Postdoc position microbiota-immune axis (computational biology)

The research group of Thomas Vogl (https://krebsforschung.meduniwien.ac.at/en/focus/tumor-biology/vogl-lab/) at the Center for Cancer Research at the Medical University of Vienna is looking for two postdocs working on projects at the intersection of immunology and microbiome research. We offer two fully funded positions for up to 3 years. These positions are funded by an ERC Start grant and an EU consortium project (coordinated by T.V.) until the end of 2028.

Project description

Our group studies how adaptive immune responses (antibodies in particular) against microbiota modulate human health and how these processes influence the onset of cancer and autoimmune/autoinflammatory diseases. We use high-throughput immunoassays, liquid handling robots, and next generation sequencing to profile patients’ immune systems. These datasets are analyzed by bioinformatics and machine learning methodologies. Building on a novel, massively parallel phage display technology (Vogl et al., 2021, Nature Medicine), these projects will investigate the role of antibody repertoires against microbiota in different human diseases.

Earliest start date: Mid of September 2025 (with some flexibility in the last quarter of 2025)

We offer

• Exciting translational research around multidimensional datasets generated by proprietary high-throughput technologies (antibody binding data against 100,000s of antigens, microbiome data, NGS, machine learning…)

• Collaborative project framework in an EU consortium with top researchers from the Karolinska institute in Sweden, Sorbonne in France and many more.

• Multi-national and interdisciplinary open work environment at the Medical University of Vienna

• Outstanding computational resources and support services

• Internationally competitive salary with full benefits

• A young and dynamic team (five PhD students, two Post-docs, one lab manager (wetlab) and group leader

• Working group that supports the SAFE Labs initiative (https://safelabs.info/)

Your profile

• completed PhD degree (or soon to be completed) in bioinformatics, computational biology, computer science, data science, machine learning, or similar fields

• experience with R, Phyton, statistical analyses (basics, also LMEMs, GLMMs, GLMs, ideally some Bayesian), data science, and machine learning desirable (e.g. tidyverse, ggplot2, etc.)

• Github/coding infrastructure, version management working, having repos or published packages desirable

• SQL background and experience with deploying packages (e.g. hosting a Shiny app, remote SQL, services (LISC), etc.) favorable

• experience with Illumina NGS data (barcoding, demultiplexing), microbiome data (metagenomics, 16S), sample management (SQL databases), BCR-Seq, or visualization of large data sets advantageous (but not required)

• Desirable: knowledge about containers (Docker/Podman, GitHub Actions, etc.)

• interested in testing and reproducibility of colleagues’ code

• interest to learn about the underlying biology of the immune-microbiome axis

• good written and oral communication skills in English

• team spirit and independent problem-solving skills

• willingness to work with PhD students in the group and interact with the EU consortium partners (approximately 80% research and 20% supervision & project management)

Application

Interested candidates should send their application (motivation letter, CV, contact details of two references, and scans of transcripts [including grades of BSc, MSc, and PhD studies]) to thomas.vogl(at)meduniwien.ac.at with the subject “Postdoc application immune-microbiome research (computational biology) - <last name>”.