October, 12th 2020 programme - COMUE Université Bourgogne-Franche-Comté

October, 12th 2020 programme

8:00 to 9:00 AM – Welcome

9:00 to 9:45 AM – Foreword : D. Grevey & A. Dereux

Inaugural lecture / UBFC Senior Fellowship

AXIS 1 : Advanced materials, waves and smart systems

The invention of the laser in 1960 has revolutionised nearly every field of basic science, and have opened up completely new applications in industry and technology.  An especially important class of laser is the ultrafast laser that produces high power picosecond and femtosecond pulses.  Such lasers have led to important applications in imaging and spectroscopy, and have been directly associated with several Nobel Prizes: for femtochemistry in 1999, the frequency comb in 2005, and chirped pulse amplification in 2018.   Somewhat surprisingly, however, the practical development of ultrafast laser technology has in many cases taken place without a complete understanding of the underlying physics, because it has not been possible to study how such ultrafast pulses develop and emerge from noise.   But with the advent of new real-time measurement techniques in recent years, it has now become possible to study such ultrafast laser dynamics, and directly observe a wide range of nonlinear dynamical processes never before observed such as soliton emergence from noise, soliton molecule growth and decay, soliton explosions, and chaos.  This talk will review a selection of recent results in this area, considering implications both for fundamental studies of nonlinear dynamics, links with extreme events in nature such as rogue waves on the ocean, as well as for practical development of future laser sources.

ISITE-industry joint projects

AXIS 1 : Advanced materials, waves and smart systems

This project aims to develop and test new highly charged LaFeSiH and NiCoMnIn magnetocaloric (MC) powder composites in order to offer a new technology of refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pumping devices, based on then limitation of global warming gazes’ policies. These MC composites will allow the development of efficient innovative regenerators for magnetic cooling, and more compact MC machines.

The objectives of the project are focused on the fabrication of magnetocaloric parts, thermophysical characterization, physical models and the manufacturing of micro-scale MC composites dedicated to macro- and micro-MC devices in order to find a composite material allowing the extrusion of tubes able to cool down a fluid from 100 ° C to about 25 ° C after optimization using a conventional machine. Thereafter, the characterization of the MC and thermal properties of materials is essential to their integration into numerical tools for the design of new heat pumps.

This project aims to:
(i) assess and solve the main scientific problems related to the integration of MC composites in regenerators for the design of new powerful and efficient thermal refrigeration and pumping machines.
(ii) master the manufacturing of well-designed efficient nanocomposites with optimal MC properties.
(iii) accurately measure and model the thermal and magnetic properties of the new composites, and the thermal efficiency of regenerators based on composites under AMR conditions.

AXIS 1 : Advanced materials, waves and smart systems

Manufacturers who produce equipment for water treatment and heat exchangers have to ensure that these will not corrode during their lifetime. In this way, Titanium is corrosion resistant enough to be used in this industry.

Unfortunately, this material tends to absorb hydrogen when brought to high temperatures: then, hydride precipitates can be formed, which are embrittlement vectors when the component is submitted to mechanical solicitations.

The challenge of this project consists in the identification of the surface treatments which are likely to reduce the hydrogen absorption of a Titanium alloy used in the manufacture of laminated, rolled and welded tubes and used under aggressive environment.

Among all the possible solutions, four have been chosen to be studied: shot-peening, asymmetrical rolling, surface pre-oxidation and anodization.

In order to better understand the mechanisms involved, the relevance of each solution is studied through both experimental and modelling approaches. These works are carried out thanks to a collaboration between NEOTISS (Titanium tubes manufacturer), UTINAM Laboratory (specialized in anodizing techniques) and ICB Laboratory (specialized in the mechano-chemical couplings related to corrosion processes).

After a reminder of the project stakes, the consequences of one of the considered solutions about the hydriding of T40 Titanium alloy will be presented and discussed with regard to the mechanisms involved.

UBFC Junior Fellowship

AXIS 1 : Advanced materials, waves and smart systems

Porphyrins are deeply colored molecules that are used for numerous applications such as artificial photosynthesis, molecular recognition, oxidation/reduction catalyses and molecular materials. The formation of new C-C bonds between one/several peripheral substituent(s) and a porphyrin by oxidative routes has been the subject of intense developments during these last two decades. Indeed, the fused molecule becomes planar which increases the electronic communication between the porphyrin and its fused substituent(s). This fusion reaction leads to deep changes in the optical  and electrochemical properties with important shift of the absorption bands toward the infrared region. Our project is based on a new fusion reaction with the formation of C-N bond(s) between a porphyrin and an imino-type substituent. The physico-chemical properties of these original molecules has been explored. We tried to transfer this solute fusion system into an electrode surface with the introduction of a diazonium function (grafting function) on the porphyrin. Besides, contrary to C-C bonds which are very difficult to break, attempts to break the C-N bond have been performed in order to recover the initial unfused molecules.

Tenure track

AXIS 1 : Advanced materials, waves and smart systems

Nearly everything we know about the structure of materials relies upon crystallography, where molecules are frozen into the form of crystals. However, these results do not necessarily reflect the structure of molecules in solution, where real chemistry occurs. Using the latest advances in synchrotron science, it has recently become possible to directly measure molecular conformations in this state. Results will be shown from medically relevant metal clusters, catalytic systems and even organic molecules.

11:15 to 11:45 AM : BREAK

ISITE-industry joint project

AXIS 2: Territories, environment, food

The project is based on a network of partners involved in agroecology (research, agricultural cooperatives, agricultural colleges, pioneer farmers). It is including three work packages:

  1. The launching of an agroecological ‘hot spot’ on the whole experimental INRAE farm at Bretenières, where the crop and landscape management is re-designed to maximize the use of ecological processes, expecting to enhance the whole system sustainability
  2. The sharing of methods to assess the various components of sustainability, across a regional network of 60 agroecological systems tested by the partners. The assessment encompasses technical, ecological and environmental issues and economic indicators. A special focus is made on the changes in the balance between pest and beneficial organisms, and on the impacts on the quality of harvested material, which is considered as a potential source for added-value for agroecology.
  3. The investigation of social and economic conditions of success for the shift to agroecology, considering the point of view of farmers, of market chains, and of consumers. The project addresses the issue of potential added value of goods produced by agroecological systems, through the willingness of consumers to pay for such goods as soon as they get some information about the production systems.

The aim of the project is therefore to demonstrate the potential to enhance agricultural sustainability through agroecology, and to convince the diverse stakeholders involved in the agro-food chain.

Crossdisciplinary projects

AXIS 1: Advanced materials, waves and smart systems

AXIS 2: Territories, environment, food

A new AFM-based platform combining IR spectroscopy and multi-frequency tomography was developed to detect specific bodies inside organic or inorganic elements. To illustrate the potential of combining these imaging and high-resolution spectroscopy techniques, we will present the detection and size distribution (accuracy under 10 nm) of triglycerides vesicles in mutant bacteria developed for biofuel production, the interaction of Candida glabatra with macrophages, the interaction of tannins with buccal cells using high-resolution infrared microscopy, acoustic and microwave microscopy. The platform has been used to detect change in density of lipidic vesicles present in the bacteria Streptomyces, and oleaginous (Yarrovia lipolytica) and non-oleaginous yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeasts). We will present recent studies dealing with the interaction of C. glabrata, a successful human opportunistic pathogen which causes superficial but also life-threatening systemic infections, with macrophages. Similar analysis has been be carried out to study interaction of tannins with salivary proteins involved in astringency. We have achieved a comparative study of AFM-IR and multi-frequency analysis. Our results indicate that the coupling of these techniques constitutes a great advantage to fully characterize chemical, topographical and volumetric parameters of biological sample or inorganic sample at the surface and sub-surface with nanometric resolution. This work has been supported by the French National Research Agency: ANR-17- EURE-0002, ANR-15-IDEX-03 PIA2/iSite-BFC, and ANR-15-CE09-0002-02, and Feder Funds.

AXIS 2: Territories, environment, food

OUT AXIS

The project Sequania ID : Territorial identity and patrimonial dynamics seeks to further our knowledge of the territory of the Sequani in eastern France (partially Bourgogne-Franche-Comté), its organization and its population from the conquest by Julius Caesar to the reforms of Diocletian (1st c. BC – late 3rd c. AD) by collecting, indexing, preserving, analysing and restoring data using digital tools (databases, 3D technologies). This will allow to enhance archives, archaeological sites, numismatic and epigraphic material, so that researchers and the general public can trace the history of a region, the articulation of economic, cultural and human exchanges locally, regionally and provincially and the potential constitution of a Sequani “identity” within the Roman Empire. Historians, archaeologists, epigraphists, geo-archeologists, museum or collection directors are thus at the crux of the questions facing the new region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and can show how exchanges with neighbouring polities were organized and how economic and cultural networks were formed in Roman times, all of which are contemporary challenges too. With a shared question: How can we preserve, restore and model buildings and epigraphic and numismatic material? How can we account for the appearance of a territory that has been re-shaped by time so as to make available to the scientific community and the general public a heritage that constitutes a common history? What interactive methods can be imagined to share this knowledge widely while ensuring its scientific value? The results will give material to an exhibition.

12:30 to 1:30 PM : LUNCH BREAK

White projects

AXIS 2: Territories, environment, food

IFEP project aims at evaluating the impacts of fertilization on PDO Comté Cheese production sustainability by considering both the environmental quality of grasslands and transfers of microorganisms from grassland to milk, known to be responsible of Comté Cheese specificity known as Comté Cheese “Terroir”. IFEP project is based on a network consisting in 45 farms distributed all along the Jura mountains. In each farm, a permanent grassland grazed by dairy cows was characterized according to: (1) agricultural practices (fertilization, stocking rate); (2) floristic composition; (3) chemical contaminants concentrations and (4) microbial composition (bacteria and fungi by means of high-throughput sequencing) for each compartment in the sequence soil – herb – cow-teat – milk. Plant communities exhibit strong variations in terms of functional diversity which was particularly limited by the intensity of fertilization practices. Like plants; microorganisms are highly diverse with grassland ecosystem (soil and herb), but also on cow-teats and in milk. These levels of diversity were influenced notably by the agricultural practices applied on the considered grasslands. Comparing the compartments across the sequence soil – herb – cow-teat – milk for the composition of their microbial communities demonstrated significant links between them. The intensity of these links was especially sensitive to the type of fertilizer used, the grazing intensity of the herd size. At the farm scale, considering contaminants concentrations within soil, herb and milk did not exhibit any transfer that could affect human health.

OUT AXIS

The project “Noncommutative and Geometric Methods in Functional Analysis (NC-Geom-FA)” is proposed by the functional analysis group of ‘Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Besançon’. Our project, dedicated to functional analysis aspects of group theory, follows four main lines:
(i) Topological quantum groups and their operator algebras,
(ii) Quantum probability theory,
(iii) Noncommutative Lp-spaces and quantum harmonic analysis,
(iv) Coarse embeddings of Banach spaces.
After a brief survey of these four thematics, I will concentrate on the fourth one detailing some of the most important results we have achieved in this direction over the course of the project.

AXIS 2: Territories, environment, food

In a context of societal concern about food and wine conservation, which implies low input, environmental friendly production styles and innovation for economical breakthroughs, the understanding of the mechanisms involved in the chemistry of preservatives like sulfites is crucial. Although alternatives such as glutathione have shown great potential, sulfites remain unavoidable for various processed foods, and for wine in particular. Wine constitutes a challenging example where several attempts were made to find alternatives, but none of them could exhibit the expected efficiency for preserving wine from autoxidation during bottle ageing. However, due to health aspects, there are growing discussions about the reduction and possibly the banning of sulfites. Besides, wine constitutes another challenge associated with a worldwide observed premature oxidation of white wines in particular. Although such oxidized state has been rather well described after the identification of volatile markers such as aldehydes or lactones, or with the colour browning, transient mechanisms responsible for that remain poorly understood. Therefore, this project aims at developing innovative analytical tools for a better understanding and monitoring of white wine’s antioxidant chemistry through combined controlled oxidation procedures and metabolomics analyses of the reactional activity of well known (glutathione, sulfites), and possible alternative natural antioxidants. Our project relies on the ability of metabolomics to manage transient chemical interplays in complex biological matrices and under controlled oxidation states, and should pave the way for the development of efficient strategies for the future discovery of innovative preservative. We will show some examples of sulfite adducts and their antioxidant properties.

Crossdisciplinary projects

AXIS 2: Territories, environment, food
AXIS 3: Comprehensive individual care

The objective of the project is to better understand the typical and atypical development of social cognition; more specifically, how infants and children learn to decode emotions on the face, and why some of them have difficulty doing so. Within this framework, we have developed an innovative approach to investigate brain activity that is well suited to the study of infants or populations with atypical development. This approach consists in recording the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity while pictures are displayed quickly on the screen (“Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation” or FPVS). It allows the recording of a neural response in a few minutes, with a very good signal-to-noise ratio, better than conventional EEG techniques. By using this FPVS-EEG approach with infants (3 to 7 months), we have observed a neural marker of discrimination of faces (compared to other objects) or of different emotional facial expressions. We also investigated how this marker evolves according to the multi-sensory context (in the presence of the mother’s scent or not) and the infants’ age. We further studied the specificities of this neural marker in patients with a genetic deletion that is characterized by deficits in social cognition.

AXIS 3: Comprehensive individual care
OUT AXIS

The aim of the project rel@tions is to analyze the representation of the caregiver-patient relationship (CPR) with first the impact of caregivers’ working conditions; and secondly the consequences for patient health education.

Organizational changes remain critical events for staff (Chauvin, Rohmer, Spitzenstetter et al. 2014). These changes produce various stressors, which reduce job satisfaction, commitment and the effectiveness of individuals, (Hansson, Vingard, Arnetz et al. 2008; Jimmieson, Terry & Callan, 2004; Kivimäki, Vahtera, Elovainio, et al., 2003; Noblet, Rodwell & Mcwilliams, 2006; Tvedt, Saksvik & Nytro, 2009). If numerous studies show that the caregivers’ working conditions have an impact on the errors committed at work none show their impact on the CPR and therefore on patient’s health education. However, the care project presupposes the active participation of the patient (empowerment). Good caregiver-patient communication has a positive effect on patient health education, especially in chronic diseases (Stewart, 1995; Ong, Haes, Hoos et al. 1995; Moore, Sickel, Malat, et al. 2004; Pelicand , Fournier, Aujoulat, 2009).

The mixed study (qualitative and quantitative) meets the eyes of caregivers and patients. In the qualitative phase, 40 patients and 40 health professionals are interviewed in different care services. In the quantitative phase, 90 patients and 90 health professionals will be questioned by questionnaire within these same services. The project is in the first phase of data collection.

the first results show that patients perceive CPR only through the characteristics of caregivers, they are perceived as friendly, competent, available and attentive. Caregivers have a representation of this relationship centered on care; they evoke the quality of the relationship based on the trust and kindness of patients, as well as on their own availability. Caregivers establish a very direct link between working conditions and CPR. For them, this link is dual: working conditions have a direct impact on CPR, and CPR has an impact on their working conditions. The vast majority of patients establish a link between the quality of CPR and their intention to follow the therapeutic indications. When the relationship is good, they feel committed to caregivers. The hospital organization is never mentioned.

UBFC Junior Fellowship

AXIS 3: Comprehensive individual care

The immune system is made up of a variety of cells that defend our bodies. When a cancer appears, the immune system is damaged and the cancer context can promote immune cell development with protumor activity. Our team is particularly interested in cells called Th17. By studying Th17, we have noticed that some of them can fight cancer and limit the disease, while others protect tumors and promote their growth.

We have identified a protein that acts as a switch and blocks Th17 in a protumor state. Indeed, NLRP3 freeze these cells in a “harmful” state. Thus, in the absence of NLRP3, the Th17 cells become beneficial. We observed in mice that we could significantly reduce the size and number of lung tumors when we inject Th17 cells that are invalidated for NLRP3. We are currently studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms that explain these observations. At the same time, we are developing transgenic mice in which it is possible to eliminate NLRP3 after the appearance of a tumor to show that it can serve as a therapeutic target. Finally, our results could have an application in the development of innovative therapies such as cell therapy with CAR-T cells.

3:00 to 3:30 : BREAK

AXIS 1: Advanced materials, waves and smart systems
AXIS 3: Comprehensive individual care

Because cancer cells re-wire their metabolism, they need for their survival a high content of stress- inducible chaperones like heat shock proteins (HSPs). This cancer cells’ addiction to HSPs is the basis for the use of HSP inhibitors in cancer therapy (such as HSP90 inhibitors, currently in phase II/III clinical trials for a large panel of cancers). We have demonstrated in a large cohort of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients that HSP110 is mutated. This truncated HSP110 (HSP110DE9), whereas on its own it is inactive, it binds with high affinity to wild type HSP110 and blocks the chaperone activity. The expression of this endogenous inhibitor of HSP110 is associated with an excellent prognosis (i.e. answer to the chemotherapy). These clinical studies indicate the relevance, at least in colorectal cancer, of this quite unknown HSP as a therapeutic target, for which no inhibitors exist. In this project, we propose 1) to decipher the role of HSP110 in CRC cells’ resistance to the chemotherapy, particularly its nuclear function in DNA repair. 2) To study its extracellular function in cancer microenvironment and notably in myeloid cells associated with immune suppression. 3) We will explore the possibility of using circulating HSP110 (alone or associated with other proteins) as a marker of the patients’ response to the chemotherapy (mice models and PRODIGE 13 clinical study). 4) To solve the structure of HSP110 in order to perform modelling and medicinal chemistry studies with our selected drug-candidates. 5) To develop/select inhibitors of HSP110 (chemical molecules, peptides and nano-antibodies) that like HSP110DE9 inhibit HSP110 and that we could test in phase I clinical trials (with the cancer center Georges François Leclerc, Dijon). Measuring HSP110 in the blood (objective 3) might allow to select the population that might benefit the most from our HSP110-targeted chemo-sensitization strategy.

4:00 to 5:30 PM : POSTER SESSION

The complete program, in PDF format, of this day is available in French and in English.

The programme of these two scientific days is available here (FR and EN).