Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

European Initiatives

FP7 & H2020 Projects

EvoEvo

• Title: Evolution of Evolution

• Programm: FP7

• Duration: November 2013 - October 2016

• Coordinator: Inria

• Partners:

  • Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas, Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (Spain)

  • LIRIS, Institut National des Sciences Appliquees de Lyon (France)

  • LIRIS, Universite Lyon 1 Claude Bernard (France)

  • LAPM, Universite Joseph Fourier Grenoble 1 (France)

  • Bioinformatics and Theoretical Biology, Universiteit Utrecht (Netherlands)

  • Computer science department, University of York (United Kingdom)

• Inria contact: Guillaume Beslon

• Evolution is the major source of complexity on Earth, at the origin of all the species we can observe, interact with or breed. On a smaller scale, evolution is at the heart of the adaptation process for many species, in particular micro-organisms (e.g. bacteria, viruses...). Microbial evolution results in the emergence of the species itself, and it also contributes to the organisms' adaptation to perturbations or environmental changes. These organisms are not only organised by evolution, they are also organised to evolve. The EvoEvo project will develop new evolutionary approaches in information science and will produce algorithms based on the latest understanding of molecular and evolutionary biology. Our ultimate goal is to address open-ended problems, where the specifications are either unknown or too complicated to express, and to produce software able to operate in unpredictable, varying conditions. We will start from experimental observations of micro-organism evolution, and abstract this to reproduce EvoEvo, in biological models, in computational models, and in application software. Our aim is to observe EvoEvo in action, to model EvoEvo, to understand EvoEvo and, ultimately, to implement and exploit EvoEvo in software and computational systems. The EvoEvo project will have impact in ICT, through the development of new technologies. It will also have impact in biology and public health, by providing a better understanding of micro-organism adaptation (such as the emergence of new pathogens or the development of antibiotic resistances).

Neuron-Astro-Nets

• Title: Neuron-Astro-Nets

• Programm: FP7 Marie-Curie International Outgoing Fellowship (IOF)

• Duration: 2013-2017

• Partners: Inria Grenoble-Rhone-Alpes; Dept Statistics and Neurobiology, University of Chicago, USA (N. Brunel)

• Inria contact: H. Berry

• This project aims at developing a new model of synaptic plasticity that takes into account astrocyte signaling, its extension to astrocytes-synapse biochemical interactions in ensembles of synapses enwrapped by the same astrocyte and, eventually, to the firing of a single neuron or networks. The project funds Maurizio De Pittá’s postdoc for 4 years (June 2013- May 2017). M. De Pittá́ spent two years in N. Brunel’s group in Chicago (06/2014-05/2016) then one year back in Beagle in Lyon (06/2016-05/2017).