We are offering a PhD fellowship in Glial Biology commencing 1 October 2026 or after agreement. The Division of Cell and Gene Therapy of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine (CTN) is looking for an experienced and highly motivated PhD student. The successful candidate must be interested academically in neuroscience, particularly in its translational applications.
The Center for Translational Neuromedicine is part of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen and is located in the Panum Institute. For more information, visit https://ctn.ku.dk/. The Center currently has 55 employees and students and is divided into five labs. CTN is characterized by a highly ambitious yet collaborative research environment; we are highly interdisciplinary and maintain a wide network of international collaborators. The PhD student will join the Division of Cell and Gene Therapy (Goldman lab). The lab offers an opportunity to work in a highly innovative environment with a strong scientific focus on neural and glial cell biology and an equally strong practical focus on clinical translation.
Project description
Dysregulation of glial cells is a key driver of neurodegenerative disease. This project will focus on how healthy and diseased glial cells compete with one another in the brain. The successful candidate will generate and characterize human glial progenitor from human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) for transplantation into mouse hosts and evaluate the dynamics and transcriptional concomitants of their replacement of resident glial populations. Endpoints include single cell RNA-Seq and scATAC-Seq, and spatial transcriptomics, all correlated to high-resolution histology and imaging. These studies aim to reveal mechanisms of cell-cell competition among glia, as well as the implications of that process on neuronal synaptic structure and function. Our hope is that this work will provide insight into how glial rejuvenation and replacement strategies may be used to treat neurodegenerative disease.
Principal supervisor isProfessor Steven Goldman, < email slettet af sikkerhedsmæssige årsager >.
Start: 1 October 2026 or after agreement
Duration: 3 years as a PhD student
Job description
Your key tasks as a PhD student at SUND are:
PhD Programme Description:
The PhD programme is a three-year full-time research education, intended for candidates holding a relevant academic degree within the project's subject area.
Qualifications:
A master's degree in neurobiology or cell biology, with significant post-graduate technical experience, is required for this position. Significant bench experience in glial cell biology, pluripotent stem cell maintenance and characterization, iPSC generation, glial differentiation protocols, stereotactic surgery, and neurohistology and imaging is required for this position. Expertise in single cell RNA-Seq analysis and spatial transcriptomics is highly desirable.
General policies:
If you have completed your academic education in Denmark, the admission to the PhD programme requires a relevant master's degree (equivalent to 180 ECTS BSc + 120 ECTS MSc).
If you have an academic education from abroad, you must have either a degree equivalent to a Danish master's degree (180 ETCS + 120 ECTS MSc), or at a minimum, a bachelor's degree equivalent to a Danish bachelor's degree (180 ECTS) and be academically qualified at master's level.
As part of the assessment of whether you meet the educational requirements, you must also achieve a positive academic evaluation and be assessed as the best qualified for the position.
Other important criteria are:
Place of employment
The place of employment is at Center for Translational Neuromedicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in dynamic and international research environment.
Terms of employment
The average weekly working hours are 37 hours per week.
The position is a fixed-term position limited to a period of three years. The start date is 1 October 2026 or after agreement.
The employment is conditioned upon the applicant's successful enrolment as a PhD student at the Graduate School at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. This requires submission and acceptance of an application for the specific project formulated by the applicant.
The PhD study must be completed in accordance with The Ministerial Order on the PhD programme (2013) and the Faculty's rules on achieving the degree.
Salary, pension and terms of employment are in accordance with the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State. Depending on seniority, the monthly salary starts at approximately 31,800 DKK/Roughly 4,250 EUR (August 2026 level) plus pension.
Questions
For specific information about the PhD fellowship, please contact the principal supervisor.
General information about PhD studies at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences is available at the Graduate School's website: https://healthsciences.ku.dk/phd/guidelines/
Application procedure
Your application must be submitted electronically by clicking 'Apply for position' below. The application must include the following documents in PDF format:
1. Motivated letter of application (max. one page)
2. CV incl. education, experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position
3. Certified copy of original Master of Science diploma and transcript of records in the original language, including an authorized English translation if issued in other language than English or Danish. If not completed, a certified/signed copy of a recent transcript of records or a written statement from the institution or supervisor is accepted. As a prerequisite for a PhD fellowship employment, your master's degree must be equivalent to a Danish master's degree. We encourage you to read more in the assessment database: https://ufm.dk/en/education/recognition-and-transparency/find-assessments/assessment-database. Please note that we might ask you to obtain an assessment of your education performed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science
4. Publication list (if possible)
Application deadline: 1 July 2026, 23.59pm CET
We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.
The further process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor.
The assessor makes a non-prioritized assessment of the academic qualifications and experience with respect to the above-mentioned area of research, techniques, skills and other requirements listed in the advertisement.
Once the assessment work has been completed each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.
You find information about the recruitment process at: https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/
The applicants will be assessed according to the Ministerial Order no. 242 of 13 March 2012 on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.
The University of Copenhagen wish to reflect the diversity of society and encourage all qualified candidates to apply regardless of personal background.
The Center for Translational Neuromedicine is part of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen and is located in the Panum Institute. For more information, visit https://ctn.ku.dk/. The Center currently has 55 employees and students and is divided into five labs. CTN is characterized by a highly ambitious yet collaborative research environment; we are highly interdisciplinary and maintain a wide network of international collaborators. The PhD student will join the Division of Cell and Gene Therapy (Goldman lab). The lab offers an opportunity to work in a highly innovative environment with a strong scientific focus on neural and glial cell biology and an equally strong practical focus on clinical translation.
Project description
Dysregulation of glial cells is a key driver of neurodegenerative disease. This project will focus on how healthy and diseased glial cells compete with one another in the brain. The successful candidate will generate and characterize human glial progenitor from human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) for transplantation into mouse hosts and evaluate the dynamics and transcriptional concomitants of their replacement of resident glial populations. Endpoints include single cell RNA-Seq and scATAC-Seq, and spatial transcriptomics, all correlated to high-resolution histology and imaging. These studies aim to reveal mechanisms of cell-cell competition among glia, as well as the implications of that process on neuronal synaptic structure and function. Our hope is that this work will provide insight into how glial rejuvenation and replacement strategies may be used to treat neurodegenerative disease.
Principal supervisor isProfessor Steven Goldman, < email slettet af sikkerhedsmæssige årsager >.
Start: 1 October 2026 or after agreement
Duration: 3 years as a PhD student
Job description
Your key tasks as a PhD student at SUND are:
- Carrying through an independent research project under supervision.
- Completing PhD courses or other equivalent education corresponding to approximately 30 ECTS points.
- Participating in active research environments including a stay at another research team.
- Obtaining experience with teaching or other types of dissemination related to your PhD project
- Teaching and disseminating your knowledge.
- Writing a PhD thesis on the grounds of your project
PhD Programme Description:
The PhD programme is a three-year full-time research education, intended for candidates holding a relevant academic degree within the project's subject area.
Qualifications:
A master's degree in neurobiology or cell biology, with significant post-graduate technical experience, is required for this position. Significant bench experience in glial cell biology, pluripotent stem cell maintenance and characterization, iPSC generation, glial differentiation protocols, stereotactic surgery, and neurohistology and imaging is required for this position. Expertise in single cell RNA-Seq analysis and spatial transcriptomics is highly desirable.
General policies:
If you have completed your academic education in Denmark, the admission to the PhD programme requires a relevant master's degree (equivalent to 180 ECTS BSc + 120 ECTS MSc).
If you have an academic education from abroad, you must have either a degree equivalent to a Danish master's degree (180 ETCS + 120 ECTS MSc), or at a minimum, a bachelor's degree equivalent to a Danish bachelor's degree (180 ECTS) and be academically qualified at master's level.
As part of the assessment of whether you meet the educational requirements, you must also achieve a positive academic evaluation and be assessed as the best qualified for the position.
Other important criteria are:
- The grade point average achieved
- Professional qualifications relevant to the PhD project
- Previous publications
- Relevant work experience
- Other professional activities
- A curious mind-set with a strong interest in the intersection of neurodegenerative diseases and glial biology.
- English language skills
Place of employment
The place of employment is at Center for Translational Neuromedicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in dynamic and international research environment.
Terms of employment
The average weekly working hours are 37 hours per week.
The position is a fixed-term position limited to a period of three years. The start date is 1 October 2026 or after agreement.
The employment is conditioned upon the applicant's successful enrolment as a PhD student at the Graduate School at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. This requires submission and acceptance of an application for the specific project formulated by the applicant.
The PhD study must be completed in accordance with The Ministerial Order on the PhD programme (2013) and the Faculty's rules on achieving the degree.
Salary, pension and terms of employment are in accordance with the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State. Depending on seniority, the monthly salary starts at approximately 31,800 DKK/Roughly 4,250 EUR (August 2026 level) plus pension.
Questions
For specific information about the PhD fellowship, please contact the principal supervisor.
General information about PhD studies at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences is available at the Graduate School's website: https://healthsciences.ku.dk/phd/guidelines/
Application procedure
Your application must be submitted electronically by clicking 'Apply for position' below. The application must include the following documents in PDF format:
1. Motivated letter of application (max. one page)
2. CV incl. education, experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position
3. Certified copy of original Master of Science diploma and transcript of records in the original language, including an authorized English translation if issued in other language than English or Danish. If not completed, a certified/signed copy of a recent transcript of records or a written statement from the institution or supervisor is accepted. As a prerequisite for a PhD fellowship employment, your master's degree must be equivalent to a Danish master's degree. We encourage you to read more in the assessment database: https://ufm.dk/en/education/recognition-and-transparency/find-assessments/assessment-database. Please note that we might ask you to obtain an assessment of your education performed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science
4. Publication list (if possible)
Application deadline: 1 July 2026, 23.59pm CET
We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.
The further process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor.
The assessor makes a non-prioritized assessment of the academic qualifications and experience with respect to the above-mentioned area of research, techniques, skills and other requirements listed in the advertisement.
Once the assessment work has been completed each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.
You find information about the recruitment process at: https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/
The applicants will be assessed according to the Ministerial Order no. 242 of 13 March 2012 on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.
The University of Copenhagen wish to reflect the diversity of society and encourage all qualified candidates to apply regardless of personal background.
