July/August 2024: PhD and postdoc positions on projects funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

Become part of the vibrant environment of infection researchers at MIMS, the Swedish EMBL node. Enjoy the beauty and quality of life in Sweden’s beautiful North, while being connected to the European network of research excellence of the Nordic EMBL Partnership.

We now recruit talented and creative individuals who like to work as part of an interdisciplinary team. The transmission of malaria parasites by mosquitoes depends entirely on their successful interactions with the vector. Many aspects of these interactions remain enigmatic. With the expansion of genetic screening technology into the diploid phase of a rodent model parasite it has now become possible for the first time to screen systematically for essential parasite gene functions in transmission. 

Fully paid PhD positions (4 years at 100%)

Driven individuals who want to develop a PhD project in the broad research areas listed below are encouraged to apply here with their CV and cover letter by July 30, 2024.

Postdoctoral positions and fellowships

A postdoc position has become available. Apply here by July 30, 2024. The position is for two years in the first instance, with opportunity for extension. After the deadline, send a CV and cover letter explaining your motivation to oliver.billker@umu.se

Consider how a genetic screen that opens up a new area of biology can become a springboard for starting your own lab!

Projects

These are examples of the type of work we would like to do. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with oliver.billker@umu.se to discuss. The lab would like to attract a broad set of interests and skills to get at these questions and we like to collaborate across disciplines. There are opportunities to use traditional genetic and biochemical techniques, to apply machine learning approaches to reveal insights from large datasets, or to use our cutting edge facilities in cryoEM, single cell genomics and metabolimics to get at parasite vector interactions.

1. Cell biology of the oocyst. The replicative cyst that forms from the parasite’s zygote on the mosquito midgut epithelium is poorly understood. We want to work out basic aspects of its cell biology, for instance how how its development relies on inherited mRNAs and proteins or how its wall is formed and grows dynamically.
2. Metabolic parasite-vector interactions that determine vectorial capacity. Mosquito feeding behaviour influences parasite development through metabolic interactions. We would like to know how parasite metabolism differs in mosquito and blood stages, which nutrients limit cyst growth in the vector, whether the vector affects mosquito metabolism and how feeding and egg laying behaviour of the mosquito affect its ability to transmit malaria.
3. How to exploit natural genetic diversity. There is a vast amount of genetic diversity among rodent malaria isolates (e.g. ). How can we harnessed this natural diversity to identify genes and molecular mechanisms that underpin the biology and transmission of malaria parasites through genetic crosses?

To get answers to these questions we will often operate at genome scale, combining new genetics screening approaches (Bushell et al., 2017; Russell et al., 2023; Sayers et al., 2023; Balakrishnan et al., 2024), genome scale metabolic modelling (Chiappino-Pepe et al., 2023) and single cell transcriptomics (e.g. Raddi et al., 2020).