Doktorander/utbildningsplats

Sahlgrenska akademin utlyser doktorandplatser med placering vid institutionen för biomedicin, institutionen för medicin och institutionen för neurovetenskap och fysiologi.
Doktorandplatserna avser två års utbildningsbidrag och två års doktorandanställning, alternativt fyra års doktorandanställning, och beräknas leda fram till doktorsexamen.
För mer information och ansökningsblankett se: http://www.sahlgrenska.gu.se/doktorandportalen/doktor_fran_start_till_mal/soka_doktorandplats/

http://www.sahlgrenska.gu.se/doktorandportalen/Doktor_Fran_start_till_mal/doktorandplatser/


Intracellular Radical Generation by Phagocytes: How, Where, and What for?

Application deadline: 2010-12-08

Description of the research project
Inflammation is crucial to keep infections under control, but can at the same time be too powerful, leading to tissue damage and result in a variety of inflammatory disease states.Optimally, inflammation should be tightly balanced; sufficiently quick and robust to defend against infections, yet transient and gentle enough to avoid inflammatory damage.Phagocytic cells (neutrophils and monocytes/macrophages) are not only central effector cells of the inflammatory response, but also key regulators of the inflammatory process in general.Phagocytic cells are equipped with a specialized enzyme system, the NADPH-oxidase that upon assembly generates reactive oxygen species (ROS).These ROS have long been considered harmful for surrounding tissues, but ROS also seem important as signalling molecules capable of suppressing production/release of proinflammatory cytokines and by this dampen the inflammatory process overall.It has lately become clear that phagocytes can generate ROS intracellularly in the absence of phagocytosis and recent clinical findings points to an important role of these intracellular ROS in balancing inflammation.The proposed PhD project aims at characterizing specifically the ROS generated inside phagocytes in the absence of phagosome formation and at uncovering the signalling pathway(s) involved in their formation.In addition, the project will establish how intracellular ROS affect the inflammatory balance and screen for defective intracellular ROS production in patients with inflammatory disease.Increased knowledge in this area will not only deepen our understanding of inflammation and how it is regulated, but possibly also uncover novel targets for pharmacological control of the inflammatory process.