Postdoctor, 2 years, in predicting the evolution of antibiotic resistance

The Department of Molecular Biology seeks a postdoctoral researcher who will work with forecasting and steering experimental evolution of antibiotic resistance. The employment is full-time for two years and is expected to start 1 June 2025 or by agreement.

Project description and working tasks

Evolution of antibiotic resistance is inevitable during long-term treatment and contributes to deaths during chronic infections. However, bacteria can only adapt to current conditions. If we could steer their evolution, it might be possible to trick them into evolutionary dead ends where they can no longer evolve resistance or do so only at a cost of reduced growth rate or ability to cause disease. 

This interdisciplinary project will develop a framework for predicting and steering the evolution of multidrug resistance in the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa using a combination of mathematical modeling, experimental evolution and genomics. The project is a collaboration between the Peter Lind lab at the Department of Molecular Biology and the Eric Libby lab at the Integrated Science Lab (IceLab) that is funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Our team of mathematical and experimental biologists will work to combine experimental data with mechanistic mathematical models of the molecular networks that drive resistance evolution to predict the evolution of bacterial populations in the laboratory. Later, focus will be on guiding bacterial populations to desirable genetic outcomes by predicting the environmental conditions likely to lead to a certain evolutionary trajectory.

The postdoc is expected to primarily contribute to the experimental part of the project but work in collaboration with theoreticians. 

Further details are provided by Associate Professor Peter Lind, peter.lind@umu.se.

Qualifications

To be appointed under the postdoctoral agreement, the postdoctoral fellow is required to have completed a doctoral degree or a foreign degree deemed equivalent to a doctoral degree. This qualification requirements must be fulfilled no later than at the time of the appointment decision.

To be appointed under the postdoctoral agreement, priority should be given to candidates who completed their doctoral degree, according to what is stipulated in the paragraph above, no later than three years prior. If there are special reasons, candidates who completed their doctoral degree prior to that may also be eligible. Special reasons include absence due to illness, parental leave, appointments of trust in trade union organisations, military service, or similar circumstances, as well as clinical practice or other forms of appointment/assignment relevant to the subject area.

The successful candidate should have a PhD in microbiology, molecular biology, evolutionary biology or similar research areas. Qualified applicants should have documented experience in one, or several, fields related to the project such as experimental evolution, bacterial genetics, genomics or microbiological and molecular biological techniques. Experience of high-throughput assays and data analysis, programming or interdisciplinary collaborations are merits. The applicant should also have a strong interest in understanding and predicting evolutionary processes on different biological levels.

Successful candidates must be able to carry out independent scientific research and have a strong ability to write scientific manuscripts. All communication in the research group is in English and therefore excellent communication skills in written and spoken English are required. 

Scientific qualifications will be the main evaluation criteria and is based primarily on quality and quantity of scientific publications considering the time since PhD degree. Evaluation of applications will follow the guidelines of Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) to which Umeå University is a signatory. The general evaluation criteria are good collaborative skills as well as possession of the ability and suitability necessary to execute the work tasks as well as a strong interest in the research area of evolutionary forecasting.

Application

The application should be written in English or Swedish. The application is made through our electronic recruitment system at the latest 10 April 2025. A complete application should include:

A full application should include: 

• Cover letter describing your qualifications and research interests and a motivation to why you are interested in this position
• Curriculum vitae (CV) with information about education, previous and current positions and relevant qualifications for the position
• A list of publications including a brief description of your contribution to your most important publications and preprints
• Verified copy of doctoral degree certificate or documentation that clarifies when the degree of doctor is expected to be obtained 
• Verified copies of other diplomas, list of completed academic courses and grades
• Copy of doctoral thesis (if available) and up to 3 relevant articles/preprints  
• Contact information to two persons willing to act as references.

We welcome your application!

More information

The department provides a vibrant interfaculty research environment and there is access to a wide range of state-of-the-art imaging, metabolomics, genomics and screening facilities. The department is also host to the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), which is internationally well-connected through the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Nordic Partnership for Molecular Medicine.

More about the Department of Molecular Biology, please visit our website: www.umu.se/en/department-of-molecular-biology/

For more information about working at Umeå University: www.umu.se/en/work-with-us/