Multiple bacterial natural products including the pepteridine virulence factors and the therapeutically-relevant antibiotic virginiamycin M, are biosynthesized at the intersection between primary and specialized metabolism. In these cases, primary metabolic α-ketoacid dehydrogenase complexes (KADHs) provide essential acyl building blocks to multienzyme complexes of specialized metabolism, including modular polyketide synthases (PKSs) and nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs). More remarkably, in certain pathways, the KADH components are fully integrated into the PKS/NRPS megaenzymes. At present, nothing is known about the sequence, mechanistic and architectural adaptations that were required relative to the ancestral KADHs to afford such chimaeras – information which is necessary for creating novel types of hybrids in the laboratory by genetic engineering. In this context, the present German-French collaborative project aims to investigate this type of system in detail. Specifically, we will: (i) generate an exhaustive catalog of specialized metabolic pathways that incorporate KADH machinery using genome mining; (ii) structurally characterize the products of newly-identified systems by heterologous expression; (iii) use ancestral protein reconstruction to propose a reasonable evolutionary trajectory to present day KADH enzymes; (iv) deploy an integrative structural biology approach to elucidate key architectural features of multienzyme-integrated KADHs (i.e. oligomerization state, stoichiometry of KADH component binding, and interactions with partner domains within the multienzymes); and (v) exploit the obtained fundamental insights to genetically engineer biosynthetic systems, towards the goal of generating bespoke natural product analogs bearing KADH-derived moieties. The proposed project follows on from previous successful collaboration between three of the partner laboratories, and is fully anchored in all groups’ strong, highly-complementary expertise.

Over the past two decades the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond has been used to demonstrate and develop a variety of sensing protocols for static magnetic and electric fields, pressure, temperature, fluctuating fields, etc. Large corporations and start-ups are currently bringing NV sensors to the next technology-readiness level. However, it has also become apparent that such devices suffer from certain shortcomings, in particular for sensing at very high magnetic fields (>1 Tesla) and high stresses (> 100 GPa). These drawbacks could be overcome using group-IV-vacancy centers in diamond, in particular SiV, GeV, and SnV complexes. The goal of the project is the development of diamond-based quantum sensors for sensing at high magnetic fields and high stresses, which can be generally called “sensing at extreme conditions”. At the core of the project is the fabrication of shallow group-IV-vacancy centers with superior optical and spin coherence properties. Preliminary estimates demonstrate that, depending on exact experimental conditions, with appropriate defect engineering, coherence times could be increased by two orders of magnitude beyond what is currently achievable. Advances in engineering will be supported by theoretical work that will provide guidance and insights into the fundamental limits of optical and spin coherence times of group-IV-vacancy complexes. These centers will then be used to demonstrate two proof-of-concept sensing protocols beyond the limitations of NV-center-based technologies: (i) quantum magnetometry at Tesla-range magnetic fields; (ii) quantum sensing at stresses >100 GPa. For the latter, we aim at the measurement of the magnetic field, as well as the entire stress tensor and its distribution in the diamond crystal at “extreme” pressures. Along with the experimental demonstrations of these protocols, the work in the project will yield new knowledge about fundamental properties of point defects in extreme conditions, expanding the general knowledge of diamond as a quantum material. Fundamental aspects of defect physics will be investigated via a very close collaboration between theory and experiment.

The project "National spaces in a transcultural prospect" is linked to the problematic of cultural circulations from the Enlightenment to the Belle époque. Its intentions are to combine the prospects of cultural transfers with the methods of social and political history of culture such as quantitative approach, network analysis, prosopography and cultural cartography of Europe. We would try to understand what are the modalities of development of a literary transnational culture in Europe, thanks to a cross analysis of translations in the domains of literature and theatre in the Francophone and German-speaking areas without forgetting their relations with Anglophone and Spanish-speaking areas. The use of the epithet “transcultural” in the title of this project lays the stress on our methodological and theoretical prospects: the analysis of what is circulating, what is linked and establishes systemic relations is the best way to understand, symmetrically, what is stopped at the cultural border, what is hindered or censored by moral and political instances, what is shared and what is not common among European literary productions of that age. The project of the two teams aims at three complementary objectives: 1) To compare in a systematic way the cultural exchanges of French-speaking and German-speaking areas with the other Western Europe linguistic areas. We will study the main vectors of translation (books, periodicals, critical assessments) in the domains of literature, theatre and cultural reviews. 2) To determine the importance of exchanges, their fluctuations during the two centuries in the European societies, to define the social background of the mediators (translators of both sex, publishers, editors, theatre managers, critics, scholars, librarians, and so on). 3) In order to present a global and systematic view, without the lacunae of current bibliography on the theme, the two teams would couple an extensive (quantitative treatment of bibliographies, catalogues, repertories, indices of reviews) and an intensive approach (case studies on specific genres, particular types of books or authors, specific groups of authors or mediators and translators). The two first axes of the research will measure the translation phenomenon and the importance of their reception from the mid eighteenth-century to the first decades of twentieth century. Bibliographical corpuses, periodical corpuses and encyclopaedias will be the main sources. It will be completed by case studies of the main mediators and a prosopographical enquiry of the different groups involved in the process of circulation. As concerns theatre, third field of the research, the corpus will be borrowed from the programs of a sample of the main theatres in different representative towns. To complete these three themes, the German team will analyse the composition of a sample of private libraries catalogues, to get access to the reception of foreign texts by learned circles. the sample will be based on 150 catalogues of private libraries of noble and bourgeois families between 1760 and 1910. The final results of these different complementary researches of the two French and German teams would be, hopefully: 1. To establish a cultural cartography of circulations of cultural products as well as a sociography of cultural mediators (translators, reviewers, publishers) based on quantitative data and situated case studies to lay the foundations of a transcultural history of Europe, in the age both of national affirmation and growing globalization (1750-1900). 2. To propose to the international community of scholars interested in these questions accessible and cumulative data bases, synthetic views of the main results and specific comparisons of the particular inquiries in order to lead towards a general model of translation processes and reception of foreign texts, for periods, mainly explored till now through exceptional and non representative case studies.

Recent progress in various areas of physics has demonstrated our ability to control quantum effects in customized systems and materials, thus paving the way for a promising future for quantum technologies. The emergence of such quantum devices, however, requires one to understand fundamental problems in non-equilibrium statistical physics, which can pave the way towards full control of quantum systems, thus reinforcing new applications and providing innovative perspectives. This project is dedicated to the study and the control of out-of-equilibrium properties of quantum many-body systems which are driven across phase transitions. Among several approaches, it will mainly focus on slow quenches and draw on the understanding delivered by the Kibble-Zurek (KZ) mechanism. This rather simple paradigm connects equilibrium with out-of-equilibrium properties and constitutes a benchmark for scaling hypothesis. It could pave the way towards tackling relevant open questions, which lie at the heart of our understanding of out-of-equilibrium dynamics and are key issues for operating in a robust way any quantum simulator. Starting from this motivation, we will test the limits of validity of the KZ dynamics by analyzing its predictions, thus clarifying its predictive power, and extend this paradigm to quantum critical systems with long-range interactions and to topological phase transitions. We will combine innovative theoretical ideas of condensed-matter physics, quantum optics, statistical physics and quantum information, with advanced experiments with ultracold atomic quantum gases. Quantum gases are a unique platform for providing model systems with the level of flexibility and control necessary for our ambitious goal. Their cleanness and their robustness to decoherence will greatly enhance the efficient interplay between theory and experiments, and provide a platform of studies whose outcomes are expected to have a strong scientific impact over a wide range of disciplines. On the short time scale we will exploit this knowledge to develop viable protocols for quantum simulators. In general, we expect that the results of this project will lay the ground for the development of the next generation of quantum devices and simulators.n of the proposed research, which would lay the ground for future device/simulator development in the mid-term. Our proposed work lies deeply within the “Quantum Technologies” theme. More specifically, by providing a deeper understanding and direct control of out-of-equilibrium phenomena in quantum many-body systems, we will make impactful contributions to the areas of “Quantum simulation” and “Quantum metrology, sensing and imaging”. Firstly, we will make significant advances to the initialization of a quantum system in a well-controlled initial state (ground state, without defects) and optimize the adiabatic control of its time evolution to an “interesting” target state, both of which are crucial features for adiabatic quantum computing. It is expected that the initial state and target state could be separated by a phase transition, which brings to the fore the question of the time evolution of a quantum system near a critical point. The response of a system when driven across critical points is further relevant for developing atomtronic devices and quantum sensors at the limit, that may find applications to the detection of extremely weak signals. This could include applications in diverse fields such as the detection of dark matter. Our consortium is composed of world-leading scientists with pioneering contributions in non-equilibrium dynamics of ultracold atomic systems and possesses a unique combination of the relevant expertise and tools for the successful completion of the proposed research. We expect that the results of this project will lay the ground for the development of the next generation of quantum devices and simulators.