PhD Position: Spatial Omics Meets Neurodegeneration

Description

How do you go from a patient nerve biopsy to a therapeutic target for a neurodegenerative disease with no cure? That's exactly what this PhD study is about.

We have a unique entry point into this type of research: actual nerve biopsies from patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy due to YARS1 mutations, along with matching iPSC-derived motor neurons and Drosophila models. Now, we need a curious and driven PhD candidate to help us analyze these samples using spatial multi-omics. This is a joint project between Prof. Albena Jordanova (VIB-UAntwerp, Belgium) and Assist. Prof. Csilla Varnai (University of Birmingham, UK), funded by the Generet Award for Rare Diseases’ 2025 (King Baudouin Foundation).

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) is an incurable hereditary neuropathy that causes the degeneration of peripheral nerves. This disease leads to muscle weakness, sensory loss, and lifelong disability. A particula...