PhD fellowship in ex vivo gut microbiome modulation at Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research

We are offering a PhD fellowship in ex vivo gut microbiome modulation commencing January 1, 2024, or after agreement.

Our group and research
Our researchers share a common purpose as they seek to transform the basic understanding of the mechanisms involved in cardiometabolic health and disease, and to accelerate this knowledge towards new prevention and treatment strategies.

The Center has around 260 employees, spread across 22 research groups and 5 technology platforms, who work in a vibrant international research environment with a strong focus on interdisciplinary collaboration.

The Center’s research has resulted in seminal discoveries as to how genes, hormones, and environmental factors influence metabolic health and disease throughout life. You can read more about CBMR at www.cbmr.ku.dk.

The Group
The Arumugam Group investigates how health and diseases are influenced by our gut microbiome; how the gut microbiome interacts with the host and environmental factors, and how we can therapeutically modulate the gut microbiome to improve health. More information about the group can be found here.

Project description
We seek an enthusiastic, passionate researcher to carry out a PhD project in ex vivo gut microbiome modulation. Our group believes that we can modulate the gut microbiome, which will positively interact with the host to provide health benefits. This project will focus on identifying beneficial gut microbiome modulation modalities using multiple factors including dietary/nutrient composition. The modulations will then be evaluated using high-throughput in vitro assays in host tissue models. Therefore, it will heavily involve ex vivo microbiome culture and in vitro host cell/tissue culture. The overall vision is to open avenues for translating in vitro microbiome findings into new ways to treat obesity-related metabolic disorders. The PhD student will carry out the project as part of an international and interdisciplinary team comprising bioinformaticians, microbiologists and data scientists.

Principal supervisor is Associate Professor Mani Arumugam, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, E-mail: [email protected].

Start: January 1, 2024, or after agreement
Duration: 3 years as a PhD student

Job description
Your key tasks as a PhD student at SUND are:

• Carry through an independent research project under supervision
• Complete PhD courses or other equivalent education corresponding to approx. 30 ECTS points
• Participate in active research environments including a stay at another research team
• Obtain experience with teaching or other types of dissemination related to your PhD project
• Teach and disseminate your knowledge
• Write a PhD thesis on the grounds of your project

Key criteria for the assessment of applicants
Applicants must have qualifications corresponding to a master’s degree related to the subject area of the project e.g. microbiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, biology, etc. Please note that your master’s degree must be equivalent to a Danish master’s degree (two years).

Other required criteria are:

• Experience in anaerobic culturing of microbes and microbiomes
• Experience with in vitro gut fermenters, such as SHIME, TIM or PolyFermS
• Experience with in vitro assays of host cell cultures, such as hepatocytes or adipocytes
• Experience with growing organoids from animal intestinal tissues; and FELASA certificate to work independently with animals
• Experience using microscopy and automated high-throughput image analysis
• Basic understanding of the biology of obesity and metabolic disorders
• Experience in the programming languages R and/or python
• Familiarity with bioinformatics approaches to integrate human microbiome results with biological information
• Demonstrated scientific productivity, such as previous research publications
• Excellent written and spoken English language skills.

Place of employment
The place of employment is at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in dynamic and international research environment. Our research facilities include modern laboratories, bioinformatics and statistic guidance, and access to big data from multiple cohorts.

Terms of employment
The employment as PhD fellow is full time (37 working hours per week in average) and for 3 years. The starting date is January 1, 2024, or after agreement.

It is conditioned upon the applicant’s success­ful enrolment as a PhD student at the Graduate School at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. This requires submission and acceptance of an application for the specific project formulated by the applicant.

The PhD study must be completed in accordance with The Ministerial Order on the PhD programme (2013) and the Faculty’s rules on achieving the degree.

Salary, pension and terms of employment are in accordance with the agree­ment between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State. Depending on seniority, the monthly salary begins around 28.990 DKK /approx. 3.888 EUR (October 2023 level) plus pension.

Questions
For specific information about the PhD fellowship, please contact the principal supervisor.

General information about PhD study at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences is available at the Graduate School’s website: https://healthsciences.ku.dk/phd/guidelines/.

Application procedure
Your application must be submitted electronically by clicking ‘Apply now’ below. The application must include the following documents in PDF format:

1. Motivated letter of application (max. one page)

2. CV incl. education, experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position

3. Master of Science diploma and transcript of records. If not completed, a certified/signed copy of a recent transcript of records or a written statement from the institution or supervisor will do. As a prerequisite for a PhD fellowship employment, your master’s degree must be equivalent to a Danish master’s degree. We encourage you to read more in the assessment database: https://ufm.dk/en/education/recognition-and-transparency/find-assessments/assessment -database. Please note that we might ask you to obtain an assessment of your education performed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science.

4. Publication list (if possible)

Application deadline: 26 October 2023, 23.59pm CET

We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.

The further process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor.

The assessor makes a non-prioritized assessment of the academic qualifications and experience with respect to the above-mentioned area of research, techniques, skills and other requirements listed in the advertisement.

Once the assessment work has been completed each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.

You can read about the recruitment process at http://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/.

The applicant will be assessed according to the Ministerial Order no. 242 of 13 March 2012 on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.

The University of Copenhagen wishes to reflect the diversity of society and welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.

Kilde: Jobnet.dk