Hodgkin lymphoma is the most prevalent cancer in adolescents and young adults. Although current multi-agent chemotherapy treatments are effective, they often cause serious long-term side effects in survivors, including cardiovascular disease, infertility, and development of secondary cancers. This highlights a critical need for more specific treatments without these harmful side effects. While immune checkpoint inhibitors show promising results as monotherapy, with complete responses up to 30%, a better understanding of the tumor microenvironment is needed to be able to completely replace chemotherapy.

To improve our understanding of the Hodgkin lymphoma-immune cell interactome, we will take advantage of a unique in-house developed organoid system in which we can co-culture and experimentally manipulate Hodgkin lymphoma and immune cells and study their interactions. These experiments will be conducted by molecular biologists with whom you will closely interact. You will be involved in analyzing the large-scale single-cell multi-omics data (combined epigenetic and transcriptomic data) and spatial transcriptomics data to identify the most promising cell-to-cell interaction targets in Hodgkin lymphoma tissue that we will ultimately validate in patient material.

- A master's degree (or are close to graduating) in bioinformatics, statistical genetics, computational biology, molecular biology or a related field.
- A good amount of experience and understanding of programming languages (Python and R are a big plus) and data analysis.
- Experience working on a High-Performance Computing cluster (SLURM experience is a plus)
- Affinity with statistics or are willing to learn.
- You can work independently but you are also a team player.
- You are motivated, flexible, assertive and pro-active.
- You have excellent organizational, communication and interaction skills.
- You have good project- and time management skills.
- Command of the English language in spoken and written word is mandatory.

We offer a 4-year temporary position for 36 hours a week, to be concluded with a PhD thesis. After one year, performance will be evaluated to decide whether there is sufficient progress to expect a successful completion of the PhD thesis within 4 years. Your salary will be a minimum of € 3.017,- gross per month in the first year and a maximum of € 3.824,- gross per month (PhD scale) in the final year, based on a full-time appointment (36 hours a week). In addition, the UMCG will offer you 8% holiday pay, and 8.3% end-of-year bonus. The conditions of employment comply with the Collective Labour Agreement for Medical Centres (CAO-UMC).

The intended starting date is June 1st 2025 or upon agreement.

Genetica

In this KWF-funded project, we are looking for a PhD student that will be working closely together with members of the Functional Single-cell Biology group of Dr. Monique van der Wijst (Department of Genetics) and the Hodgkin Lymphoma group of Dr. Arjan Diepstra (Department of Pathology and Medical Biology). Both groups are embedded in the University Medical Center Groningen and combine research, diagnostics and/or patient care. The Functional Single-cell Biology group contains a mix of bioinformaticians and PhD students that together aim to combine state-of-the-art experimental assays with big data analyses to help understand how cell-to-cell communication impacts gene expression, gene regulation, and the immune response. While the Hodgkin Lymphoma group contains PhD students that aim to gain molecular insights into the Hodgkin-Lymphoma cell-immune interactome that can be translated to improved patient care.

Monique van der Wijst
06 1309 8023
m.g.p.van.der.wijst@umcg.nl

Arjen Diepstra
06 3617 7428
a.diepstra@umcg.nl