Seeking post-doc fellow in Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis/Dementias

Associate professor Margarita Torrente Torné established at the Dep. Psychology at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain) and co-director of Neuropsychology and Emotions area, within Tecnatox Research Center is interested in receiving Expressions of Interest of potential candidates for the Marie Sklodowska – Curie Individual Fellowship (MSCA – IF) 2020 call. Selected candidates will receive dedicated support from my group to write a successful proposal.

TecnaTox Research Center is mainly conducting its research in the area of Health and Environmental Toxicology. TecnaTox has multiple relationships with international research centers with some of whom share European Union funded projects. Neuropsychology and Emotions area is focused on the study of the effects on behavior of different agents, neuropsychological, psychological and emotional symptoms and diseases.

This call focus on the topic of the relationship between microbiota and dementia in our model of diet and lifestyle (Mediterranean), aiming to improve the knowledge of the relationship between microbiota and dementias. This means to explore the possible differences between dementias in relation to microbiota and characterize each them looking for relations between microbiota strains and their balance with neurocognitive, neuropsychiatric symptoms and patient functionality.

For the Marie Curie IF call of 2020, we are looking for a postdoc with experience in the field of microbiota. He/she should be familiarized with specific analytical technics and also have the abilities for the interpretation of the results of microbiota an analysis, in this case in order to interpret them and relate our analysis results of microbiota with dementias features, we would like the candidate develops new explanations within this framework.

The final issue is to draw a relational map about the microbiota composition and dementia symptoms and the identification of the microbiota strains that are a risk factor of producing a deficit in metabolites that could be related to each dementia's features and to the specific symptoms in each patient. The project proposes to finally study how can a probiotic mixture improve AD symptoms, and study in deep the microbiota composition changes along with the changes (or not) of dementia symptoms.

We are looking for talented and innovative young scientists, strongly committed to high quality frontier research and able to add new insights to the existing URV core expertise. Only candidates with an outstanding record of research achievements and publications in top-quality journals will be considered. The candidate should be experienced in the fields of microbiota and diseases (dementias ideally).

URV as Hosting Institution located at Scientific Campus of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain), has all the technical and scientific facilities for carry out this project.

Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) is well positioned both nationally and internationally due to the Excellence of its research and the commitment and internationally recognised staff. URV is made up of 12 Faculties and Schools, with 24 Departments, which welcome annually 11.400 undergraduate, 1.500 master and 1.200 PhD students (20% of them full time employees). In 2019, it was named World’s 78th Best Young University aged less than 50 years and 401-500 Best University in the World (by Times Higher Education World University Rankings), and 501-600 by Academic Ranking of world Universities. Being the within the top 10% universities in number and impact of its publications is a clear measure of the quality of the research we can offer to the future MSCA-IF fellows.

Testament to the quality of its research is the fact that URV is host for around 100 MSCA fellows, in different programmes (COFUND, ITN, IF), displaying a strong bond to the principles of the MSCA programme.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

At the deadline for the submission of the proposals (09/09/2020), researchers:

• Shall be in possession of a doctoral degree or 4 years of full-time equivalent experience;
• Must not have resided or carried out their main activities in Spain for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the above-mentioned deadline.
• Must be fluent in English (both written and spoken).

SELECTION PROCESS

Researchers willing to apply should check that they fulfil the eligibility criteria and then send an expression of interest, consisting of:

• A Curriculum Vitae
• A summary presentation of their research proposal / A motivation letter

Expressions of interest must be submitted to uspir@urv.cat (Title of the e-mail “URV- MSCA - IF - Prof. Margarita Torrente”).

Proposals will be pre-selected on the basis of internal evaluation. Candidates will be informed of the results of the pre-selection a week after the deadline.

WEB of the research group: https://www.tecnatox.cat