08 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Umea University, Sweden

The postdoctoral candidate will be part of the Simons Foundation initiative “Promoting functional brain maintenance – insights from successful agers” which adopts a longitudinal approach to study brain structure and function in highly selected individuals resisting typical age-related deteriorations in cognition.

The project encompasses a diverse range of methodologies, including behavioral studies and brain imaging techniques, all aimed at elucidating mechanisms and factors supporting maintained plasticity in aging.

The postdoctoral candidate will work with researchers from various fields and will be involved in human lab experiments, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), brain imaging techniques focusing on the cerebral vasculature and brain structure.

The details of the appointment will be determined together with the postdoctoral supervisors, depending on the specific interests and competencies of the applicant and the needs of the project. Regardless of specific research questions, the work will include analyses and interpretation of imaging data.

Interventions to promote lifelong learning show promising results but are hampered by large individual differences in response. It is evident that we need to rethink the premises of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to better predict who will benefit from which intervention. As a first step in this process we sought to utilize existing prospective cohort studies and intervention data to predict individual factors conducive to lifelong learning trajectories. Examples of such data come from the Betula study, the Västerbotten Intervention Programme (VIP), exercise and cognitive training interventions, and rehabilitation studies.

The candidate will be part of the sub project ‘Adaptive Interventions to Promote Life-Long Learning‘, aimed at leveraging the rich longitudinal databases to better understand how health-promoting lifestyle interventions can promote cognitive abilities in aging. The main task is to develop methods for predicting health outcomes using dynamic and adaptive modeling whilst addressing statistical challenges the analysis pose. This will contribute to constructing individualized, AI-based interventions that can be updated using individual characteristics that may change over time, e.g. motivation, health, and activity. Outputs from this project will include new models and estimation tools, and will inform the design of future interventions to promote life-long learning.

The species that compose the human gut microbiome are poorly characterized at their molecular level, despite their important roles to keep a healthy state. The presence of pathogenic species or imbalances in the composition of commensal species are associated with disease. The mechanisms by which these species interact with each other are not fully understood – for example, which species support or inhibit the growth of other species and what are the molecular mechanisms behind these growth interactions.

In this project, you will identify which species promote or inhibit the growth of other species by monitoring bacterial growth, and will use proteomics, metabolomics and traditional molecular biology approaches to identify the mechanisms behind some of these interactions. You will also study some of these interactions in the context of a microbial community.

The project, which will analyse the contemporary commemoration and contestation of the Holocaust on social media during its anniversaries in English, Swedish and German linguistic settings, is led by Associate Professor Samuel Merrill. The project will also study the role that social media platforms play in these matters in terms of their technical design and underlying algorithms. It will generate new knowledge, of relevance to a range of societal stakeholders, at a time when memory of the Holocaust is not only being eroded by the passing of its living survivors but also faces risks associated with a contemporary political landscape characterised by increasing polarisation, especially online.

The postdoc will work in the research project “Remote and flexible work arrangements: A cross-national study focused on implications for leaders and employees (REMOTE-FLEX)”, which is a project focused on the role of work characteristics and leadership in remote and flexible work settings and how these impact employees work motivation, well-being, and performance. The tasks will consist of data collection and data analyses of quantitative and qualitative data and writing of scientific articles. The postdoc will also have opportunities to contribute to research applications. As a postdoc, you are expected to contribute to the department’s common research and educational environment.

The position is at the Department of Psychology. The place of employment is Umeå, Sweden, and active participation in the department’s activities and involvement in the activities are expected. Opportunities will also be provided for the postdoc to spend time at the University of South-Eastern Norway, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, and ISM University of Management and Economics (Lithuania) where some of the project members are based. 

The research group currently consists of 4-6 individuals in collaboration with, among others, the sections of Neurology, Pathology, Imaging and Functional Medicine at Norrland University Hospital (NUS), as well as the Department of Psychology at Umeå University. The group currently includes a group leader, a doctoral student, a postdoctoral fellow, a research nurse and, in addition, several affiliated researchers and students. Our research ranges from clinical patient studies, to studies involving cerebrospinal fluid, genetics and lifestyle factors in patients, down to molecular genetics and biochemical aspects of Parkinson’s disease and other alpha-synucleinopathies. A major focus is on studies of genetics and lifestyle factors in people affected by these currently incurable diseases, to understand what causes them. This research is conducted both by analyses of patients and molecular biological data collected on site, locally in Umeå and Västerbotten, and in international databases in collaboration with different research groups, which means that new knowledge can be secured through many observations from different geographical regions.  

Interactions between malaria parasites and mosquitoes determine the success of malaria transmission and are coming in focus as targets for interventions. The biology of Plasmodium mosquito stages remains poorly understood, but recent breakthroughs in CRISPR screening technologies, single cell transcriptomics, imaging and computational modelling open new opportunities to get at the genetic and molecular interactions between parasite and vector. As part of an international network of collaborators, and with funding from the Wallenberg foundation, we are growing our interdisciplinary team to tackle important questions related to the biology of the Plasmodium ookinete and oocyst and their metabolic and immune interactions with mosquitoes.

In a lab with a strong track record of facilitating the postdoc-PI transition, you will work in a rodent model, for instance to build on our unique expertise in developing large-scale phenotypic screens, or to develop other genome scale approaches to get at how molecular parasite-vector interactions determine transmission success. See our lab page for more details on available projects: www.billkerlab.org.

You will join the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), the Swedish EMBL node, hosted at the Department of Molecular Biology. You will have access to outstanding research facilities and networking opportunities offered in Umeå, by Sweden’s SciLifeLab infrastructure and through our partnership Nordic EMBL-Partnership for Molecular Medicine.