PhD ‘unravel sex differences in heart disease'

Sex and gender have a fundamental impact on virtually all major causes of death and disability. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death for both women and men worldwide, yet there are important differences. While CHD rates are higher in men, several modifiable risk factors have stronger adverse effects in women. Also, women often receive different treatments for CHD than men, which is not reflected in current guidelines.

We are looking for two PhD-candidates to unravel why there are sex differences in risk factor effects and treatment. One PhD-candidate will develop and apply novel genetic epidemiological techniques (i.e. Mendelian Randomisation) to uncover the causality of sex differences in CHD risk factor associations. The other PhD-candidate will develop and apply innovative approaches in large electronic health record databases to disentangle whether treatment differences are medically justified or reflect suboptimal treatment. The research will be embedded in a global research and implementation programme on sex differences in cardiovascular disease, also involving experts in Australia and the United Kingdom. With their research, the PhD-candidates will determine to what extent sex differences in CHD are biologically inevitable and to what extent they are explained by potentially avoidable gaps in clinical practice or medical guidelines.

In addition to your research, you will spend about 10% of your time on teaching activities. The initial duration of employment is 1 year. After a positive evaluation, the employment will be extended with 2 years. You will get the opportunity to follow a postgraduate master program in epidemiology.