4-year PhD postion to apraise the influence of bacteriophages in the evolution of bacterial antimicrobial resistance

We are excited to announce the opportunity to join our team at the Gómez-Sanz Lab within an SNSF Starting Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) on: “Range of influence of staphylococcal bacteriophages on bacterial populations”.

While bacteriophages are the most abundant entities on Earth and the most prolific bacterial killers, antimicrobial resistant bacterial infections continue increasing worldwide. In fact, antimicrobial resistance represents one of the major global health problems worldwide. Contradictory enough, bacteriophages can provide (via transduction: phage-mediated bacterial genetic exchange) bacteria with adaptive features to enhance virulence or to better adapt to harsh conditions. This double-edged sword encumbers bacteriophages as major actors in bacterial evolution and adaptation. This project builds on the necessity to solve this important paradigm in Biology encompassed with the urge to graze innovative actions to tackle the antimicrobial resistance pandemic.

This PhD project aims at the deep characterization of a unique staphylococcal phage-host library (1) to measure transduction and to select phage candidates with potential translational applications. The PhD candidate will first characterize at phenotypic and genotypic level a unique staphylococcal natural phage collection. Next, she/he will experimentally detect, constitute, and quantify customized transduction events of natural systems and generate a standardized workflow to measure this process by cutting-edge analytical approaches. Subsequently, the PhD candidate will contribute to the development of pioneering methodological strategies to visualize transduction dynamics of selected natural systems. Qualifications:

• MSc degree in the field of Life Sciences with a special interest in Microbiology
• Demonstrated laboratory experience in microbiology and molecular biology techniques
• Prior experience with bacteriophage research is an asset
• Knowledge of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms
• Proficiency in molecular biology techniques (e.g., PCR, cloning, sequencing)
• Experience with microscopy techniques
• Familiarity with genomics and bioinformatics analysis
• Analytical skills and experience with statistical and graphical software
• Excellent organization skills, proactive and flexible.
• The candidate is expected to develop rapidly the capacity to work independently and to integrate in an interdisciplinary research environment.
• English proficiency is requested, German is an asset.
• Excellent writing and communication skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a multidisciplinary research environment.
• Willingness to supervise and mentor undergraduate and masters students is requested

Please send us your online application including CV, motivation letter and 1-2 reference letters (or contact details of two referees) as a single PDF file via email to: barbara.gautschi@unibe.ch. For project specifics, please contact Prof. Elena Gómez-Sanz (elenagomez.titus@gmail.com).

Application deadline is 20th June 2024. Earliest starting date is 1st November 2024. Financial support is according to SNF guidelines.
PhD students have to enrol in the Graduate School of Cellular and Biomedical Sciences (https://www.gcb.unibe.ch/) at the University of Bern.
We look forward to passionate individuals with a teamwork spirit to join our enthusiastic growing team!

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