MICROH: Microbiomes in One Health
17 PhD Student Positions in Microbiome Science, Systems Biology, Ecology & Bioinformatics
with up to 4 years fixed-term contract, full-time.
Start date for the first PhD students will be in autumn 2018. Further positions can be filled over the next 24 months
Luxembourg is a dynamic, multicultural country in the heart of Europe with a strong research and development base supported
by important financial and organisational resources. It offers state-of-the-art facilities and an excellent training environment for
early-stage researchers, in particular in the biomedical sciences.
Within Luxembourg, world-leading, innovative research in the life sciences is carried out at the University of Luxembourg [Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB), Life Sciences Research Unit (LSRU), and Physics and Materials Science
Research Unit (PHYMS-RU)], the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), the Luxembourg National Health Laboratory (LNS),
the Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg (IBBL), and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST).
MICROH, which stands for “Microbiomes in One Health”, is a competitive, interdisciplinary PhD training programme, supported by the PRIDE doctoral research funding scheme of the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR). MICROH aims
to study interactions within and between microbiomes in relation to two major healthcare challenges of our time, i.e. the spread
of antimicrobial resistance genes and the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases. MICROH bridges microbiology, biophysics
and big data analytics in a structured doctoral training environment.
By tackling frontier research questions of immediate public health relevance, the research-intensive programme responds to
the unmet need of training the next generation of microbiome scientists in an interdisciplinary environment covering integration and analysis of multi-omics data, as well as basic and translational biomedical knowledge, and its practical application to
the diagnosis of diseases and ultimately their treatment. The programme includes transferable skills training, support in career
development, lectures and teaching by international experts and annual PhD symposia.
PhD candidates will conduct their research projects either at the LCSB, LSRU, PHYMS-RU, LIH, LNS, IBBL and/or LIST. A
number of projects involve collaborations with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute
(EMBL-EBI), the University of Kent (Kent Fungal Group) and the University of Strasbourg (UMR7156 UdS – CNRS) as well
as a private biomedical laboratory in Luxembourg, Laboratoires réunis. All PhD candidates will be enrolled in the Doctoral School
in Science and Engineering at the University of Luxembourg.
Detailed project descriptions and corresponding supervisors can be found here.