Despite a constant increase in plastic worldwide production, the environmental risk linked to microplastics remains little studied today. The PLASTERA project aims to define this risk in a global pollution context in the Loire River and its estuary, while considering environmental, animal and human health. This project will be divided into four phases: i) to characterize the plastic exposome in the Loire River and its estuary, ii) the use of an active biomonitoring approach to assess its effects on various sentinel species, iii) to characterize the effects of these environmental contaminants from bivalves to humans at sub-individual levels and iv) to provide data to help regulation of this emerging contamination while raising citizen awareness of this contamination. This project aims to be in line with the "One Health" concept considering environmental health (determination of contamination and its effects at the level of four habitats: freshwater / marine water / benthic / endobenthic), animal and human health (in situ exposures of sentinel species in these habitats and in vitro exposures of animal and human immune cells). The new IBR-T index (integrative biomarker responses) will be deployed to summarize the effects of this contamination and raise awareness of the general public, communities and other stakeholders.

Strengthening French participation to European calls is a major challenge. Applying to this MRSEI program will enable us to assess scientific visibility and benefit of the multidisciplinary network HuPlastiX on micro- and nano-plastics for a better human health risk assessment and management. Positioned at the interface between analytical chemistry, physiology, food toxicology, environmental sciences and toxicology, and circular economy, it will facilitate access and, hopefully, success to the H2020 funding program through the call SC1-BHC-03-2018 “Micro- and nano-plastics in our environment: Understanding exposures and impacts on human health”. Global plastic production has increased exponentially over the last decades. A significant proportion of the plastic produced is not disposed of properly and persists in the environment, especially the marine environment. Plastic products can be slowly degraded and fragmented into smaller pieces (defined as secondary micro-plastics when they are smaller than 5 mm and nano-plastics when they are < 1 µm). Primary micro-plastics may also be intentionally added to, for example, toothpaste and beauty products. Furthermore, plastic debris are associated with a “cocktail of contaminants” made up of chemical ingredients present originally in the plastic (additives such as bisphenols, phthalates) and chemical pollutants adsorbed to the plastic from the environment (e.g. metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), flame retardants…). Due to their small sizes, micro-plastics are filtered into marine species’ gastrointestinal tract mechanically or they may look like food to some species, thus entering the food chain, with to date largely unknown effects. In fact, risk assessment studies and reviews carried out in recent years have concluded that there is evidence that humans are exposed to micro- and nano-plastics through their diet, drinking water or inhalation. However, understanding the fate and toxicity of these plastic particles in humans constitutes a major knowledge gap, rendering it difficult to carry out proper science-based risk assessment and management. The challenge of this call is to provide, notably through innovative approaches, policy relevant scientific data in support of improved human health hazard and risk assessment of micro- and/or nano-plastics. The following impacts are foreseen: (i) innovation in hazard characterization and health risk assessment methodologies for micro- and/or nano-plastics, (ii) better understanding of health impacts of exposure to micro- and/or nano-plastics, (iii) contribution to the health-relevant aims of the European strategy for plastics in a circular economy and of the bioeconomy strategy. Our proposal HuPlastiX aims to cover these expected impacts. As such, objectives cannot be reached on an individual country level; the targeted call thus needs intensive collaboration and synergies between scientists across disciplines. In line with this ambitious, albeit necessary, pre-requisite, we have started to build our consortium accordingly, while keeping in mind our own vision on how to tackle this cognitive and application-driven challenge on micro- and nano-plastics. By gathering specialists of the related fields, we aim to fulfill the gap between environmental and food toxicology, considering gut and its partners involved in maintaining host homeostasis. To support these biology-based findings, innovative methods will be implemented for detection and quantification of micro- and nano-sized plastics in the presence of additives and environmental pollutants. The ultimate goal will be to link the circular economy strategy of plastics with human health criteria, in order to facilitate the transition towards a modern, nutritionally sound and more sustainable society.

The BB EEG platform project aims at developing an Internet portal providing telemedicine and e-learning services in the field of the electroencephalographic (EEG) signals of the newborn. The EEG consists in recording the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain through several electrodes placed on the scalp. It is a functional review that provides additional results to brain imaging data (MRI tomdensitometry). The neonatal period is a high risk neurological damage period because of the immature nature of the brain for the premature births and/or because of non optimal conditions at birth (anoxia, infection .). The consequences can be severe and cause permanent and severe disabilities. The EEG enables the assessment of the brain function. It monitors the brain maturation during the first weeks of life if the child is born premature. The EEG makes possible the evaluation of the degree of brain damage in cases of difficult birth (e.g. cerebral anoxia). It can also detect possible seizures and monitor their evolution under treatment. In this case we must couple the EEG with a synchronized video of the patient in order to properly identify abnormal clinical manifestations. The techniques of neuroprotection starting to be commonly used, as for example the controlled hypothermia for cases of cerebral anoxia, require that an accurate assessment of the severity of brain damage be done. The EEG allows the physiological assessment but requires trained personnel for both the acquisition of EEG signals and their interpretation. The neonatal EEG requires highly specialized personnel. The French expertise is recognized but its daily practice suffers from a growing shortage of specialists. The Video EEG signals are recorded in digital form by a technician and visually analyzed by a doctor after their acquisition. They can also be analyzed by tools of signal processing in order to complement, accelerate or intensify the visual analysis.These characteristics prove that the EEG signals will fit well to telemedicine activities. Thus some members of the consortium have developed in Loire Valley for several years a EEG signals transport mean between hospitals Laval and Le Mans. In Bourgogne there is also an telemedicine activity around the EEG. In the Pays de la Loire region there are adapted facilities that enable the transmission of large amount of data. However, technical constraints (transport of medical data) and organizational (type of economic exploitation, work organization conditions for different personal ....) are hampering the application of EEG telemedicine activities on an industrial scale. Moreover, it is very important to ensure that the development of remote interpretation is not accompanied by a loss of competence. The BB EEG project will thus pave the way for the industrial development of the telemedicine activities and will contribute to maintaining the recognized excellence of the French school in this area. Our consortium brings together all the players necessary to tackle these barriers. It combines several hospitals in the region of Pays de la Loire with industry specializing in the secure transport of medical data, the work flow organization and its potential applications for learning strategies, with researchers in mathematics and signal processing fields. The hard goal of the BBEEG project is to provide a portal offering a combination of different services for a much rapid and secure diagnostic and for the newborn EEG training. The target audience are hospitals that do not have the competence of physicians who request a second opinion and professionals (doctors and technicians EEG) who wish to gain competence in this area. Our project will constitute a methodological framework for other initiatives in other medical fields.

Industry 4.0 suggests a reactive and flexible management of production lines as well as the advent of new decision support tools based on the use of data collected in real time. However, there is still a need for implementation and integration into traditional production management approaches in the broad sense. Our project seeks to answer these questions for the improvement of the articulation of tactical and operational decisions, based on new concepts of predictive and prescriptive maintenance. This will lead to new integrated approaches to planning, scheduling and maintenance, taking into account different levels of uncertainty, accompanied by new performance-oriented indicators for the robustness of production plans. In addition, this project will serve to define a set of specifications related to the data to be collected as well as associated management rules which will then form the "skeleton" of a digital shadow developed throughout the project and motivated by an industrial application in the medical device sector.