Postdoctoral Researcher / Assistant Professor in High-Content Quantitative Microscopy of Host-Pathogen Interactions Institute of Fundamental Technological Research Polish Academy of Sciences in Poland

Postdoctoral Researcher / Assistant Professor in High-Content Quantitative Microscopy of Host-Pathogen Interactions at the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences (IPPT PAN), Warsaw, Poland.

This position is part of an OPUS-23 project funded by the National Science Centre Poland and focuses on understanding multi-scale innate immune defences against bacterial pathogens at the single-cell level. The work is hosted in the laboratory of Prof. Pawel Paszek in the Department of Biosystems and Soft Matter.

The project uses Listeria monocytogenes as a model pathogen to study how host signalling dynamics and bacterial behaviour shape infection outcomes. A key goal is to analyse infection encoding through NF-kB activation, cytokine responses, antimicrobial effector expression, bacterial uptake, intracellular growth, and temperature- and dose-dependent effects under physiologically relevant low multiplicities of infection.

The successful candidate will conduct high-content and live-cell fluorescence microscopy experiments in macrophages and perform quantitative image analysis. The role includes image processing, segmentation and tracking with Maestro and ShuttleTracker, plus Python-based downstream analysis, statistics and visualisation. The researcher will contribute strongly to experimental design, data interpretation, figure preparation, manuscript writing, and conference presentations.

Eligibility is aimed at researchers with a recent PhD in cell biology, microbiology, infection biology, bioengineering, quantitative biology, biophysics or a related discipline. Applicants should have direct experience in bacterial infection biology, mammalian cell work, high-content fluorescence microscopy, automated image analysis, and Python. Experience with Listeria, macrophages, reporter strains, and additional analysis platforms such as ImageJ/Fiji, CellProfiler, napari, scikit-image or OpenCV is advantageous.

The position is full-time and fixed-term for up to 12 months, available until 31 August 2027. The remuneration is approximately 9300 PLN gross/month according to the project budget. The institute offers access to advanced microscopy infrastructure in the Laboratory of Modelling in Biology and Medicine and an interdisciplinary research environment in Warsaw.

Applications should be sent by email to [email protected], with copies to [email protected] and [email protected]. Required documents include a PhD diploma, CV with publications, presentations, prizes, stipends, other relevant achievements, references, and the required data-processing clause, plus a one-page motivation letter.