PhD Position (f/m/d) – Immunometabolism and the Gut-Liver Axis

PhD Position (f/m/d) – Immunometabolism and the Gut-Liver Axis

Operational area: The Department of Gastroenterology, Metabolic Diseases and Internal Intensive Care Medicine (Med. Department III); DFG Collaborative Research Center 1382 - Gut-Liver Axis 

Working hours: 65% (25,03 hours/week) of the full working hours in the collective agreement (currently 38.5 hours/week)
Duration/Term of employment: The position is limited for 3 years in accordance with the WissZeitVG (German Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act). The successful applicant will be encouraged and supported to achieve a doctoral degree.

Start date: 

Remuneration/Rates: EG 13 (TV-L)

About the project
Patients with advanced chronic liver disease (ACLD) frequently develop life-threatening bacterial infections despite exhibiting profound systemic inflammation. Understanding why immune cells progressively lose their host defence function during disease progression remains one of the major unanswered questions in hepatology. We are seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate to join a newly established research programme investigating human immunometabolism within the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1382 Gut–Liver Axis. The project combines clinical research with mechanistic immunology to understand how immunometabolic programmes regulate immune cell function during progression from compensated cirrhosis to acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). Using unique longitudinal patient cohorts, we aim to identify the metabolic pathways driving immune dysfunction and determine whether these pathways can be therapeutically restored. Ultimately, this work seeks to establish immunometabolism as a novel therapeutic target in advanced liver disease.

Your research
The project combines patient-oriented translational research with state-of-the-art immunology and metabolic profiling. During your PhD, you will investigate how immune cell metabolism changes across different stages of liver disease and how gut-derived inflammatory signals contribute to immune dysfunction.

You will receive extensive training in cutting-edge technologies, including:

• High-dimensional multicolour flow cytometry
• Single-cell metabolic profiling (SCENITH)
• Mitochondrial functional assays (i.a. Seahorse)
• Functional T-cell and monocyte assays
• Multiplex cytokine profiling (Luminex)
• Targeted metabolomics
• Single-cell RNAseq
• Bioinformatic analysis of high-dimensional datasets

Your responsibilities

• collect, process and biobank blood and ascitic fluid as well as liver tissue samples from patients with advanced liver disease
• perform immune phenotyping using multicolour flow cytometry
• characterise immune cell metabolism using SCENITH and complementary metabolic analyses
• investigate T-cell and monocyte function using proliferation, cytokine production and phagocytosis assays
• analyse inflammatory mediators and metabolic biomarkers using ELISA, Luminex and related technologies
• contribute to experimental design, optimisation of laboratory protocols, troubleshooting and interpretation of complex datasets
• present your work within CRC1382 meetings and at national and international conferences
• contribute to scientific publications and collaborative research projects

Your profile

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