9 PhD Positions, Marie-Sklodowska-Curie ETN "PRINT-AID", Europe (2017)

PRINT-AID aims to provide high-quality research training to Early Stage Researchers. By bringing together experts in antimicrobial drug development, microbial biofilms, 3D-printing technologies, in vivo preclinical infection models and related data integration and standardization, the students will benefit from a truly multi-disciplinary training programme. Additionally, PRINT-AID offers each Early Stage Researcher a unique inter-sectoral training opportunity with training periods both in academic and industrial research environments suitable for students pursuing future career in either sector. We encourage applications from candidates who are eagerly interested in multidisciplinary doctoral projects focusing on exploring innovative routes to counteract biofilm-associated infections in medical devices.

Healthcare-associated bacterial infections remain one of the great challenges in modern patient care. Annually over 4 million patients in Europe suffer from bacterial infections that are acquired during hospitalization. Half of these infections are related to medical devices and bacterial growth forming a biofilm on medical devices. As currently available antibiotics are largely ineffective towards microbial biofilms there exists a huge unmet clinical need for novel antibiofilm drugs.

PRINT-AID mission is to tackle bacterial infections and to develop medical devices resistant to bacterial biofilms. To do this we will: 1) identify novel drugs active against microbial biofilms, 2) develop medical devices with antibiofilm activity using 3D-printing 3) validate the anti-infective functionality of the medical devices in preclinical animal models and 4) create a bioinformatics platform to allow integration and standardization of the biofilms data generated during the project.

PRINT-AID European Training Network offers 9 Early Stage Researcher positions across Europe. Each Early Stage Researcher will be enrolled in a PhD programme and will benefit from the designed training programme offered by the hosting organisations and the PRINT-AID consortium. PRINT-AID consortium recruits to high profile universities, research institutions and companies located in Finland, Belgium, Poland, The Netherlands, Italy and Portugal.

Further details:
http://academicpositions.eu