PhD position bioinformatics and immunogenomics

The overall project aim is to identify infectious disease (ID) triggers that can potentially cause immune-related noncommunicable diseases (IR-NCDs) like inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and post-COVID-19-condition. In this project, we aim to 1) identify IDs triggering IR-NCDs by screening for antibody responses against >500,000 ID antigens from infections, microbiome and environment, and 2) to disentangle environmental and genetic factors affecting the transition from IDs to IR-NCDs. We will combine novel multi-omics approaches and technologies for personalized genotyping of HLA and adaptive immune receptor genes to deeply profile samples of patients at time of diagnosis as well as before diagnosis. This project will represent the largest and most deeply profiled systematic study of multiple IR-NCDs in a large population cohort Lifelines. The analysis of antibodies will take into account other multi-omics measurements available for participants, such as genetics and gut microbiome. The project is part of EU-funded grant Dark Matter, and will be performed in UMCG in collaboration with partners from Austria, Germany, Hungary and other countries.

The candidate will work on the generation and analysis of wide-scale antibodies data in pre- and post-disease samples from individuals with several non-communicable diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue and post-COVID19), who are part of Lifelines population cohort. The antibodies profile will be linked with host environment, genetics and microbiome data. The work will be performed in close collaboration with colleagues from Groningen Microbiome Hub (https://groningenmicrobiome.org/)

Papers describing the methods of antibody analysis and the Lifelines population:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9558073/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37164013/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1074761323001851