진학프로석·박사 채용 접수 플랫폼

i3s – Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (hereinafter i3) is opening a call to award a grant for the development of R&D activities by doctoral students, enrolled in doctoral programs, within the project - “MabExpress - A fast route to new solutions against Mycobacterium abscessus”, ref. - COMPETE2030-FEDER-00682600, Operation No. 15722, funded by COMPETE2030 and national funds (FCT) under Notice no. MPr-2023-12.

Host Institution: i3S - Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Porto, Portugal.

Scientific Area: Medical and Health Sciences.

Project Title: “MabExpress - A fast route to new solutions against Mycobacterium abscessus”.

Workplan:

Patients infected with Mycobacterium abscessus (Mab) suffer from high treatment failure rates. The MabExpress project aims to overcome this problem by creating an innovative and complete anti-Mab drug development workflow. Using reporter-based assays and new animal models in high-throughput settings, this transdisciplinary project aims for socio-economic impact while generating essential new knowledge in the field of drug discovery. The MabExpress project will implement an innovative and complete pipeline for Mab pre-clinical drug discovery. Starting with high-throughput screening assays, not only against planktonic bacteria but also biofilms and intracellular assays, moving to complex infection models, such as invertebrates, and culminating in mouse infection. The compounds that succeed in this route will have a high chance of being clinically applied.

Admission Requirements:

Mandatory:

- Candidate must have Master's degrees in Biochemistry or related fields;

- Candidate must be enrolled in a PhD program preferably in Health Sciences, at a higher education institution; Or:

- An honor statement of capacity to enroll in the aforementioned cycle of studies until the grant is contracted;

- The candidate must demonstrate proven experience in microbiology, particularly mycobacteria, high-throughput drug screening methods, and cell painting assays

Preferential: Experience and solid knowledge in the following points:

- Microbiology, particularly mycobacteria;

- Mammalian cell and bacterial culture;

- Handling of biosafety level 2 microorganisms;

- High-throughput screening;

- Cell painting assays and high-content image-based analysis (e.g., CellProfiler, Harmony);

- Machine learning models for antimicrobial activity prediction (e.g., Weka);

- Strong communication skills;

- Fluency in English (written and spoken).

The candidate must demonstrate interest in microbiology and infection and be able to integrate a multidisciplinary team.

Legislation and other applicable regulations: Research Fellowship Holder Statute enacted by Law no. 40/2004 of August 18th, as amended; FCT Research Grants Regulation, approved by way of Regulation nr. 950/2019, published in the II Series of DR of December 16th, 2019; i3S Research Grants Regulation.

Place: The research activities will be hosted at i3S, under the scientific coordination of Professor Doctor Tânia Silva, at the Host Target of Infections Group.

Length time: The duration of the fellowship is 6 months, eventually renewable, and the expected starting date is April 1st, 2026, upon availability of the financed funds.

Monthly maintenance stipend: €1.309,64, according to the values table of FCT, at Portugal (https://www.fct.pt/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Tabela_valores_SMM_2025.pdf). The payments will be made by bank transference.

Research grants may also include other components, such as the voluntary social insurance, under the terms of the Research Fellowship Holder Statute, article 10.

Evaluation Criteria: Selection will be done based on curricular evaluation (80%) according to the Admission Requirements previously described, and the Motivation Letter (20%). The candidates will be ranked on a scale of 0 to 100.

Evaluation Pannel - President: Tânia Silva, PhD. Members: Maria Salomé Gomes, PhD, and Clara Milhazes Bento, PhD. Substitute: Margarida Saraiva, PhD.

Information and Publicity of Funding Granted: The results of the evaluation will be notified by email to all candidates. After notification, candidates have 10 working days to comment and, within that period, a complaint may be submitted by email to rh.i3s@i3s.up.pt.

Applications: The call will be open between March 2nd, 2026 and March 13th, 2026.

The applications must be submitted electronically at:

https://dozer.i3s.up.pt/applicationmanagement/#/addapplications/a73bafdbfbe8de12859d489548ed211

The required documents for the application are: Certificate of Qualifications, detailed Curriculum Vitae, letter of motivation, proof of enrolment in a PhD program or an honor statement of capacity to enroll in the aforementioned cycle of studies until the grant is contracted, and other documents, considered as relevant by the candidate.

Documents to be provided at the time of contracting: in addition to those mentioned in the previous point, it is necessary to present proof of enrolment in the study cycle.

Full announcement at: https://dozer.i3s.up.pt/fileupload/downloadfile/viewpdfnewtab/8445588eb…