Challenges. The incidence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) increases after infections, but causal mechanisms are not understood yet. Pneumonia, which can be acquired in the community (such as flu and COVID-19) or during hospitalization, is a leading cause of infectious diseases. The main idea of the Homi-lung project is to investigate the causal relationship between CVD progression and the immune and microbiome alterations observed after pneumonia. Objectives. During the Homi-lung project, we aim to i) define the medical and societal, and patient needs; ii) increase medical doctor’s knowledge of the physiological processes linking pneumonia and CVD; iii) enable early identification of patients at risk of CVD progression; and iv) preclinically develop new treatments. Implementation. The Homi-lung project will address this challenge by comparing CVD rates between patients cured of pneumonia and matched patients who had not developed pneumonia during a prospective 3-year follow-up. We will analyze longitudinal samples collected in these populations and develop new algorithms by artificial intelligence to associate host-microbiome interactions with CVD progression. We will also demonstrate the causal link between CVD progression and host-microbiome interactions in preclinical pneumonia models. The interdisciplinary and ambitious Homi-lung project brings together 8 partners from 5 EU countries, with expertise in pneumonia, CVD, immunology, microbiome, and artificial intelligence and is uniquely placed to reach these objectives. Impacts. The project will provide clinicians with robust evidence contributing to identifying patients at risk of CVD after pneumonia. By developing new biomarkers and preclinical validating treatments to TRL4, the project will contribute to improving patients’ recovery and reducing the burden of infections. This project, particularly timely after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, will also increase European preparedness for the next pandemic.

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) is one of the major analytical methods applied in all chemical, physical, biological, and medical sciences. NMR's leading role stems from its analytical power in terms of molecular resolution, quantification, reproducibility, and broad application envelope. It requires sophisticated and expensive equipment, operated by scientists with diverse background ranging from service-oriented researchers to highly trained experts. The aggregated capital investment in European NMR facilities, operating at local, national, and European level, exceeds 500 Million Euro. The NMR community maintains excellent networking between sites and serves a broad community within the focal points of European research interests. With the application Remote-NMR (R-NMR), we wish to establish remote access for all NMR users throughout Europe. While routine NMR applications are routine in every university and in industry, more specialized applications are performed in dedicated research infrastructures offering access and help to local and outside users. During the pandemic, NMR infrastructures slowed down their operations to variable degrees, and particularly access by remote users dropped significantly, raising the need to establish standardized procedures for remote access to improve their resilience to adverse external factors. In this proposal an inclusive network of NMR-infrastructures throughout Europe will be established, surveying if and how remote access can be made possible according to the needs of the community, and implementing GDPR at facilities and sample shipment procedures. Routines for remote NMR-usage will be established, including dissemination of research and teaching protocols, archiving of data, and sample shipment. The overall CO2 footprint of the operation of the consortium will be evaluated, as well as its reduction due to the reduction of travels.

There is growing evidence that heavy organic molecules are a major component of the outer solar system bodies such as icy moons, comets, and Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). Density profiles inferred from measurements of space missions require a low-density component in the core of the largest objects such as Ganymede and Titan. These observations suggest that a previously overlooked low-density component, identified as carbonaceous organic matter (COM), is one of the three main components, in addition to ice and rocks, building planetary bodies that formed beyond the ice line. However, there is a dearth of laboratory experiments and numerical simulations exploring the interaction of the heavy organic molecules constituting the COM with both the ice component (mainly H2O ices) and the rocky component (hydrated silicates, oxides and sulphides) at pressures relevant to icy moons. Observations from space missions also demonstrated that most icy moons are differentiated into a refractory core and an outer hydrosphere that includes a liquid layer (deep ocean), thus the name of ocean worlds. This raises the questions of the emergence of life at the ocean/core interface and of the habitability of ocean worlds. How does the presence of COM affect the thermal and chemical evolution of ocean worlds? The interaction between COM, ice and rocks is therefore essential for understanding the evolution of ocean worlds and for assessing their habitability potential. First, this project conducts laboratory experiments using diamond anvil cells (DAC) coupled with in situ Raman spectroscopy, a combination that is best suited for this kind of investigation. Second, it develops a thermochemical evolution model that can handle the chemical reactions and the thermo-chemical properties of the three components. Third, it applies the results to the evolution of ocean worlds in our solar system and beyond.

Within European coastal zones, intertidal areas consisting of soft sediment emerging during each low tide, form complex seascapes covering more than 10 000 km2 along the 35 000 km of the tidal coastline. These habitats provide multiple ecosystem services with great potential to cope with the biodiversity-climate crisis by contributing to carbon neutrality, climate resilience and biodiversity support. Nevertheless, these seascapes continue to be fragmented and threatened, resulting in a decrease of their provision of services. Rewilding, a nature-based solution, is a new concept for seascapes to reverse this situation and to “let (again) Nature do the job” ensuring climate resilience, biodiversity support and societal benefit of the future European shoreline. Within a network of 10 demonstrators and 25 partners from 11 European states, including 8 with a tidal coast, plus the UK, Canada and the USA, REWRITE will bring an interdisciplinary consortium of natural and coastal environment and social sciences and humanities experts to address the current ecological and social challenges regarding intertidal seascape rewilding. Expanding innovative approaches, REWRITE will focus on the climate-biodiversity-society nexus, to reach 4 specific objectives: -identify environmental, social and cultural drivers and barrier parameters to rewild intertidal sediment seascapes within the context of climate change; -strongly engage stakeholders to achieve a step-change in their appreciation of the natural function of these seascapes and integrate their interests within a co-design of scenario for future European shoreline; -estimate and upscale trajectories of intertidal seascapes from the local to the European level, following rewilding (passive), restoring (active), “business as usual” or “do nothing” options; -establish tools and methods for successful rewilding to ensure a high ecological and societal co-benefit/low-cost ratio for a climate-neutral and resilient European shoreline.

Marine biodiversity sustains ecosystem services for planetary and human health. Recent surveys of marine ecosystems have unveiled our ignorance of the richness and functioning of marine life, which is changing in the Anthropocene at a faster pace than terrestrial life. BIOcean5D unites major European centers in molecular/cell biology (EMBL), marine biology (EMBRC), and sequencing (Genoscope), together with 26 partners from 11 countries, to build a unique suite of technologies, protocols, and models allowing holistic re-exploration of marine biodiversity, from viruses to mammals, from genomes to holobionts, across multiple spatial and temporal scales stretching from pre-industrial to today. A focus is to understand pan-European biodiversity land-to-sea gradients and ecosystem services, including marine exposomes, notably with an expedition (TREC, 2023/24) that will deploy mobile labs, research vessels including the Tara schooner, and innovative citizen science tools, across 21 coastal countries and 35 marine labs from the Mediterranean to Arctic seas. New data will be harmonized with existing data into an open-access data hub, leveraging international infrastructures, and generating transformative, cross-technologies/cross-scales standard marine biodiversity knowledge at the socio-ecosystem level. Knowledge will inform and constrain (i) new theories and models of marine biodiversity ecological and evolutionary dynamics and drivers, at both taxonomic and functional scales, (ii) a portfolio of novel holistic indicators of marine ecosystem health, (iii) innovative methods and protocols for economic and legal valuations of marine biodiversity and services integrating the dynamical and functional complexity of marine life. BIOcean5D will create a unique opportunity to bridge molecular/subcellular biology to organismal biology, theoretical ecology and econometrics, and marine complex systems to social sciences, toward the sustainable preservation of our oceans and seas.