PhD Position – Lyme Neuroborreliosis in Children: From Understanding Pathogenesis to Precise Diagnosis and Treatment

The University of Zurich offers a wide range of attractive positions in various subject areas and professional fields. With around 10,000 employees and 12 professional apprenticeship streams, Switzerland's largest university provides an inspiring working environment at the vanguard of research and education.

Your responsibilities

Your main task will be to manage the prospective clinical study of LD in children (BRILLIANT study) in order to draw conclusions on patho-mechanisms of LD and identify new microbiological and immunological markers of Bb infection.

• Management of the BRILLIANT study: overseeing patient recruitment, scheduling follow-ups, sample processing and storage, extracting data from hospital records, managing study database (REDCap)
• Establishment of Bb cultures from clinical isolates: Further protocol optimization by improving qPCR screening procedure and culture conditions. Evaluation of usefulness of culture and qPCR for clinical diagnosis
• Phenotype the immune response in LD and LNB: Analyze preliminary data, design experiments to further investigate relevant immune cell subsets using flow cytometry, bead-based cytokine/chemokine assay or scRNA-seq approaches
• Identify genotypes of Bb clinical isolates: Perform WGS on new Bb clinical isolates and identify genotypes and virulence factors associated with LD and LNB clinical subgroups

Furthermore, your duties as part of the employment will include:

• Writing scientific manuscripts (in English)
• Presentation of results at internal meetings and training events
• Participation in national and international conferences (including presenting your work)
• If applicable, supervising Master's students in Biomedicine and Pharmacy

Your profil

• Master's degree (MSc) in medicine, biology, immunology, or a related field
• Strong interest in clinical research, experience in clinical research is a plus
• Research interest in immunology, microbiology and/or infectious diseases
• Good understanding of statistics, experience with R is a plus
• High motivation, ability to work independenty, good written and oral communication skills
• Good knowledge of German and English