Vienna, Austria
Internship Explorer
Internship Explorer
Explore and teach at the University of Vienna, where more than 7,500 academics thrive on curiosity in continuous exploration and help us better understand our world. Does this sound like you? Then join our accomplished team! Your personal sphere of influence: Your future workplace is at the Institute of Physiological Chemistry, at the Faculty of Chemistry. You will join Veronika Somoza's research group, where you will find excellent opportunities for research in the fields of food and physiological chemistry. You will work on a project investigating the impact of flavor compounds on oral and extraoral chemosensory systems involved in physiological functions, e.g., metabolic regulation, food intake and immune response. The aim is to elucidate molecular mechanisms by which flavor-active molecules modulate chemoreceptor signaling pathways in different tissues and to link these findings to physiological outcomes. The project combines state-of-the-art molecular biology, analytical chemistry, and bioinformatics approaches. The aim is for the successful candidate to be enrolled in the Doctoral School of Chemistry (DosChem) of the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Vienna: https://doschem.univie.ac.at/ The employment duration is 3 years. Initially limited to 1.5 years, the employment relationship is automatically extended to 3 years if the employer does not terminate it within the first 12 months by submitting a declaration of non-extension. With appropriate work progress and excellent performance of the candidate, an extension to a total maximum of 4 years is possible. Your future tasks: You actively participate in research, teaching & administration, which means: * You work on your dissertation and its completion. * We expect you to finalize your dissertation agreement within 12-18 months. * You hold courses independently within the scope of the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement. * You take on administrative tasks in research, teaching and administration. * You are involved in research projects and scientific studies in the area of: - Analysis of cellular chemoreceptor function using molecular biology techniques, including PCR, qPCR, CRISPR/Cas-mediated knock-out models, RNA-Seq, fluorescence microscopy and ELISA. - Establishment and application of animal and human cell culture systems including organoids, to investigate receptor-ligand interactions and downstream signaling pathways - Comprehensive characterization of flavor compounds using state-of-the-art analytical chemistry methods (e.g., LC-MS/MS, GC-MS, HRMS, metabolomics approaches and sensory trials) - Bioinformatic analysis and integration of multi-omics datasets (transcriptomics, metabolomics) including pathway and network analysis - Design and conduct mechanistic in vitro studies and, where applicable, support translational approaches to evaluate physiological relevance, human intervention studies
