New calls with deadlines end October - early November
PhD candidate designing a patient-specific expandable vascular graft
Leiden University Medical Center
In this role, you will collaborate with an interdisciplinary team to develop an innovative, patient-specific expandable vascular graft. You will utilize advanced finite element analysis and gain hands-on experience in the manufacturing and validation of prototypes. This project provides a unique opportunity to optimize care for children with congenital heart defects and make a lasting impact in the medical field.
You will be flexibly based at both the Amsterdam university Science Park, the University of Twente and at the LUMC, department of Cardiothoracic surgery, depending on the phase of the project working closely together with engineers and clinicians.
Deadline for application: Nov 8, 2024
More info and application HERE
________________________________________________________________PhD and postdoc positions for in silico and in vitro models of osteoarthritis
Biomechanics Research Unit - GIGA Institute-ULiège
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease, marked by cartilage degeneration, pain and loss of mobility, which cannot be prevented effectively.
OA is a multifactorial disease that involves a complex interplay of biochemical and biomechanical factors happening at different length and time scales. To delineate this complex interplay, recent works in our team have focused on developing multiscale in silico models of human knee joint to study the initiation and progression of OA, by combining finite element models at different length scales with intracellular gene regulatory network models. Additional in silico work has focused on developing the proper tools to analyse scRNAseq and spatial transcriptomics data. In addition, we have worked on establishing in vitro models (cartilage-on-chip and organoids) and in vivo models (mice and mini-pig) to inform and validate the models and work on their translation to the clinics.
The proposed project will build up on the previous works, to complete the feedback loop of the multiscale workflow in order to predict how changes in cellular-level affect tissue level mechanical properties by using computational homogenization techniques.
Application Deadline: 10 Nov 2024 - 18:00
More info and application HERE
________________________________________________________________PhD Fellowship in DC 8 – Mechano-chemo models of the knee and intervertebral disc joints, to explore the emergence of age-related risk factors of degeneration
Pompeu Fabra University - Department of Engineering
A 4-years PhD position is available in the framework of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN) InSilicoHealth - Training the virtual twin professionals to support healthy ageing, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme.
This PhD project will focus on coupling biological regulatory network and organ finite element models to define risk factors of different rates or organ ageing in personalised models related with patient (osteoarthritis, low back pain) and population cohorts, with which UPF works.
A successful project will result in a robust pipeline for multiscale modelling that allows mechanistic explorations of pathophysiological mechanisms and risk factor predictions for age-related joint degeneration, based on interpretable biological mechanisms.
Deadline for application: Nov 29, 2024
More info and application HERE
________________________________________________________________PhD candidates for InSilicoHealth: an innovative training program for a new generation of digital health professionals
iSi Health is pleased to announce that InSilicoHealth was successfully awarded by the European Commission! This compelling interdisciplinary joint degree-MSCA Doctoral Network programme, coordinated by KU Leuven, will train 11 Doctoral Candidates to become effective translators of the rapidly evolving digital technology to tackle existing and future challenges related with healthy ageing in Europe. InSilicoHealth will specifically focus on developing virtual human twin technology for the heart, brain and musculoskeletal systems, while explicitly addressing the ethical, legal societal implications of these technologies. The project will be carried out by a strong multidisciplinary consortium composed of eight leading European Universities, industrial partners, and several organisations supporting in silico medicine, such as the VPHi and Avicenna Alliance. InSilicoHealth is conceptualized as a steppingstone for a sustainable EU-based, doctoral programme on in silico health, providing a 360° view on the methodological, technological, ethical, social, and regulatory challenges associated with the upcoming digital revolution of healthcare.
Recruitment for PhD candidates is ongoing!
Find out more about the different positions at www.insilicohealthproject.eu
________________________________________________________________2 PhD Positions at the Dept of Cell Biology-Inspired Tissue Engineering (cBITE) at the MERLN Institute for Technology-inspired Regenerative Medicine - Maastricht University
As part of the ERC STG project “AUTOMATHIC” and under the supervision of dr. Aurélie Carlier, this 5-year interdisciplinary project aims to perform cutting-edge research in developing new methodologies for the automated modeling of the dynamic behavior of large biological networks. The project also involves engaging with national and international stakeholders.
In silico models aim to capture and elucidate the complex and emergent interactions of biological systems, with the goal of expediting research and potential clinical translation. For example, ordinary differential equation (ODE) models of toxin and drug transport are being developed to bring safer therapies to chronic kidney disease patients. Despite recent progress, these cutting-edge ODEs only model transport in steady state and remain limited regarding the amount and complexity of dynamic transport mechanisms as it is often not clear which kinetic relation is most suitable. This limitation is due to the manual and labor-intensive approaches to construct the ODEs, which critically hinder their application in quantitative toxicity assessment in key industrial settings like drug development. In AUTOMATHIC, we aim to develop an integrated framework for automated ODE structure identification, parameter estimation and model evaluation and explore the capabilities of the developed framework for toxin and drug transport in the kidney.
PhD Position: Automated Knowledge Graphs for Kidney Physiology and Pathology
PhD Position: Framework for automated ODE model construction
Closing date 24 Nov 2024
