PhD scholarship - Liver Cell Biology (VUB Jette)

The Faculteit Geneeskunde en Farmacie, Department Basis (bio)-medische wetenschappen, is looking for a PhD-student with a doctoral grant. 

More concretely your work package, for the preparation of a doctorate, contains: 

PhD research on the intitiation of liver fibrosis, as a member of the Liver Cell Biology research group of Prof. Leo van Grunsven, Brussels Health Campus of the VUB (Jette).

The lab studies molecular mechanism involved in liver disease and liver regeneration, thereby making use of several mouse models as well as in vitro models of liver disease (for more information please visit https://livr.research.vub.be/). The general aim of the PhD project is to increase our understanding of the initiating events of hepatic stellate cell activation that take place when a liver is damaged due to an acute or even a chronic liver insult. The project is based on the central hypothesis that quiescent HSCs quickly respond to injury by driving the transcription of only a limited set of genes that result in the final scar tissue-forming activated phenotype.

You will study liver fibrosis initiation and hepatic stellate cell activation in mouse livers and in advanced in vitro 3D spheroid cultures.

You will determine the chromatin landscape and dynamics of quiescent, activated and inactivated HSCs.

You will be trained in RNAseq analysis, multicellular 3D tissue culture and all standard RNA and protein techniques.

You’ll have the opportunity to participate in local and international conferences, in order to expand your scientific network.

You will enroll in the Doctoral School of Life Sciences and Medicine to benefit from workshops on domain specific skills as well as transferable skills.

For this function, our Brussels Health Campus (Jette) will serve as your home base.