Project description
Unveiling the secret mechanisms of nature
To contrast epidemics, fight antibiotic resistance, and devise new therapies and biotechnologies, we must understand complex behaviours that interconnected natural systems are able to preserve with astounding robustness, despite huge uncertainties and variations in their many parameters. Funded by the European Research Council, the INSPIRE project aims to develop a framework to analyse and control complex, uncertain dynamical systems in biology and epidemiology, so as to unravel the root causes of their behaviour and identify the best targets for interventions aimed at inducing a desired outcome. A novel integration of methodologies will offer deeper insight into natural mechanisms and help us identify therapeutic targets for healing diseases, design biomolecular feedback systems with guaranteed properties, and predict and control epidemics.
Objective
Systems in nature are extremely robust, despite huge uncertainties and variability. Studying their nonlinear dynamic behaviour is challenging, due to their complexity and the many parameters at play, but crucial to understand important phenomena, such as cellular dynamics, onset of diseases, epidemic spreading.
Parameter-dependent simulations can predict the behaviour of natural systems case by case. Yet, the exact models and parameter values are poorly known, while qualitative behaviours are often preserved even with huge parameter variations, because they rely on the system interconnection structure. Parameter-free structural approaches can check whether a property is preserved for a whole family of uncertain systems exclusively due to its structure. However, when an expected property fails to hold structurally, novel approaches are needed to understand why, which system features prevent it, which key parameters must be finely tuned to enforce it.
INSPIRE will develop a unifying framework to analyse and control families of uncertain dynamical systems in biology and epidemiology, which integrates for the first time structural, robust and probabilistic methods, tailored to the peculiarities of natural systems.
The project will provide: i) methodologies to assess (practically) structural properties and unveil the mechanisms that enable/prevent a property, identifying the key parameters or motifs; ii) control paradigms that leverage such an insight to guarantee a desired global property through targeted local interventions; iii) scaling and aggregation approaches that exploit the properties of subsystems to mitigate computational complexity.
The project outcomes, a mathematical theory as well as algorithms to analyse and control complex uncertain systems in nature, will strongly support the analysis and design of biomolecular feedback systems with a desired behaviour, the identification of therapeutic targets, the prediction and control of epidemic phenomena.
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.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
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.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
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)
- Interconnections of nonlinear dynamical systems
- Structural analysis of dynamical networks
- Structural input-output influences
- Robustness analysis of biological systems
- Randomized algorithms for the analysis of uncertain systems
- Monotone systems and Positive-Impulse-Response systems
- Control-theoretic methods for systems biology
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-2022-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.
38122 Trento
Italy
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.