PhD Position in Neuroimmunology
100 %
The Clinical Neuroimmunology Laboratory in the Department of Biomedicine of the University of Basel/University Hospital Basel, headed by Professor Tobias Derfuss, is planning to open a PhD position in early- to mid-2023. Research in the lab is aimed at understanding the causes and pathomechanisms of autoimmune diseases affecting the nervous system, particularly multiple sclerosis and myasthenia gravis.
Your position
The goal of the planned research is to understand how B cells switch from their normal function of protecting the body against pathogens, and start to make antibodies that damage the body's own tissues. Experimental methods include molecular and cell biology, flow cytometry, histology and microscopy, protein methods, and bioinformatics. The majority of the work involves samples from patients and healthy human donors, but experiments with live animals are also planned.
Your profile
We are looking for someone who enjoys working in the lab, and with whom other people also enjoy working together. Basic research requires thought, patience, attention to detail, the commitment of large amounts of time and energy, and the ability to tolerate frustration. You need to be able to work independently, and also to work in a highly integrated way as part of a team, sometimes under circumstances that may seem like they benefit the team while the immediate benefit to you may not be clear.
We offer you
We are a small lab, and we offer a stable, friendly environment in which doctoral students can develop their skills and their understanding, with solild support from people with experience in the various required techniques. We don't make unreasonable demands, and we are open to discuss more or less all aspects of the work and the environment. The Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel is very well equiped, and smartly run by people who understand what it takes to get cutting edge research done, and the community of PhD students here is well supported and socially welcoming.
Application / Contact
Interested applicants should contact the project leader Nicholas Sanderson by email at
Please include two things: a CV, and a five- to ten-sentence description of your most interesting research work so far (Masters project, undergraduate project, hobby project, etc), making clear what the question or goal was, what methods you used, what the results were, how you interpreted them, and what, if anything, you would do differently if you wanted to address the same question or goal in the future.
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