Job ID: 123031

PhD student – Neuron-glia mechanisms in psychiatry

Position: Ph.D. Student

Deadline: 15 June 2025

Employment Start Date: 1 September 2025

Contract Length: 4

City: Amsterdam

Country: Netherlands

Institution: Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience

Department: Axonal signaling

Description:

Are you interested in contributing to an understanding of the cellular mechanisms in neuropsychiatry? Do you want to use the latest cutting-edge electrophysiology research approaches, and pioneer novel viral tools to study living brain tissue? Do you enjoy collaborating with researchers from different disciplines and work in a larger consortium? Then this job may be for you.

What you will be doing?
Neuro-immune interactions in the brain play a central role in the aetiology of psychiatric disorders. The activity state of microglia is regulated by checkpoint proteins that upon engagement with neuronal binding partners release off-signals and mediate homeostasis and specific effector functions. The signaling ligand CD200 plays a critical role in maintaining microglia in a quiescent state and is known to regulate synaptic properties. To study the role of CD200-CD200R signaling you will utilize novel chemical probes, viral and genetic strategies that allow probing the localization and function at the nanoscale. Two-photon or confocal spinning-disk imaging are leveraged to characterize CD200-CD200R contributions to the neuron-microglial synapse interaction and homeostasis of cellular circuits in the brain. Ultimately, you will contribute to mechanistic, causal understanding of molecular- and cell biology of psychiatric symptoms.

Who are we looking for? 
You are a highly motivated, self-driven candidate with a master’s degree in neuroscience, biomedicine, or relevant chemical science discipline. The ideal candidate will have experience with electrophysiology and/or live cell imaging techniques and preferably with a strong affinity for molecular biology. Programming skills will be very useful for your project. You have excellent capabilities for working independently and being a team player, comfortable communicating, presenting and writing in English.

Depending on education and experience the minimum salary is € 2.901 and the maximum salary is € 3.707 gross per month for a full-time appointment (scale P cao Nederlandse Universiteiten/KNAW). This is exclusive of 8% vacation allowance, 8.3% year-end bonus, travel allowance, internet allowance, home working allowance and pension accrual with ABP. The contract is first for one year and can be extended in case of proper functioning.

For all information and application procedure please use this link