PhD position / Contrato predoctoral - New therapies for the treatment of inherited and acquired mitochondrial dysfunction - UCAM Murcia

PhD position: New therapies for the treatment of inherited and acquired mitochondrial dysfunction

Offer Description
We have a vacancy for a doctoral candidate funded under the strategic plan of the Catholic University of Murcia for the incorporation of researchers to ongoing research lines at this institution. The project will be mainly developed at the UCAM HiTech Sport & Health Innovation Hub (Murcia – Spain), within the group of Metabolism and Genetic Regulation of Disease, and through secondments in an international institution at the choice of the candidate.

What will you do?
Hosts: Dr. Rubén Rabadán-Ros, Dr. Rubén Zapata-Pérez
Mitochondrial disorders represent one of the most common forms of heritable metabolic disease in children. Mitochondrial dysfunction leads to a net energy deficiency, which is translated into devastating, incurable diseases featuring growth retardation, cardiomyopathy, encephalopathy and liver dysfunction, among other symptoms. Moreover, mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the major hallmarks of aging, and is considered a substantive player in the onset of age-related disease, including sarcopenia, diabetes, neurodegenerative and cardiac disease.
Within this project, the doctoral candidate will evaluate new therapies, based on the administration of bioactive molecules, in in vitro and in vivo models of inherited (e.g. COXPD1) and acquired (e.g. age-related) mitochondrial dysfunction.

What do we expect?
We seek a highly motivated scientist who is looking forward to working in an ambitious team. The ideal candidate is willing to share ideas and results in a highly collaborative environment, and has a positive attitude towards possible difficulties that may arise during the development of the project. This vacancy requires command of written English and oral English/Spanish. Excellent communication and organization skills as well as the ability to work within a dynamic group are essential. The research project should result in a PhD thesis.
To be eligible for this position, you meet the following requirements and experience:
- You have a Masters degree in a field such as biomedical sciences, biotechnology, molecular biology, biology, or equivalent.
- You have a grade of, at least, 2 (equivalent to a score of 7-8.9 over 10) as a result of the average between the grade obtained in your degree and your Masters studies.
- You can fluently read and write in English.
The skills and competences listed below will also be valued:
- Communication skills
- Collaboration/Team work
- Goal-oriented
The following experience and skills would be helpful, but not essential:
- Bioinformatics
- Routine lab techniques in biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology
- Command of oral Spanish

Your working environment
Established in Murcia (Spain), the Catholic University San Antonio of Murcia (UCAM) is a private non-forprofit university founded in 1996 with the mission of providing students with the knowledge and skills to serve society and to participate in the areas of education and culture. UCAM is characterized by offering students an integral and personalized quality education based on the combination of in-depth theoretical and practical knowledge. The promotion and fostering of research activities is one of the University's mission, making it easy and accessible for our researchers to participate in numerous international research projects and transferring knowledge and technology to businesses and society. UCAM has more than 450 renowned strategic partners, among which are several leading universities such as UC Berkeley, Stanford, NTU, NUS, or Università degli Studi di Bologna.
UCAM is one of the Spanish universities with the highest growth in the last 10 years. Over 4000 people work here to provide scientific research and teaching. This concentration of expertise makes the centre a breeding ground for fruitful scientific collaboration. Among the research facilities offered by the university, including all routine and specific equipment to accomplish the proposed objectives, the UCAM HiTech Innovation Sport & Health Hub acts as the microscopy core facility of the institution, and counts on genome analysis laboratories, cell culture units, a viral vector facility and a cutting-edge level 2 security laboratory.

Further information
For more information about the position you can contact:
- Dr. Rubén Rabadán-Ros (rrabadan@ucam.edu)
- Dr. Rubén Zapata-Pérez (rzapata@ucam.edu)
To apply, send your CV and cover letter to rrabadan en ucam.edu and rzapata en ucam.edu with “job application” in the subject line. The starting date of this project will be May 2023.