CombiDiag DC Fellowship

CombiDiag is a Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN) funded under the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions to train ten Doctoral Candidates (DC) for the field of multimodal peripheral markers and their combinatorial use for diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. It brings together leading academic and industrial experts from six countries in Europe, and uses their synergies to build a triple‑i (interdisciplinary, intersectoral and international) research & training platform with the required multidisciplinary expertise and cutting-edge technologies. CombiDiag Fellows will be trained under the Vitae Researcher Development Framework innovatively combined with the CombiDiag research platform for gaining interdisciplinary scientific and transferable skills as well as personal quality, creative thinking and business mind-set. The MSCA-DN has a highly innovative research programme for the discovery of AD peripheral markers, including body fluids, digital biomarkers, and brain activity, preclinical and clinical validation, development of novel biosensing techniques and point of care tools for clinical research and care delivery and technological exploitation of the diagnostics. The advances of the CombiDiag project will strongly support improved care provision and development of disease-modifying treatments and preventive strategies for dementia patients, and most importantly produce a new generation of Fellows who will take leading roles in future developments in this and related areas.

The PhD position is for translational clinical research. The PhD project mainly analyzes the diagnostic and prognostic use of novel biomarkers in patients with neurodegenerative dementias, including digital sensor technology, blood, and brain activity. Relevant issues include:

i) whether digital biomarkers of speech and activity reach clinically relevant diagnostic and prognostic accuracy in reference to established biomarker-based diagnosis and imaging endophenotypes of prodromal and clinical Alzheimer’s disease dementia;

ii) do digital markers of sleep associate with measures of brain clearance in human studies and transgenic models;

iii) the design of clinical diagnostic and prognostic trials in monocenter and multicentre set-up including recruitment from university centers and primary care. Clinical outcomes shall be studied across countries, with a particular emphasis on understanding what constitutes the relevance of diagnostic and prognostic tests for a given health care system.

CombiDiag Fellows are required to apply to, and be admitted by, their host institutions or academic partners for their PhD degrees. Fellows are exempt from tuition fees for their PhD studies.
Links for information relating to the PhD Programmes and the admission procedure: 

https://promotionsstudiengang.med.uni-rostock.de/
https://www.uni-rostock.de/forschung/nachwuchsfoerderung/graduiertenakademie/

Salary

• The basic living allowance for the ESR Fellowships is about €3,942 gross per month + mobility allowance (€500/month) + family allowance (€660/month for fellows with family charges).
• Fellows shall be appointed with an employment contract limited to 36 months.

Web sites for additional job details and background information:
www.dzne.de
www.gedaechtnissprechstunde-rostock.de/patienten/gedaechtnissprechstunde.html

• ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS
  • First degree with minimum of 2.1 honours in cognitive science, psychology, medicine, gerontology or related field
• PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCES
  • Master degree or equivalent in Cognitive Science, Psychology, Medicine, Gerontology or related field, or PhD level research experience in Clinical Research, Cognitive Psychology, Neuroimaging
• REQUIRED LANGUAGES
  • ENGLISH: fluent in speaking, reading and writing, for applicants whose native language is not English, a minimum of IELTS 6.5 is required
  • GERMAN: basic knowledge in speaking, reading and writing, for applicants whose native language is not German, a minimum of A2 equivalent is desired

When short-listing of candidates, CombiDiag must comply with the following rules:

• MSCA Doctoral Candidates rules: Candidates must be in the first 4 years (full-time equivalent) of their research career and have not been awarded a doctoral degree. Research experience is calculated from the date they obtained a qualification (Masters or equivalent) allowing them to embark on a doctorate
• MSCA mobility rules: Candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting beneficiary for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the recruitment date. Compulsory national service, short stays such as holidays, and time spent as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention are not taken into account. For international European interest organisations or international organisations, recruited fellows must not have spent more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the recruitment date at the same appointing organisation
• Equality rules: All candidates have the equal rights to be selected irrespective of their nationality, race and gender