Patients with diabetes are known to have stiffer arteries compared to healthy people. These stiffer arteries drive hypertensive cardiovascular complications. Mechanistic basis of increased arterial stiffness in diabetes has not been established yet. The aim of this project is to gain insight in the biomechanics of increased arterial stiffness in patients with diabetes.

The heart of this project is an experimental setup for biaxial testing of murine arteries under quasi-static as well as pulsatile conditions. This setup, being developed in-house, provides maximal flexibility to perform detailed biomechanical phenotyping. The candidate will be:

•  involved in further development and optimization of the setup and associated protocols,     including full integration in NI LabVIEW but potentially also hardware improvements;
• using existing constitutive (solid mechanics) formulations to interpret and quantify experimental findings from our setup;
• further extending these formulations to optimally capture pulsatile loading data;
• applying these modelling techniques not only to experimental data, but also patient data available through the Maastricht Study and others.

The candidate will be closely working together with another PhD student (MD background).

• Degree (MSc) in Mechanical, Electrical, or Biomedical Engineering or equivalent.
• Programming and signal processing experience, preferably with MATLAB and LabVIEW.
• Strong team player; perseverant attitude.
• Eager to learn from and collaborate with people outside one’s field of expertise.

This position offers a dynamic and challenging multi-disciplinary environment, with expert supervision and high-tech infrastructure, in a top cardiovascular research institute (CARIM).

The preferred starting date for this position is September 1, 2019.

We offer a (in total) 4 year full-time appointment as PhD student. At the end of the first year your performance will be reviewed and upon a positive assessment, your contract will be extended for a three-year period.

Fixed-term contract: 4 jaar.

The terms of employment of Maastricht University are set out in the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (CAO). Furthermore, local UM provisions also apply. For more information look at the website https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/support/um-employees

Maastricht University

Maastricht University is renowned for its unique, innovative, problem-based learning system, which is characterized by a small-scale and student-oriented approach. Research at UM is characterized by a multidisciplinary and thematic approach, and is concentrated in research institutes and schools. Maastricht University has around 18,000 students and 4,300 employees. Reflecting the university's strong international profile, a fair amount of both students and staff are from abroad. The university hosts 6 faculties: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Faculty of Law, School of Business and Economics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience.

CARIM - School for Cardiovascular Diseases

The Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM), School for Cardiovascular Diseases, is one of the top institutes for translational cardiovascular research in Europe. It is among the world leaders in the fields of research into vascular and thrombotic disorders and atrial fibrillation as well as translational heart failure research. It has also made important international contributions to molecular imaging in the cardiovascular field.

With an annual budget of approximately 20 mln Euros in 2018, CARIM is one of the largest cardiovascular research institutes in Europe, producing more than 500 scientific articles and approximately 40 PhD dissertations per year. CARIM employs 250 researchers from 13 disciplines, about 100 PhD students and 40 technical and support staff members. 

Over the last ten years, CARIM papers have been published in high-impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Nature Medicine, Nature Cell Biology, Cell Metabolism, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Circulation, Lancet Neurology, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Bibliometric analyses illustrate that CARIM publications have been cited 1.97 times more often than the world average for the cardiovascular field in the period of 2009 until 2012.

CARIM is recognized by the KNAW as a research school and as an international training site for Early Stage Researchers in the framework of the Marie Curie Program. 

Cardiovascular scientists from around the world join CARIM because it values open communication, close cooperation, high ambitions, good facilities and a critical learning environment.