You are thinking of doing your PhD in the Life Sciences and are interested in research topics like healthy ageing and age-associated diseases? The Cohorts for Healthy Ageing (CoAGE) is offering talented, young scientists the chance to work on cutting edge research projects in the field of ageing research and epidemiological studies.

You will be part of the CoAGE graduate programme. This programme focuses on investigating the causes of age-related diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer, and why they often occur together. CoAGE brings together experts who are studying healthy ageing and age-related diseases to address current issues in an interdisciplinary manner. Each of these experts leads one of the major German ageing studies and will supervise a CoAGE PhD student where the study is located.

PhD position on ‘Epidemiology of sex-dimorphisms of lipid metabolism and vascular phenotypes’ in Leipzig, Germany

Metabolic and cardiovascular phenotypes often express pronounced sex-dimorphisms. The molecular background of these observations is incompletely understood. Hormones acting as transcription factors and genetic sex-interactions are supposed to contribute to this phenomenon. To develop targeted and individualized therapies, there is a need to unravel the underlying molecular-genetic networks.

During this PhD project, we plan to perform comprehensive sex-specific multi-omics data analyses of lipidomics profiles available in our cohorts based on deep molecular profiling. We will also analyse sex-differences between subclinical cardiovascular disease traits, respective longitudinal trajectories and cardiovascular endpoints and their relationships to lipidomics profiles. Summarizing these insights, we perform sex-specific causal networks of several cardiovascular traits and disease endpoints. These networks are compared to identify branching points of related pathomechanisms. We will extend the study with a similar set of analyses to other German Cohorts like the Gutenberg Health study.

Supervision: Markus Scholz (University of Leipzig Medical Centre); The LIFE Study

Requirements

Are you an ambitious, young scientist looking to push the boundaries of research while interacting with colleagues from multiple disciplines and cultures? Would you like to employ bioinformatics and cutting-edge computational biology to advance translational research? Then joining CoAGE is your opportunity to give your scientific career a flying start!

Further requirements:

• Master or equivalent
• Interactive personality & good command of English
• 2 letters of reference
• background in bioinformatics, biostatistics or data science is a plus

What else you need to know

• Starting Date: 01.10.2024
• Duration: 3 years
• Deadline: 31.08.2024
• International applicants: we will assist you through the visa process, and also with your application for a residence/work permit after your arrival in Germany.

Have we sparked your interest?

To apply, please send a single PDF file containing your cover letter, CV, certificates and at least two professional references to coage@imb-mainz.de. In your email, please specify the project for which you are applying. IMB is an equal opportunity employer.

Declaration of Consent and Data Protection

By sending us your application, you are consenting to us saving your personal data in order to carry out the selection process. You can find more information on data protection and retention periods at https://www.imb.de/jobs/data-protection.