PhD PROJECT IN ENDOTHELIAL CELL HETEROGENEITY DURING STROKE

A pre-doctoral position in the context of a KU Leuven competitive 4-year C1 funding project entitled ‘Is the cerebroprotective function of Prdm16 during ischemic stroke mediated by controlling the TGFbeta/BMP signaling balance?’ is available in the labs of Prof. An Zwijsen and Prof. Aernout Luttun, at the Center for Molecular and Vascular Biology (CMVB), Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium. The two host labs belong to the Vascular Biology group within the CMVB. They have a long-standing collaboration on how transcription factors and signaling pathways determine the specific characteristics of endothelial cells in different vascular beds.

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Project

Globally, ischemic stroke is one of the leading causes of death and permanent disability and is caused by a cerebral artery occlusion. Since stroke is a disease of aging, its prevalence and socioeconomic burden will continue to rise, highlighting the urgent need for effective interventions. Restoring cerebral blood flow by functionalizing collateral arteri(ol)es and preserving blood-brain barrier integrity is the most desirable strategy to salvage ischemic brain tissue. We found that transcription factor Prdm16 in endothelial cells plays a protective role during stroke pathogenesis, however its expression declines upon aging. Prdm16 is known in the heart to interact with the Transforming Growth Factor (TGF)beta/ bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathways and our preliminary evidence suggests a similar scenario in the brain endothelium. Here, your mission will be to: 1° consolidate whether modulation of the TGFbeta/BMP balance is part of the cerebroprotective mechanism downstream of Prdm16; 2° exploit these findings to develop biomarker and therapeutic strategies to combat ischemic stroke.

• You will have a dedicated project related to the aims described above and be responsible for the ethical compliance, planning and execution of experiments, data management and processing;
• You will be collaborating with other team members working on endothelial heterogeneity and also interacting with colleagues working in other CMVB labs involved in endothelial research;
• You will interact with UZ Leuven clinicians to conduct a proof-of-principle biomarker study;
• Your project will involve working with disease models in transgenic mice, cell cultures and human samples; an important part of the work will relate to molecular phenotyping and deciphering modes of action by single-cell omics;
• You will be expected to present your work at internal and external (inter)national meetings and publish it in scientific journals;
• You will also engage in scientific communication with the lay public.

Profile

Candidates need to have a Master’s degree in (bio)medical sciences or equivalent;
Having a good background and possibly experience (e.g. through your Master’s thesis) in preferably multiple aspects mentioned in the project description above is an added value;
Candidates are highly motivated, enthusiastic and able to work in a multidisciplinary research team, as well as independently, and have a problem-solving attitude;
Candidates have excellent communication and writing skills in English.

Offer

The position is available for one or two years, pending satisfactory progress.
The candidate is expected to compete for a pre-doctoral scholarship during the first year.
The position will be further extended if a scholarship is obtained.
The candidate will be enrolled in the Doctoral School of Biomedical Sciences at KU Leuven.
The candidate will have access to state-of-the-art technologies and a rich training environment.
This pre-doctoral position will offer the possibility to gain proficiency in various aspects of the behavior of endothelial cells and BMP signaling on an international level since the promoter team is coordinating a highly interactive and international network on this topic. Network partners have a broad diversity of technologies available that can be exchanged through visiting their labs..

Interested?

For more information please contact Prof. dr. An Zwijsen (an.zwijsen@kuleuven.be) or Prof. dr. Aernout Luttun, (aernout.luttun@kuleuven.be). 

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