Predoctoral Research Position

Department of Immunology and Oncology

We are offering a predoctoral research position to undertake a PhD project in our group in the field of immunometabolism and transcriptional regulation within the Department of Immunology and Oncology at the Spanish National Center for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), Madrid, Spain.

Principal Investigator: Mercedes Ricote
Nuclear Receptor Signaling Group

Candidate Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Life Sciences, Biomedicine, or a related field.
• Master's degree in Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Biomedicine, or a related discipline (completed or expected during the 2025/2026 academic year).
• Excellent academic record with a minimum GPA equivalent to 8/10.
• Proficiency in English.
• Strong motivation for research and an academic/scientific career.
• Scientific curiosity, willingness to learn, and ability to work effectively in a team.
• Previous experience in Molecular Biology.
• Certification in laboratory animal experimentation (Functions B and C) will be considered an advantage.
• Experience in bioinformatics (R, Python) is desirable.

The successful candidate will carry out their PhD research at CNB-CSIC, a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence, with access to state-of-the-art facilities and cutting-edge technologies. They will join a laboratory with strong international visibility and an extensive network of international collaborations.

Interested candidates should send their CV, academic transcripts, and a motivation letter to: mm.ricote@cnb.csic.es

Research Area

Our laboratory investigates the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of metabolism and the immune system, with a particular focus on nuclear receptors. Building on recent discoveries from our group (Nature 2023, Blood 2023, Nature Communications 2020), we are especially interested in studying mother–neonate communication and its impact on energy homeostasis and immune system development.

The PhD project will focus on understanding how maternal diet and environmental factors influence the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of metabolism and the immune system under both homeostatic and pathophysiological conditions. In particular, we investigate how bioactive metabolites present in breast milk can modulate metabolic and immune programming during early life.

The project will employ tissue-specific knockout mouse models, next-generation sequencing technologies (bulk RNA-seq, scRNA-seq, ChIP-seq, and ATAC-seq), as well as proteomics and metabolomics approaches integrated with bioinformatic analyses.