PhD Fellowship in Nutritional Immunology

We are looking for 1-2 highly motivated PhD fellows to join our research group for a 3-years fellowship between January 1 and July 1, 2025.

Our group and research

We are a multi-disciplinary out-of-the-box-thinking research team striving to dissect how diet components, gut microbial community structures and compartmentalized immunology synergizes to orchestrate host immunometabolism at both gastrointestinal and extra-intestinal origin. We develop and use experimental systems tailored to model human disease with unmet medical needs; first and foremost, to improve our molecular understanding of disease progression, and secondly to identify biological factors of therapeutic relevance. Our research spans from diet-induced liver complications over gastrointestinal dysfunction (including IBD, HDP secretion/function, and bacterial translocation), to respiratory complications. Human samples, supported by proof-of-concept experiments in relevant animal models enables clinical testing and/or confirmation in partnership with clinical collaborators.

Our group has a diverse composition with regards to internationalization, gender and age.

Project description

The overall theme of the current projects is to improve brain health and cognitive function in subjects with and/or models of obesity-related gut barrier dysfunction. The applicant must provide a letter of motivation justifying which of the following two projects they would apply for and exemplify in a few sentences how they will (experimentally) approach the challenge: A) investigate the mechanisms in obesity-related microbial dysbiosis and gut barrier dysfunction and cognitive impairment; B) investigate the mechanisms of bacterial translocation in obesity and/or IBD and its potential influence on neurodegeneration.

Principal supervisor: Associate Professor, Benjamin A. H. Jensen, Department of Biomedical Sciences, [email protected], Direct phone: 61713977

Start: January 1st or July 1st, 2025.

Duration: 3 years as a PhD fellow

Profile

We are looking for highly motivated and enthusiastic PhD fellows with a can-do attitude and the following competencies and experience:

Essential experience and skills

• You have (or will obtain) a master’s degree within Molecular Biomedicine, Immunology, or Neuroscience
• You are FELASA accredited
• You have documented experience with behavioral and molecular in vivo experiments within neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory bowel disease and/or diet-induced obesity.
• You have proven an ability to envision, plan and execute a research project
• You have a documented track-record of teaching and/or dissemination activities
• Good English skills, written and spoken

Desirable experience and skills

• Experience working with low abundance microbiome samples
• Experience in programming in either R or Python
• Collegial, optimistic, and helpful

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

• Carrying through an independent research project under supervision.
• Completing PhD courses or other equivalent education corresponding to approximately 30 ECTS points.
• Participating in active research environments including a stay at another research team.
• Teaching (100 UR/year) and disseminating your knowledge.
• Writing a PhD thesis on the grounds of your project

Key criteria for the assessment of applicants
Applicants must be FELASA accredited and have qualifications corresponding to a master’s degree related to the subject area of the project, e.g. molecular biomedicine, immunology, or neuroscience. Please note that your master’s degree must be equivalent to a Danish master’s degree (two years).

Other important criteria are:

• Professional qualifications relevant to the PhD project (hands-on experience with relevant methods, including in vivo assessment).
• Previous stay abroad
• An easy-going, open-minded, can-do attitude.
• A curious mind-set with a strong interest in gut-brain axis and bacterial translocation
• Proficient in English

Place of employment

The place of employment is at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in dynamic and international research environment.

Terms of employment
The average weekly working hours are 37 hours per week.

The position is a fixed-term position limited to a period of 3 years. The start date is January 1st or July 1st, 2025.

The employment 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 Taxation and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State. Depending on seniority, the monthly salary starts at approximately 30,700 DKK/Roughly 4,100 EUR (April 2024 level) plus pension.

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

General information about PhD studies 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. Certified copy of original Master of Science diploma and transcript of records in the original language, including an authorized English translation if issued in other language than English or Danish. If not completed, a certified/signed copy of a recent transcript of records or a written statement from the institution or supervisor is accepted. 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/?set_language=en. 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: 13 October 2024, 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 find information about the recruitment process at: http://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/

The applicants 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 wish to reflect the diversity of society and encourage all qualified candidates to apply regardless of personal background.

Kilde: Jobnet.dk