Call for applications for a fully financed PhD fellowship

Project description

The PhD is fully funded and will be part of a bigger project aiming to improve solid tumour therapy by using engineered cells to seek and kill cancer cells in solid tumors, while simultaneously delivering a drug. The drugs will be based on venoms and will be designed to specifically target tumor cells. Drawbacks of current immune cell therapies include limited tumor penetration and failure to recognize all cancer cells, and they are engineered to permanently be active, or active for too short a time. With prostate cancer as target disease, this PhD project aims to develop a biotechnological platform to potentially solve these issues, which could offer a more potent and safer treatment strategy for these patients.

You will be working closely together with more senior staff and other collaborators and are not expected to possess all the skills needed for a successful project prior to starting. Our main collaborators are located at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and it would be adventageous for the project to have the mandatory stay abroad there in the beginning of the project. 

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in molecular medicine, molecular biology, biomedical engineering or related subjects.
• Prior experience with wet lab work and molecular biology techniques such as, cloning, plasmid-prep, PCR, qPCR, western blotting, agarose and (urea-)PAGE gel electrophoresis.
• Skills in mammalian cell culture and drug evaluation using e.g. viability assays, fluorescent staining’s and imaging, flow cytometry and the like is prioritized.
• Experience with RNA and/or peptide therapeutics, including RNA synthesis by in vitro transcription, RNA clean-up and purification is preferred.
• Basic training in laboratory animal research alongside hands on experience with in vivo cancer models, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics evaluations is a plus but not a requirement.
• Fluency in English (oral and written).
• Analytical skills and ability to work independently with attention to details.
• Good communication skills related to working in an international research group and within a highly interdisciplinary team of collaborators.
• Research interests and ambitions for excellence in data driven science.
   

How to apply

Please submit your application via this link. Application deadline is 3 May 2026 23:59 CET. Preferred starting date is 1 August 2026.

For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide.  

Further information

Please contact Associate Professor Lasse Sommer Kristensen, lasse@biomed.au.dk, for more information.

All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, regardless of their personal background. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with applicable collective agreement.