PhD at the MRI group of the department Biomedical Engineering & Physics

The MRI group of the department of Biomedical Engineering & Physics is hiring a PhD-student to develop advanced MRI techniques that can be used to investigate skeletal muscle injuries and diseases.

Adequate skeletal muscle function is essential for all daily life activities, including walking, moving your arms, swallowing etc. With age, as a consequence of neuromuscular disease, and after injury, skeletal muscles may undergo progressive loss of volume (atrophy) and function. While an active lifestyle and specific, personalized training interventions could protect against functional decline, it is often not clear how much and what type of training is safe and beneficial in individual cases.

Recently, researchers from the Amsterdam and the Leiden University Medical Centers introduced a novel dynamic 3D-MRI technology which combines structural and muscle contractility information of moving leg muscles in the confined space of the MRI scanner. This technology could serve to understand the pathophysiological process of muscle functional decline and to assess effects of an individualized training intervention.

As a PhD candidate you will refine and validate this technology, make it suitable for clinical application, and utilize it to address functional muscle decline.

During the 4-year PhD project, it is the task of the candidate to:

• to reduce the scan time of the dynamic 3D MRI measurements of upper leg muscle motion and contraction and provide metrics of muscle function
• to integrate dynamic 3D-MRI with a comprehensive muscle MRI protocol that includes muscle architecture imaging and
• to apply the 3D dynamic scan protocols in a clinical setting in specific patient cohorts.

A fully funded PhD position for 4 years in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for University Medical Centers (CAO-UMC).

• The successful candidate will first be offered a temporary position of one year with the option of an extension for three additional years. Prolongation of the contract is contingent on sufficient progress in the first year to indicate that successful completion of the PhD thesis within the next three years is to be expected.
• Your salary will be a minimum of € 2.789,- gross per month in the first year and a maximum of € 3.536,- gross per month (scale PhD) in the final (4th) year, based on a full-time appointment.
• In addition, the Amsterdam UMC will offer you 8% holiday pay, and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• Pension via BeFrank
• Reimbursement of 75% of your public transport costs. Would you rather travel by bike? Then we have a good bicycle scheme.
• An active staff association and the Young Amsterdam UMC association, both of which organize fun (sports) activities and events.
• A PhD training program is part of the agreement and the successful candidate will be enrolled in the Graduate School.

The position is made available by a grant from the Applied Engineering Sciences (AES) domain of the Dutch Research Council (NWO), and is a collaboration between Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Leiden University Medical Center, and several companies. Thus, you will be working together with clinical and technological experts in a multidisciplinary team of researchers.

You will be working at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Physics of the Amsterdam UMC in close collaboration with the department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. Over the past decade the two departments have established an active collaboration in the field of musculoskeletal imaging. We are equipped with several state-of-the-art 3.0 Tesla MRI scanners. The MRI research group offers a resourceful and stimulating scientific environment.

The PhD project will be jointly supervised by experts in medical imaging (prof. G. Strijkers, prof. A. Nederveen, dr. M. Hooijmans) as well as by clinical experts in the field of sports-related injury and muscle disease.