UiT The Arctic University of Norway has established «The Arctic MSCA-PF program» (uit.no/project/arcticmsca) to recruit excellent young researchers planning to apply for a Marie Skƚodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) to pursue a career in research. We invite applications from promising young researchers within the field of Microbiology, Virology (bacteriophages and giant viruses). The selected candidate will write a proposal for a 24-month MSCA-PF at UiT together with Associate Professor Gabriel Magno de Freitas Almeida. This is an opportunity to accelerate your research career while living in the urban research city of Tromsø, uniquely located at the top of the world surrounded by some of Europe’s last pristine wild nature.

This call is one of 70 from pre-selected supervisors at UiT The Arctic University of Norway through the “Arctic MSCA-PF program”. Successful postdoc candidates will be invited for a three-day MSCA-PF symposium June 4-6, 2024 (hybrid physical/digital event, see details at uit.no/project/arcticmsca/program-structure). At this event, the candidates will present their past research achievements, discuss future plans with their potential supervisor and learn how to write a successful MSCA-PF application. The selected candidates will, jointly with the supervisor, write the MSCA-PF application by the deadline of September 11, 2024.

In this call we search for talented, young researchers within the field of Microbiology, Virology (bacteriophages and giant viruses) as presented by Associate Professor Gabriel Magno de Freitas Almeida:

My research group focuses on marine bioprospection, with my focus being viruses of microbes and how to use them against bacterial infections. I am affiliated to the Centre of New Antibacterial Strategies (CANS-UiT). There are two main interests among the viruses of microbes: those infecting prokaryotes (phages) and those infecting eukaryotes (giant viruses). From the phage side the final goal is phage therapy, aiming at the study of phage-bacteria interactions in mucosal conditions for the development of prophylactic phage therapy approaches. From the giant virus side we are interested in understanding the Arctic virome, ideally using local unicellular eukaryotic hosts to find novel viral groups. Exploring their large and mysterious genomes for finding new biological products is the desired outcome. Any project that fits the broad description above is welcomed, especially if aimed at innovating particular points like: surpassing biases in viral isolation methodologies, finding new viral groups, improving culturing conditions, exploring host-pathogen interactions for the discovery of new enzymes or metabolites, or any other interesting idea involving these viruses and their hosts. If you are interested please contact me and we can discuss ideas for a project that fit your interests and our group goals. 

Please send your CV (max 3 pages) and describe a research project that will strengthen and complement the presented research (max 2 pages) to gabriel.d.almeida@uit.no by Feb 16th 2024. Mark your application "Arctic MSCA". Successful candidates will be contacted in late March 2024.