PhD position

PhD POSITION

NeuroRestore is a research and innovation center spanning EPFL and the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) that develops and applies medical therapies aimed to restore neurological functions. We integrate implantable neurotechnologies with innovative treatments developed through rigorous preclinical and clinical studies. These developments have led to breakthroughs for the treatment of paraplegia, tetraplegia, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and traumatic brain injuries. By working with our network of vibrant high-tech start-ups and established medical technology companies, we are committed to validate our medical therapy concepts and see them used every day in rehabilitation clinics worldwide.

Computational analysis of single cell sequencing data to elucidate the mechanistic complexity of spinal-cord injury and movement disorders

Spinal cord injury (SCI) triggers a cascade of molecular and cellular responses that has yet to fully understood. The incomplete appreciation of the molecular tapestry underlying SCI has hindered the development of targeted therapeutic strategies that seek to alleviate symptoms and enable neuro-regeneration after injury.

Here, we aim to leverage on revolutionary single-cell technologies to unravel the enigma of SCI at a molecular level and translate these findings into comprehensive SCI treatments.

This creates an opportunity for an interdisciplinary PhD project that interrogate spinal cord injury and related movement disorders across multi-omic single-cell modalities (snRNA-seq, multi-omic scRNA-seq + snATAC-seq, spatial transcriptomics) and combine bioinformatics tools, statistical methodologies and machine learning strategies.

The project is divided into two general parts: (i) developing sophisticated frameworks of analyzing single-cell sequencing data and (ii), applying known and in-house tools to generate biologically meaningful insights into SCI and other diseases.

The PhD candidate should be extremely passionate about computational biology/bioinformatics, understanding the mechanistic complexity of the spinal cord and central nervous system, and developing precision medicine/therapeutics for SCI and other movement disorders.

Prerequisites:

  • R/Python

  • Statistics + big data analytics

Preferred:

  • Bioinformatics

  • Cell and molecular biology

  • Neuroscience

Location: Campus Biotech (Geneva)

Contact (cc): yueyang.teo@epfl.ch, quentin.barraud@epfl.ch and jordansquair@gmail.com for more details.

Jimmy Ravier