PhD Student (m/w/d)

The Institute of Infectious Diseases at the University of Bern is responsible for teaching and research as well as diagnostic microbiology in the fields of virology, bacteriology, mycology, parasitology and serological infection testing. It is thus the only university institute in Switzerland to unite all specialized microbiological disciplines in the field of clinical microbiology under one roof.
A PhD student position is available in the group of Prof. Endimiani at the Institute for Infectious Diseases (IFIK; University of Bern - www.ifik.unibe.ch). The project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) - https://data.snf.ch/grants/grant/10004552. We will use the Zophobas morio larvae model to develop novel decolonization strategies against multidrug-resistant Enterobacterales.

The student must be enthusiastic for research in the field of antibiotic resistant bacteria, next-generation sequencing technologies and in vivo models. A broad panel of classic and advanced molecular techniques (e.g., metagenomics, cloning, CRISPR-Cas), as well as standard phenotypic susceptibility tests, will be also implemented. Therefore, candidates with a background in microbiology (more specifically in bacteriology) and molecular biology are well qualified. The candidate should possess an already acquired experience with whole genome/plasmid sequencing, along with genome assembly, annotation procedures and metagenomics.
The student must also fulfill the requirements to be accepted as a PhD student by the Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Bern (e.g., Master degree in life science or equivalent). Fluency in spoken and written English is required; other languages (German and French) would be advantageous.

The IFIK provides an international working atmosphere with regular seminars in English language and offers the most modern laboratory equipment and a multidisciplinary setting. Results of research will be presented by the PhD student at international meetings and published in high-quality journals. The student will be enrolled in the Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Bern (www.gcb.unibe.ch).