PhD Candidate wanted – Research area: Immunometabolism

We are seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate to join a newly established research programme investigating human immunometabolism. We offer afully funded three-year PhD position. 

Background: Patients with advanced chronic liver disease (ACLD) frequently develop life-threatening bacterial infections despite exhibiting profound systemic inflammation. Understanding why immune cells progressively lose their host defence function during disease progression remains one of the major unanswered questions in hepatology.

The PhD project combines clinical research with mechanistic immunology to understand how immunometabolic programmes regulate immune cell function during progression from compensated cirrhosis to ACLF. Using unique longitudinal patient cohorts, we aim to identify the metabolic pathways driving immune dysfunction and determine whether these pathways can be therapeutically restored. Ultimately, this work seeks to establish immunometabolism as a novel therapeutic target in advanced liver disease.

During your PhD, you will investigate how immune cell metabolism changes across different stages of liver disease and how gut-derived inflammatory signals contribute to immune dysfunction. You will receive extensive training in cutting-edge technologies, including high-dimensional multicolour flow cytometry, Single-cell metabolic profiling (SCENITH), Mitochondrial functional assays (i.a. Seahorse), Functional T-cell and monocyte assays. Multiplex cytokine profiling (Luminex), Targeted metabolomics. Single-cell RNAseq and Bioinformatic analysis of high-dimensional datasets.

Please, find the details in the job advertisement!