Search for European Projects

Over 40 European Projects Found

Searched on 125080 European Projects

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RNAi-mediated Epigenetic Gene Regulation (REpiReg)

Start date: Jan 1, 2017, End date: Dec 31, 2021,

RNAi refers to the ability of small RNAs to silence expression of homologous sequences. A surprising link between epigenetics and RNAi was discovered more than a decade ago, and I was fortunate enough to be involved in this exciting field of research from the beginning. It is now well established that endogenous small RNAs have a direct impact on the genome in various organisms. Yet, the initiatio ...
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Writing and editing of memories from acquisition to long-term consolidation (MemoryDynamics)

Start date: Oct 1, 2016, End date: Sep 30, 2021,

Nervous systems produce adaptive behavior, arguably their most important function, through learning and memory. Memories ensure that what is learned will be available for later retrieval. Upon the initial learning process, synaptic plasticity important for memory consolidation is triggered within minutes, but whether, and in which form memories will be retained more permanently can be influenced b ...
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Signal Transduction and Epigenetic Mechanisms of Breast Cell Plasticity and Cancer (STEM-BCPC)

Start date: Oct 1, 2016, End date: Sep 30, 2021,

Breast cancer is diagnosed in ~1.4 million women worldwide and ~500,000 lives are lost to the disease annually. Patients may do well after surgery and initial treatment, but drug resistant and fatal metastases often develop. Improved treatment options are urgently needed. The connecting thread of this project is the identification of epigenetic drivers of breast cell fate, tumor heterogeneity and ...
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 2

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Control of Action Diversification by Descending Motor CircuitsControl of action diversification by descending motor circuits (Descent)

Start date: Sep 1, 2016, End date: Aug 31, 2021,

Movement is the behavioral output of the nervous system. Animals carry out an enormous repertoire of distinct actions, spanning from seemingly simple repetitive tasks like walking to much more complex movements such as forelimb manipulation tasks. An important question is how neuronal circuits are organized and function to choose, maintain, adjust and terminate these many distinct motor behaviors. ...
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Transcriptional and Epigenetic Regulation of Totipotency in Mouse Early Embryos. (Totipotency)

Start date: Aug 1, 2016, End date: Jul 31, 2021,

In mammals, fusion of two highly differentiated gametes gives rise to a totipotent zygote capable of developing into a whole organism. It coincides with translation and degradation of maternally provided transcripts, initiation of global transcription called zygotic genome activation (ZGA), and “epigenetic reprogramming” of germline chromatin states into an embryonic state. The molecular mechanism ...
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Amygdala Circuits for Appetitive Conditioning (Amygdala Circuits)

Start date: Jan 1, 2016, End date: Dec 31, 2020,

The project outlined here addresses the fundamental question how the brain encodes and controls behavior. While we have a reasonable understanding of the role of entire brain areas in such processes, and of mechanisms at the molecular and synaptic levels, there is a big gap in our knowledge of how behavior is controlled at the level of defined neuronal circuits.In natural environments, chances for ...
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The molecular basis of CULLIN E3 ligase regulation by the COP9 signalosome (CsnCRL)

Start date: Jan 1, 2016, End date: Dec 31, 2020,

Specificity in the ubiquitin-proteasome system is largely conferred by ubiquitin E3 ligases (E3s). Cullin-RING ligases (CRLs), constituting ~30% of all E3s in humans, mediate the ubiquitination of ~20% of the proteins degraded by the proteasome. CRLs are divided into seven families based on their cullin constituent. Each cullin binds a RING domain protein, and a vast repertoire of adaptor/substra ...
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Readout of DNA methylation (ReaDMe)

Start date: Jan 1, 2016, End date: Dec 31, 2020,

DNA and chromatin modifications are essential for proper control of gene expression during development. How these marks alter transcriptional programs and modulate binding patterns of sequence specific transcription factors (TF) remains poorly understood. This currently limits our interpretation of epigenomic maps towards their incorporation into predictive models of gene regulation.ReaDMe has the ...
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The interpretation of retinal activity by the visual thalamus. (RETMUS)

Start date: Nov 1, 2015, End date: Oct 31, 2020,

Sensory systems of the brain inform cortical centers about the outside world via the thalamus. Despite its central location between the sensory periphery and the primary sensory cortex, the functional role of the thalamus in sensory processing is still largely unknown. Understanding the role of thalamic circuits and their modulation by other brain areas is important for several reasons. First, in ...
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Circuit analysis of thalamic visual processing and its modulation by long-range projections (Thalamic Circuits)

Start date: Sep 1, 2017, End date: Aug 31, 2019,

The thalamus, whose anatomical history goes back two millenia, has long been recognized as the master relay for sensory information propagating to cortex and consciousness. Yet, it is indisputable that thalamic nuclei are much more than simple relays but integrate different sensory modalities, bottom-up as well as top-down information. One elementary form of top-down modulation is attention, which ...
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Transcription factor binding as a function of chromatin (TFtoChromatin)

Start date: Aug 1, 2017, End date: Jul 31, 2019,

How the genomic blueprint of an organism is translated into cellular phenotype is a fundamental question in modern biology. The instructions need to be specifically regulated for cells to function. The regulation of the readout of this information is not entirely written in the DNA sequence but also requires epigenetic directives like DNA and histone modifications.The maintenance of cellular state ...
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Leading Innovative measures to reach gender Balance in Research Activities (LIBRA)

Start date: Oct 1, 2015, End date: Mar 31, 2019,

The main goals of LIBRA are to implement innovative Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) that will empower women researchers to achieve successful careers in science, remove gender barriers and biases at an institutional level, and raise awareness of gender aspects in the experimental design of pre-clinical research projects. To achieve these goals we will: 1) conduct an initial external assessment of eac ...
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Studying the role of the retrosplenial cortex in flexible learning (REFLEX)

Start date: Sep 1, 2016, End date: Aug 31, 2018,

An emerging view of cortical area function posits that instead of primarily accounting for sensory processing and motor control, cortical areas might mediate flexible handling of sensory information and motor planning through learning and memory. In this project I propose to investigate this notion focusing on the function of retrosplenial cortex (RSC), a large, poorly understood and highly interc ...
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Extracellular brain proteolysis in neuronal plasticity and neuropsychiatric disorders (EXTRABRAIN)

Start date: Sep 1, 2013, End date: Aug 31, 2017,

Brain disorders comprise a major burden for the society. Recent analyses of the neuropsychiatric disease-related gene polymorphisms as well as genomics and proteomics have identified the components of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and the cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) in the brain as pivotal for those diseases. The ECM/CAMs span the synaptic cleft and regulate the synaptic dynamics. Furthermore, ...
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Characterization of nuclear SHP2 function in breast cancer progression and metastasis (SHP2N)

Start date: Mar 1, 2015, End date: Jul 2, 2017,

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women with ~1.1 million worldwide cases. Despite intense study, in a significant fraction of women, tumor progression and disease relapse is inevitable underscoring a crucial gap in our understanding of these important hallmarks. Currently, little is known about the biochemical networks controlling these processes. The host lab has shown a f ...
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Dissecting the Mechanism of Nucleosome Retention in Mouse Spermatozoa (Nucleosome Retention)

Start date: Mar 1, 2015, End date: Jun 16, 2017,

Studies in mice and men suggest that changes in environmental conditions such as nutrition, exposure to environmental pollutants or parental care during early postnatal life can affect the development, physiology and fitness of offspring. The epigenetic mechanisms underlying the transmission of such traits over one or multiple generations are largely unknown but DNA methylation, RNA and nucleosome ...
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Functional organization of heterochromatin at the nuclear periphery in cell differentiation (CHROMO-ANCHORING)

Start date: Jan 1, 2015, End date: May 6, 2017,

Co-ordinating the patterns of gene expression that drive the development of a complex organism requires multiple layers of regulation, extending from sequence-based DNA-protein interactions to higher-order architecture of the genome.The spatial organization of chromatin within the nucleus is thought to reflect a functional compartmentalization that mirrors changes in cell fate. Recently, the signa ...
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Metabolic switch during mutant-PI3K-induced breast tumorigenesis and metastasis (METABBC)

Start date: Mar 1, 2015, End date: Feb 28, 2017,

Each year 1.1 million new cases of breast cancer occur among women worldwide and ~50% of the patients succumb to metastatic disease. Although the biology of metastasis has been intensively studied, the cellular and biochemical mechanisms orchestrating its steps remain largely elusive. In this proposal, I will study the metabolic rewiring accompanying breast tumorigenesis and metastasis. Switching ...
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RNAi-mediated genome regulation (RNAiGenReg)

Start date: Jan 1, 2012, End date: Dec 31, 2016,

RNA interference (RNAi) is a highly conserved, sequence-specific gene regulatory mechanism among eukaryotes. It is critical for a variety of important biological functions and is being pursued as a promising new tool for the treatment of a variety of human maladies. A surprising link between heterochromatin and the RNAi pathway was discovered a few years ago in fission yeast and plants, and simila ...
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 2

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Mapping the face in the somatosensory brainstem: genetic and activity-dependent mechanisms (TOPO_HOX)

Start date: Jan 1, 2015, End date: Dec 31, 2016,

"Somatosensory information from the physical world is accurately relayed from body surface receptors to brain cortex through topographic connectivity maps enabling to spatially locate and distinguish stimuli such as touch, temperature, proprioception (body position), and nociception (pain). This organization provides a somatosensory body-map representation in the brain exemplified by the concept o ...
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A BLUEPRINT of Haematopoietic Epigenomes (BLUEPRINT)

Start date: Oct 1, 2011, End date: Sep 30, 2016,

In response to the call for a high impact initiative on the human epigenome, the BLUEPRINT Consortium has been formed with the aim of generating at least 100 reference epigenomes and studying them to advance and exploit knowledge of the underlying biological processes and mechanisms in health and disease. BLUEPRINT will focus on distinct types of haematopoietic cells from healthy individuals and o ...
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Elucidating the enigmatic role of nuclear actin in genomic stability (NUCLEAR ACTIN)

Start date: May 1, 2014, End date: Aug 1, 2016,

Nuclear actin-related proteins (ARPs) are stoichiometric subunits of chromatin remodelers and specifically recognize and bind to (modified) histone proteins. In the case of the chromatin modifiers INO80, SWR1 and NuA4, canonical monomeric actin is also an important constituent of these large macromolecular complexes and actively takes part in the remodeling reaction. The main characteristic of act ...
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Epigenetics towards systems biology (EPIGENESYS)

Start date: Oct 1, 2010, End date: Mar 31, 2016,

The ‘EpiGeneSys’ Network of Excellence aims to enable European epigenetics research to enter the arena of systems biology, a new step forward with major implications for human health. Many diseases, not explained solely by gene mutation, have rather been associated with epigenetic disorders. Following the identification of key epigenetic regulators, a move towards a systems biology approach is nee ...
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Functional analysis of inhibitory microcircuit in zebrafish olfactory forebrain - by combining viral tracing of synaptically connected microcircuits with neuronal activity measurements (OC MICROCIRCUIT)

Start date: Mar 1, 2014, End date: Feb 29, 2016,

Interneurons in olfactory cortex, central importance for the function of cortical circuits, comprise a wide range of different cell types that may be involved in different microcircuits and computations. However, the fine architecture of synaptic microcircuits which support computational processing in cortex is still poorly understood. The aim of this project is to address connectivities and funct ...
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Roles of SHP2 and other protein tyrosine phosphatases in metastatic breast cancer (PTPSMETBC)

Start date: Mar 1, 2014, End date: Feb 29, 2016,

Breast cancer (BC) ranks second among cancer deaths in women. Each year, this disease is diagnosed in over one million women worldwide. Although progress has been made, we still do not understand the biology of BC at a level that would explain why certain patients react well to therapy, whereas for others the disease is recurrent, with an inexorable downhill course. This proposal focuses on the ro ...
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Neuronal circuits controlling motor behavior (Motor Circuits)

Start date: Mar 1, 2010, End date: Feb 29, 2016,

How does the assembly of neuronal circuits contribute to the emergence of function controlling dedicated animal behaviors? Finding answers to this question requires a deep understanding of the connectivity map of neuronal circuits controlling a behavior as well as the mechanisms involved in the generation of these specific circuit maps. In the project outlined here, I propose the analysis of the n ...
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 2

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The molecular basis of Cockayne Syndrome (MOBA-CS)

Start date: Jan 1, 2011, End date: Dec 31, 2015,

Cockayne syndrome is a congenital disease with impaired DNA repair in actively transcribed genes. Affected children show developmental abnormalities and signs of premature aging. Cockayne syndrome is caused by mutations in the Cockayne syndrome complementation group A (CSA) and B (CSB) genes. While CSB encodes a SWI/SNF ATPase that likely assists the stalled RNA polymerase in overcoming lesions, C ...
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 2

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Neural circuit function in the retina of mice and humans (CELLTYPESANDCIRCUITS)

Start date: Nov 1, 2010, End date: Oct 31, 2015,

The mammalian brain is assembled from thousands of neuronal cell types that are organized into distinct circuits to perform behaviourally relevant computations. To gain mechanistic insights about brain function and to treat specific diseases of the nervous system it is crucial to understand what these local circuits are computing and how they achieve these computations. By examining the structure ...
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 2

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Dopaminergic modulation of neuronal circuit function in the zebrafish olfactory system (ZF Optomodulomics)

Start date: Aug 1, 2013, End date: Jul 31, 2015,

Neuromodulatory neurons project to a wide range of target areas and adjust neuronal circuit function by modifying neuronal properties, synaptic transmission, and neuronal plasticity. Neuromodulators such as dopamine are implicated in various neurological disorders such as Schizophrenia and addiction. Despite detailed insights into the molecular and cellular actions of neuromodulators, their concer ...
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 2

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The role of microRNAs in the Retinal Bipolar Cell (RBC miRNA)

Start date: Feb 1, 2013, End date: Jun 6, 2015,

Studies conducted at the Friedrich Meischer Institute (FMI) in Basel have focused on the roles of miRNAs specific to the retina. They have recently shown that absence of functional miRNA expression has severe consequences on mature cone photoreceptors of the mouse retina; a selective and dramatic reduction of cone-specific gene expression arises with the cone-specific loss of regulation by miRNAs ...
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Seeing Better with Hybrid BSI Spatio-Temporal Silicon Retina (SeeBetter)

Start date: Feb 1, 2011, End date: Apr 30, 2015,

Conventional image sensors are fundamentally limited by comparison with biological retinas, because they produce redundant sequences of images at a limited frame rate. By contrast neuromorphic 'silicon retina' vision sensors mimic the biological retina's information processing capability by computing the salient spatial and temporal aspects of the visual input, and encoding this information in a ...
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Mechanisms of microRNA biogenesis and turnover (miRTurn)

Start date: May 1, 2010, End date: Apr 30, 2015,

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a novel class of genes, accounting for >1% of genes in a typical animal genome. They constitute an important layer of gene regulation that affects diverse processes such as cell differentiation, apoptosis, and metabolism. Despite such critical roles, deciphering the mechanism of action of miRNAs has been difficult, leading to multiple, partially contradictory, models of m ...
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 2

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The role of protein-tyrosine phosphatases in breast development and cancer (PTPSBDC)

Start date: Feb 1, 2010, End date: Jan 31, 2015,

Each year 1.1 million new cases of breast cancer will occur among women worldwide and 400,000 women will die from this disease. Although progress has been made in understanding breast tumor biology, most of the relevant molecules and pathways remain undefined. Their delineation is critical to a rational approach to breast cancer therapy. This proposal focuses on the role of the under-explored fami ...
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 2

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Paving the Way for Future Emerging DNA-based Technologies: Computer-Aided Design and Manufacturing of DNA libraries (CADMAD)

Start date: Feb 1, 2011, End date: Oct 31, 2014,

CADMAD aims to make a foundational breakthrough in the way computers and computer-aided design and manufacturing is employed in DNA-based research and development, making a radically new use of information technologies in biology and biotechnology.Biology and biotechnology research involves "DNA programming", which is akin to computer programming. Researchers modify and combine DNA of interest in ...
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European Consortium on Synaptic Protein Networks in Neurological and Psychiatric Diseases (EUROSPIN)

Start date: Jan 1, 2010, End date: Jun 30, 2014,

"Signalling at nerve cell synapses - a key determinant of all aspects of brain function - depends on the function of hundreds of synaptic proteins and their interactions. Numerous recent studies showed that a wide range of neurological and psychiatric diseases are 'synaptopathies' whose onset and progression are due to mutations of synaptic proteins and subsequent synaptic dysfunctions. EUROSPIN w ...
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Euro-BioImaging - Research infrastructure for imaging technologies in biological and biomedical sciences (Euro-BioImaging)

Start date: Dec 1, 2010, End date: May 31, 2014,

Euro-BioImaging brings together imaging technologies stretching from basic biological imaging with advanced light microscopy, in vivo molecular imaging of single cells to animal models up to the clinical and epidemiological level of medical imaging of humans and populations. Euro-BioImaging, in close consultation with its stakeholders, will address the imaging requirements of both biological and m ...
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The subnuclear relocation of promoters during development, and following stress induction in C. elegans (WormProLoc)

Start date: Jan 1, 2012, End date: May 7, 2014,

During development and cellular differentiation, cells acquire specific fates by regulating spatially and temporally the expression of certain groups of genes. This correlates with drastic changes in the 3D organization of the genome. A recent discovery from the Gasser lab has demonstrated that in differentiated cells of C. elegans, tissue-specific promoters relocate inward the 3D nuclear space wh ...
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Optogenetic Neural stimulation platform (OptoNeuro)

Start date: Oct 1, 2010, End date: Mar 31, 2014,

The 2003 breakthrough discovery of a nanoscale optically active cation channel, channelrhodopsin-2, made it possible for the first time, to genetically re-engineer neuron cells to be photosensitive. It became possible to stimulate or inhibit individual action potentials at will, without further chemical modification. The capabilities have been demonstrated in a number of recent high profile journa ...
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Fighting blindness of Usher syndrome: diagnosis, pathogenesis and retinal treatment (TreatRetUsher) (TREATRUSH)

Start date: Feb 1, 2010, End date: Jan 31, 2014,

Usher syndrome (USH) is the most frequent hereditary cause of deafness associated to blindness. It is a rare disease, affecting 1 in every 10.000 individuals, with an autosomal recessive monogenic inheritance. Deafness is congenital while the retinitis pigmentosa is not detected before the age of 8 to 10. These patients suffer from a dreadful disability as their two major senses are impaired. Impo ...
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Epigenetic determinants of the genome that govern cellular plasticity (EPIGEPLAS)

Start date: Oct 1, 2008, End date: Sep 30, 2013,

Differentiation events in mammalian development involve stable resetting of transcriptional programs, which entails changes in the epigenetic state of target sequences defined by modifications of DNA and bound nucleosomes. These recently identified epigenetic layers modulate DNA accessibility in a positive and negative manner and thus could make genetic readouts context-dependent and dynamic. The ...
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