PhD position within the treatment of Chronic Kidney Disease

PhD project title: Patient population stratification towards personalized treatment discovery for Chronic Kidney Disease
AstraZeneca R&D, Gothenburg, Sweden will be the Host institution for this PhD position.
Generic presentation of TrainCKDis:
The TrainCKDis project is an EU-funded initiative to foster and train early stage researchers to better understand and tackle the challenges related to chronic kidney disease (CKD) and improving patients’ lives. TrainCKDis will provide an innovative, multidisciplinary, and intersectoral training programme, able to prepare top-level young scientists to develop creative solutions for CKD. The proposed 15 research projects will address key challenges: i) the identification of genetic and epigenetic modifiers that predispose patients to CKD progression, ii) the identification of pathways and biomarkers for monitoring CKD progression and iii) the identification of novel therapeutic targets to improve the limited treatments for CKD. TrainCKDis gathers top European laboratories, companies, hospitals, and associations involved in the treatment of CKD. Early Stage Researchers will thus benefit from an outstanding interdisciplinary platform integrating nephrology, epidemiology, genetics, cell biology, high-throughput screening, system biology, and metabolomics experts.
Objectives/Description of PhD programme:
Chronic Kidney Disease is highly complex and heterogeneous and includes a wide range of etiologies with a multitude of underlying molecular processes in the kidney. Furthermore, the kidney tissue is structurally heterogeneous and comprised of more than 25 different cell types. These factors make development of treatments for CKD very challenging.
This exciting PhD project will use human omics data and advanced data analysis algorithms to group patients into subtypes and characterize underlying biological pathways in the cell type-specific context that will advance our biological understanding of CKD and open new opportunities for drug discovery leading to personalized treatments.
The successful candidate will conduct bioinformatics analyses of omics (transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) data as well as perform wet-lab experiments to functionally characterize and validate the findings, and will develop a unique combination of both computational and experimental skills. In addition to their individual scientific project, they will benefit from further continuing education, which includes scientific and transferable skills courses, participation in workshops and conferences, and secondments to partner labs.
The successful candidate will be hired for 3 years, full time, and enrolled in the PhD Program of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin graduate school upon meeting the qualifications of admission.
Advantages: As EU-funded project, TrainCKDis offer attractive salary to recruited researchers. To find more details, please read the information note of the European Commission.
Eligibility:
1. To be eligible for recruitment, you must – at the date of recruitment – be within the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of your research career and not have a doctoral degree. Full-time equivalent research experience is measured from the date when you obtained the degree entitling you to embark on a doctorate (either in the country in which the degree was obtained, or in the country in which you are recruited), even if a doctorate was never started or envisaged. You may therefore be required to provide documentation proving your eligibility for recruitment.
2.You must not have resided or carried out your main activity (e.g. work, studies) in the country where you apply for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before your recruitment date. Holidays are not counted.
TrainCKDis project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and
innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement N°860977.
Essential Requirements
Master’s Degree or equivalent in biomedical (Medical, Biological, Pharmaceutical sciences, Molecular Biology) or quantitative disciplines (Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Computational Biology, Epidemiology)
Excellent written and spoken English
Strong communication and collaboration skills
Scientific curiosity, creativity, motivation

Desirable Requirements
Working knowledge of kidney biology and disease
Experience in omics data analysis, biostatistics, machine learning, R coding
Peer-reviewed publications



Additional information
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions offer attractive salary and working conditions. The successful candidates will receive a salary in accordance with the national legislation of the recruiting institution and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions regulations for early stage researchers. Exact salary will be confirmed upon appointment.
In addition to their individual scientific projects, all ESR will benefit from further continuing education, which includes scientific skills courses, transferable skills courses, as well as active participation in workshops and conferences and secondments to partner labs.
Each ESR will be hired for 3 years, full time.
The European IMGENE training network wish to reflect the diversity of society and welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of age, disability, gender, nationality, race, religion or sexual orientation.