The aim of the present proposal is to obtain help from the ANR to build a proposal to apply to the next H2020 Marie Curie ITN Call. Based upon their previous collaborations, a group of scientists from either the academia or the industry have decided to join their expertise to tackle together the issues related to in vivo imaging of developmental processes in vertebrates and their translations in terms of industrial and medical applications. They decided that their initiative would be named ImaginTheEmbryo and would be a frame of excellence for the training of PhD students (ESRs). This consortium therefore meets the expectations of the H2020 ITN/ETN call to form the next generations of highly skilled interdisciplinary and intersectorial scientists needed for the future development of Europe. Understanding how a single cell, the fertilized egg, can give rise to complex animal organisms has been the holy grail of developmental biology. It can be tackled by addressing biological processes that interact to make the development possible: how, when and where are genes expressed and proteins active, what are their functions, how do cells divide and migrate to form the embryo, and how do cells interact during development? The aim of ImagineTheEmbryo is to reconstruct the cellular behaviour in the developing embryo as it recapitulates all the underlying processes. The cell lineage reconstruction was done 40 years ago for C elegans with conventional microscopy, but this cannot be envisioned for vertebrate development given its complexity. Recent advances in vertebrate embryos’ manipulation, in cellular labelling and microscopy instrumentation, have paved the way to the challenges of ImagineTheEmbryo: the 4D automated reconstruction of the development of vertebrate embryos and the study of pathologies using embryonic development as a model system. ImaginTheEmbryo will bring together academic groups and companies that are leaders in Europe in imaging the vertebrate embryo and its medical and industrial applications. By essence multidisciplinary, this synergistic project will offer an integrated training for ESRs: mastering the embryos for imaging, new microscopy solutions, image analysis, economic applications both within and outside biology and medicine, and in-depth network training both in terms of scientific and technological excellence and in terms of career development. We will focus not only on early development of whole embryos but also on the development and function of the early immune system as a model for a highly integrated physiological system amenable to developmental and functional studies in the embryo and larvae, and perfectly adapted to converting knowledge and ideas into services for the economic benefit of Europe.

Information about sounds, including speech, is conveyed in the auditory system via: (i) the patterns of envelope fluctuation (E) and (ii) the detailed temporal waveform (temporal fine structure, TFS) in individual frequency bands. The relative importance of E and TFS information is poorly understood. Nor it is clear how the use of E and TFS is affected by cochlear damage. We will clarify these issues using a multi-disciplinary approach combining psychophysical, speech perceptual and physiological measurements with the development of models of the underlying processes. Psychophysical and speech perceptual measurements will be conducted with normal-hearing and hearing-impaired human subjects, using novel speech-processing algorithms (vocoders) and a novel method attempting to assess the contribution of low level, sensory factors while limiting the influence of high-level (decisional) factors. The models will include the first and last stage of the auditory brainstem i.e. the cochlear nucleus (CN) and the Inferior Colliculus (IC), and physiological measurements will be made in the CN and IC of both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired animals. The results will clarify the effects of cochlear hearing loss on the representation of E and TFS in the brainstem and will clarify the relative importance of E and TFS information for the perception of speech in background sounds. The research will lead to the development of diagnostic tests and to the design of more effective hearing aids.