Project acronym BICAEHFID
Project Biogeographic and cultural adaptations of early humans during the first intercontinental dispersals
Researcher (PI) Ignacio DE LA TORRE
Host Institution (HI) AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Country Spain
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary Our understanding of the emergence and dispersal of the earliest tool-making hominins has been revolutionised in the last decade, with sites in eastern Africa and China pushing both events more than half a million years earlier than previously thought. Traditional models linking biological speciation, cultural innovation and migration events with climatic pulses have remained theoretical, and recent discoveries suggest that the picture of the earliest human colonization across the Old World is far more complex, demanding heuristic approaches to understand the biogeography and adaptive behaviours of early humans.
This project will be the first substantive attempt to produce a global synthesis of earliest human occupation dynamics by comparing the world’s longest sequences of early archaeological sites, namely eastern Africa and China. Our objective is to understand the alternative evolutionary trajectories adopted by hominins that shared an overarching biological and cultural background, but who faced different climatic and biogeographic challenges and opportunities.
The ambition of our global-scale objectives is accompanied by the unmatched quality of our datasets and the ground-breaking perspective we will adopt in their study. Fieldwork in the two most renowned sequences in each region alongside a primary study of additional top-quality assemblages in both subcontinents, will be combined with extensive metadata sets to produce comprehensive views of temporal trends and paleoecological patterns. Our state-of-the-art methodological sets (which combine an exceptionally diverse range of disciplines from geochemistry to niche modelling) and ground-breaking analytical perspective (which considers data from micro-stratigraphy to satellite imaging) will enable us to develop new approaches to challenge established paradigms and produce a new picture of the biogeographic adaptations of early stone-tool makers.
Summary
Our understanding of the emergence and dispersal of the earliest tool-making hominins has been revolutionised in the last decade, with sites in eastern Africa and China pushing both events more than half a million years earlier than previously thought. Traditional models linking biological speciation, cultural innovation and migration events with climatic pulses have remained theoretical, and recent discoveries suggest that the picture of the earliest human colonization across the Old World is far more complex, demanding heuristic approaches to understand the biogeography and adaptive behaviours of early humans.
This project will be the first substantive attempt to produce a global synthesis of earliest human occupation dynamics by comparing the world’s longest sequences of early archaeological sites, namely eastern Africa and China. Our objective is to understand the alternative evolutionary trajectories adopted by hominins that shared an overarching biological and cultural background, but who faced different climatic and biogeographic challenges and opportunities.
The ambition of our global-scale objectives is accompanied by the unmatched quality of our datasets and the ground-breaking perspective we will adopt in their study. Fieldwork in the two most renowned sequences in each region alongside a primary study of additional top-quality assemblages in both subcontinents, will be combined with extensive metadata sets to produce comprehensive views of temporal trends and paleoecological patterns. Our state-of-the-art methodological sets (which combine an exceptionally diverse range of disciplines from geochemistry to niche modelling) and ground-breaking analytical perspective (which considers data from micro-stratigraphy to satellite imaging) will enable us to develop new approaches to challenge established paradigms and produce a new picture of the biogeographic adaptations of early stone-tool makers.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 996 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30
Project acronym CDAC
Project "The role of consciousness in adaptive behavior: A combined empirical, computational and robot based approach"
Researcher (PI) Paulus Franciscus Maria Joseph Verschure
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA
Country Spain
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary "Understanding the nature of consciousness is one of the grand outstanding scientific challenges and two of its features stand out: consciousness is defined as the construction of one coherent scene but this scene is experienced with a delay relative to the action of the agent and not necessarily the cause of actions and thoughts. Did evolution render solutions to the challenge of survival that includes epiphenomenal processes? The Conscious Distributed Adaptive Control (CDAC) project aims at resolving this paradox by using a multi-disciplinary approach to show the functional role of consciousness in adaptive behaviour, to identify its underlying neuronal principles and to construct a neuromorphic robot based real-time conscious architecture. CDAC proposes that the shift from surviving in a physical world to one that is dominated by intentional agents requires radically different control architectures combining parallel and distributed control loops to assure real-time operation together with a second level of control that assures coherence through sequential coherent representation of self and the task domain, i.e. consciousness. This conscious scene is driving dedicated credit assignment and planning beyond the immediately given information. CDAC advances a comprehensive framework progressing beyond the state of the art and will be realized using system level models of a conscious architecture, detailed computational studies of its underlying neuronal substrate focusing, empirical validation with a humanoid robot and stroke patients and the advancement of beyond state of the art tools appropriate to the complexity of its objectives. The CDAC project directly addresses one of the main outstanding questions in science: the function and genesis of consciousness and will advance our understanding of mind and brain, provide radically new neurorehabilitation technologies and contribute to realizing a new generation of robots with advanced social competence."
Summary
"Understanding the nature of consciousness is one of the grand outstanding scientific challenges and two of its features stand out: consciousness is defined as the construction of one coherent scene but this scene is experienced with a delay relative to the action of the agent and not necessarily the cause of actions and thoughts. Did evolution render solutions to the challenge of survival that includes epiphenomenal processes? The Conscious Distributed Adaptive Control (CDAC) project aims at resolving this paradox by using a multi-disciplinary approach to show the functional role of consciousness in adaptive behaviour, to identify its underlying neuronal principles and to construct a neuromorphic robot based real-time conscious architecture. CDAC proposes that the shift from surviving in a physical world to one that is dominated by intentional agents requires radically different control architectures combining parallel and distributed control loops to assure real-time operation together with a second level of control that assures coherence through sequential coherent representation of self and the task domain, i.e. consciousness. This conscious scene is driving dedicated credit assignment and planning beyond the immediately given information. CDAC advances a comprehensive framework progressing beyond the state of the art and will be realized using system level models of a conscious architecture, detailed computational studies of its underlying neuronal substrate focusing, empirical validation with a humanoid robot and stroke patients and the advancement of beyond state of the art tools appropriate to the complexity of its objectives. The CDAC project directly addresses one of the main outstanding questions in science: the function and genesis of consciousness and will advance our understanding of mind and brain, provide radically new neurorehabilitation technologies and contribute to realizing a new generation of robots with advanced social competence."
Max ERC Funding
2 469 268 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-02-01, End date: 2019-01-31
Project acronym editCRC
Project A genome editing-based approach to study the stem cell hierarchy of human colorectal cancers
Researcher (PI) Eduardo Batlle Gomez
Host Institution (HI) FUNDACIO INSTITUT DE RECERCA BIOMEDICA (IRB BARCELONA)
Country Spain
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS4, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary A hallmark of cancer is tumor cell heterogeneity, which results from combinations of multiple genetic and epigenetic alterations within an individual tumor. In contrast, we have recently discovered that most human colorectal cancers (CRCs) are composed of mixtures of phenotypically distinct tumor cells organized into a stem cell hierarchy that displays a striking resemblance to the healthy colonic epithelium. We showed that long-term regeneration potential of tumor cells is largely influenced by the position that they occupy within the tumor's hierarchy. To analyze the organization of CRCs without the constraints imposed by tumor cell transplantation experiments, we have developed a method that allows for the first time tracking and manipulating the fate of specific cell populations in whole human tumors. This technology is based on editing the genomes of primary human CRCs cultured in the form of tumor organoids using Zinc-Finger Nucleases to knock-in either lineage tracing or cell ablation alleles in genes that define colorectal cancer stem cells (CRC-SCs) or differentiated-like tumor cells. Edited tumor organoids generate CRCs in mice that reproduce the tumor of origin while carrying the desired genetic modifications. This technological advance opens the gate to perform classical genetic and developmental analysis in human tumors. We will exploit this advantage to address fundamental questions about the cell heterogeneity and organization of human CRCs that cannot be tackled through currently existing experimental approaches such as: Are CRC-SCs the only tumor cell population with long term regenerating potential? Can we cure CRC with anti-CRC-SC specific therapies? Will tumor cell plasticity contribute to the regeneration of the CRC-SC pool after therapy? Do quiescent-SCs regenerate CRC tumors after standard chemotherapy? Can we identify these cells? How do common genetic alterations in CRC influence the CRC hierarchy? Do they affect the stem cell phenotype?
Summary
A hallmark of cancer is tumor cell heterogeneity, which results from combinations of multiple genetic and epigenetic alterations within an individual tumor. In contrast, we have recently discovered that most human colorectal cancers (CRCs) are composed of mixtures of phenotypically distinct tumor cells organized into a stem cell hierarchy that displays a striking resemblance to the healthy colonic epithelium. We showed that long-term regeneration potential of tumor cells is largely influenced by the position that they occupy within the tumor's hierarchy. To analyze the organization of CRCs without the constraints imposed by tumor cell transplantation experiments, we have developed a method that allows for the first time tracking and manipulating the fate of specific cell populations in whole human tumors. This technology is based on editing the genomes of primary human CRCs cultured in the form of tumor organoids using Zinc-Finger Nucleases to knock-in either lineage tracing or cell ablation alleles in genes that define colorectal cancer stem cells (CRC-SCs) or differentiated-like tumor cells. Edited tumor organoids generate CRCs in mice that reproduce the tumor of origin while carrying the desired genetic modifications. This technological advance opens the gate to perform classical genetic and developmental analysis in human tumors. We will exploit this advantage to address fundamental questions about the cell heterogeneity and organization of human CRCs that cannot be tackled through currently existing experimental approaches such as: Are CRC-SCs the only tumor cell population with long term regenerating potential? Can we cure CRC with anti-CRC-SC specific therapies? Will tumor cell plasticity contribute to the regeneration of the CRC-SC pool after therapy? Do quiescent-SCs regenerate CRC tumors after standard chemotherapy? Can we identify these cells? How do common genetic alterations in CRC influence the CRC hierarchy? Do they affect the stem cell phenotype?
Max ERC Funding
2 499 405 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-04-01, End date: 2019-03-31
Project acronym EPNET
Project Production and distribution of food during the Roman Empire: Economics and political dynamics
Researcher (PI) Jose Remesal RodrIguez
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary The project aims at detecting and defining the political and economic dynamics of the Roman Empire trade system by designing and implementing an experimental laboratory to explore different historical hypoteses through computer simulations. Empirical data will be used to correct and validate the results of the simulations and define rigourous and falsifiable models of ancient trade sytems.
The Roman Empire trade system is generally considered to be the first complex European trade network. Many theories and hypotheses about its organization have been proposed but no formal model has been put forward so far. We propose to study this system using complex network analysis, formal modelling and computer simulation. The different existing research hypotheses will be modelled in a formal framework that will be used for running computer simulations and create possible scenarios of the development of the trade network. The archaeological and historical datasets will offer the means for validation processes in order to verify the explanatory power of the different models and to choose the best-fitting representation of the investigated phenomena.
The project counts with one of the richest database for amphorae and epigraphy, one of the most precise archaeological and historical semantic markers available for the Roman Empire market. They provide information on geographical origin, the products transported and traded, economic transactions, as well as the social position and relationships between the traders.
The project will provide the research community with a powerful tool for the study and interpretation of past political and economic systems, which will benefit our understanding of long-term social trajectories. This will be achieved through an innovative methodology based on transdisciplinarity and therefore will constitute a groundbreaking in the field of historical studies.
Summary
The project aims at detecting and defining the political and economic dynamics of the Roman Empire trade system by designing and implementing an experimental laboratory to explore different historical hypoteses through computer simulations. Empirical data will be used to correct and validate the results of the simulations and define rigourous and falsifiable models of ancient trade sytems.
The Roman Empire trade system is generally considered to be the first complex European trade network. Many theories and hypotheses about its organization have been proposed but no formal model has been put forward so far. We propose to study this system using complex network analysis, formal modelling and computer simulation. The different existing research hypotheses will be modelled in a formal framework that will be used for running computer simulations and create possible scenarios of the development of the trade network. The archaeological and historical datasets will offer the means for validation processes in order to verify the explanatory power of the different models and to choose the best-fitting representation of the investigated phenomena.
The project counts with one of the richest database for amphorae and epigraphy, one of the most precise archaeological and historical semantic markers available for the Roman Empire market. They provide information on geographical origin, the products transported and traded, economic transactions, as well as the social position and relationships between the traders.
The project will provide the research community with a powerful tool for the study and interpretation of past political and economic systems, which will benefit our understanding of long-term social trajectories. This will be achieved through an innovative methodology based on transdisciplinarity and therefore will constitute a groundbreaking in the field of historical studies.
Max ERC Funding
2 432 056 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2019-02-28
