Objective
"My work concerns a critical question: How did the cellular mechanisms underpinning animal morphogenesis first evolve? While the first multicellular ancestors of modern animals have left limited fossil traces, insights can be gained by studying their closest living relatives: the choanoflagellates. This group of microeukaryotes has several features of high relevance to animal origins, including temporal cell differentiation, facultative multicellularity, and a metazoan-like ""developmental gene toolkit"". Importantly, they have become amenable to functional genetics in the past few years. We will study the molecular and cellular mechanisms of three morphogenetic processes in choanoflagellates: (1) the formation of the ""collar complex"", a ring of microvilli surrounding the flagellum, which represents an example of complex single-cell morphogenesis and has been central to hypotheses about animal origins; (2) the molecular control of the differentiation of choanoflagellates into amoeboid cells under confinement, which I recently discovered and whose mechanisms remain unknown; (3) the cellular basis of adhesion and inversion in sheet colonies of the multicellular species Choanoeca flexa which I recently co-discovered. These three processes will be characterized by multiomic approaches which will allow unbiased comparisons with the growing dataset of molecular atlases for animal cell types. We will perform knockout, chemical inhibition, and fluorescent tagging of candidate genes identified by omics and/or known to play important roles in animals, including structural genes (such as those encoding cytoskeletal and adhesion proteins) and components of signalling pathways. Results will be analyzed in a rigorous phylogenetic framework. This project has the potential to answer long-standing questions on the pre-metazoan function of developmental genes and to inform the mechanistic basis of the transition from cell shape to organism shape in both development and evolution."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- natural sciences biological sciences cell biology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
75724 Paris
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.