TRADITION will investigate a 4000-year record of coastal exploitation in one of the world's most threatened tropical environments: the Atlantic forest of Brazil. We will draw together archaeological, palaeoecological, historical and ethnographic records to address fundamental questions that impinge upon our current understanding of the development of small-scale fisheries in this region. How did coastal economies adapt to the spread of agriculture? What was the impact of past climate and environmental changes on coastal populations? What was the impact of European colonisation of the Americas on the development of small-scale fisheries? What was the role of historical institutions and regulations in the negotiation between traditional and modern practices in small-scale fisheries? How have the historical practices and events shaped current small-scale coastal communities, and can this knowledge benefit current management strategies. The answers will help us understand how coastal economies responded to unprecedented societal and environmental changes by adapting their subsistence practices, technology and culture, while contributing to the foundation of coastal societies in Latin America.
Summary
TRADITION aims to understand the long-term trajectory of human interaction with coastal resources and its legacy to present day small-scale fisheries in Latin America. Founded on traditional knowledge rooted in the past, small-scale fisheries are a crucial source of food and livelihood for millions of people worldwide, and play a pivotal role in poverty eradication in developing countries. A thorough recognition of the cultural and socio-economic significance of Latin American fisheries requires a temporal component that only archaeology and history can provide. TRADITION will investigate a 4000-year record of coastal exploitation in one of the world's most threatened tropical environments: the Atlantic forest of Brazil. We will draw together archaeological, palaeoecological, historical and ethnographic records to address fundamental questions that impinge upon our current understanding of the development of small-scale fisheries in this region. How did coastal economies adapt to the spread of agriculture? What was the impact of past climate and environmental changes on coastal populations? What was the impact of European colonisation of the Americas on the development of small-scale fisheries? What was the role of historical institutions and regulations in the negotiation between traditional and modern practices in small-scale fisheries? How have the historical practices and events shaped current small-scale coastal communities, and can this knowledge benefit current management strategies. The answers will help us understand how coastal economies responded to unprecedented societal and environmental changes by adapting their subsistence practices, technology and culture, while contributing to the foundation of coastal societies in Latin America.
Max ERC Funding
1 877 107 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym ViroPedTher
Project Oncolytic viruses for the treatment of pediatric brain tumors: An integrated clinical and lab approach
Researcher (PI) marta ALONSO-ROLDAN
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE NAVARRA
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), LS7, ERC-2018-COG
Summary The overreaching goal of my lab is to improve the prognosis of patients with high-risk pediatric brain tumors. To this end, I propose to integrate clinical and lab-based research to develop tumor-targeted oncolytic adenoviruses with the capacity to elicit a therapeutic immune response in those tumors. Our research will use novel and relevant models to accomplish the experimental aims. We have previously worked with Delta-24-RGD (DNX-2401) a replication-competent adenovirus that has been translated to the clinical scenario. In 2017, the first clinical trial phase I with DNX-2401 for newly diagnosed Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPG; a lethal pediatric brain tumor) opened propelled by my team. Preliminary results from the first trials revealed that the intratumoral injection of the virus instigated an initial phase of oncolysis followed by a delayed inflammatory response that ultimately resulted in complete regression in a subset of the patients without associated toxicities. I hypothesized that enhancement of the immune component of the DNX-2401-based therapy will result in the complete regression of the vast majority of pediatric brain tumors. In our specific approach, we propose to understand the immune microenvironment of DIPGs and the response to viral therapy in the context of the trial. Moreover, that knowledge will leverage the design of Delta-24-based adenoviruses to recruit lymphocytes to the tumor with the competence of different type of ligands to activate the tumor infiltrating lymphocytes. I expect that this combinatorial innovative treatment will efficiently challenge the profound and inherent tumor immunosuppression and, in turn, will elicit a robust anti-tumor immune response resulting in the significant improvement of the prognosis and quality of life of patients with pediatric brain tumors. This project has the potential to produce a vertical advance in the field of pediatric oncology.
Summary
The overreaching goal of my lab is to improve the prognosis of patients with high-risk pediatric brain tumors. To this end, I propose to integrate clinical and lab-based research to develop tumor-targeted oncolytic adenoviruses with the capacity to elicit a therapeutic immune response in those tumors. Our research will use novel and relevant models to accomplish the experimental aims. We have previously worked with Delta-24-RGD (DNX-2401) a replication-competent adenovirus that has been translated to the clinical scenario. In 2017, the first clinical trial phase I with DNX-2401 for newly diagnosed Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPG; a lethal pediatric brain tumor) opened propelled by my team. Preliminary results from the first trials revealed that the intratumoral injection of the virus instigated an initial phase of oncolysis followed by a delayed inflammatory response that ultimately resulted in complete regression in a subset of the patients without associated toxicities. I hypothesized that enhancement of the immune component of the DNX-2401-based therapy will result in the complete regression of the vast majority of pediatric brain tumors. In our specific approach, we propose to understand the immune microenvironment of DIPGs and the response to viral therapy in the context of the trial. Moreover, that knowledge will leverage the design of Delta-24-based adenoviruses to recruit lymphocytes to the tumor with the competence of different type of ligands to activate the tumor infiltrating lymphocytes. I expect that this combinatorial innovative treatment will efficiently challenge the profound and inherent tumor immunosuppression and, in turn, will elicit a robust anti-tumor immune response resulting in the significant improvement of the prognosis and quality of life of patients with pediatric brain tumors. This project has the potential to produce a vertical advance in the field of pediatric oncology.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-03-01, End date: 2024-02-29
