starting at the earliest possible date in the Department of Integrative Virology at the Center for Integrative Infectious Disease Research (CIID) at the in the laboratory of the newly founded group of Dr. Lercher .
The position is part of the SynthImmune Cluster of Excellence, which brings together leading groups in virology, cancer, immunology, and bioengineering to understand and harness the principles of immune control to develop a new class of therapeutics based on bottom-up Synthetic Immunology.
Inflammatory signals lead to epigenetic remodeling that can impact subsequent immune responses. This innate immune memory is antigen-independent and can facilitate cross-pathogen protection. This project focuses on understanding how cells integrate distinct inflammatory cues and combinations thereof and how this leads to epigenetic remodeling. Specifically, the PhD candidate will study molecular networks of inflammatory signal integration and how these facilitate durable epigenetic changes across primary macrophage populations. By employing and advancing existing cell culture model systems, combined with state-of-the-art readouts including transcriptomics, epigenomics, metabolomics, flow cytometry and imaging, this project will advance our understanding of real-world pathogen encounters and the establishment and plasticity of innate immune memory. Identified molecular targets will be validated via genetic and pharmacological perturbation in cell culture and animal model systems of viral infection. This project will not only deepen our insights into long-term consequences of past inflammatory responses but also contribute to unlocking the vast therapeutic potential of antigen-independent innate immune memory.
