PhD candidate on bioinformatic analysis of the asthmatic lung

Asthma is a common chronic lung disease characterized by airway inflammation and shortness of breath. Unfortunately, a substantial proportion of patients - around 10% - respond insufficiently to available medication. We still do not fully understand why, resulting in a persistently high disease burden for this patient group. The main reason is a lack of detailed knowledge about the asthmatic lung.

In this 4‑year PhD project, you will help solve this puzzle and pave the way for new treatment strategies for patients with severe asthma. In this challenging project, we will use innovative imaging technologies (single‑cell transcriptomics and proteomics) to map lung tissue from healthy individuals and asthma patients down to the level of individual cells and molecules. As a PhD candidate, supported by other team members, you will:

• Build a spatial tissue “atlas” of the asthmatic lung using advanced bioinformatic analyses. These analyses will be performed on a unique set of lung tissue samples previously collected in the Netherlands, England, and Brazil.
• Pay particular attention to how immune cells are dysregulated in severe asthma and how they respond—well or poorly—to existing medication.

Based on this new knowledge, we will collaborate with our research partner at the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Groningen to design laboratory experiments that uncover and further develop new routes toward treating (severe) asthma.

The Department of Pulmonary Medicine at Erasmus MC is a leading center for the care of patients with lung diseases and conducts internationally recognized research aimed at improving treatment for this patient population.

You will work in the Pulmonary Medicine Research Laboratory (head: Prof. dr. Rudi Hendriks), within the Molecular Immunology research group led by Associate Professor Dr. Ralph Stadhouders. This group of more than 10 researchers includes postdocs, PhD candidates, bioinformaticians, technicians, and MSc students who use advanced techniques to gain new insights into the development of chronic lung diseases (such as asthma) and lung cancer.

There is extensive interaction and collaboration within the group, as well as with other researchers in the department and across Erasmus MC. The Molecular Immunology group also works closely with clinicians such as pulmonologists and pathologists to jointly pursue our goal: improving the quality of life of our patients.

More information can be found here.

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Do you have questions about the role? Feel free to reach out to Dr. Ralph Stadhouders, team leader Molecular Immunology, r.stadhouders@erasmusmc.nl, or Prof. dr. Rudi Hendrik, head of the Pulmonary Medicine Research Laboratory, r.hendriks@erasmusmc.nl.