ABOUT THE PROJECT

Dementia is recognized worldwide as a public health priority due to its increase in prevalence with age, to near pandemic extent by 2050. In view of this urgent medical and societal need, the first tau network of Europe, TAME, was established. The PhD project is part of the TAME Marie Curie project. TAME aims to provide better understanding of tau-related diseases leading to dementia and supports the development of new, safer, personalised and more effective diagnosis and therapeutic interventions for Alzheimer’s Disease and the lesser common tauopathies, using nanobodies.
We offer a position for an ambitious and enthusiastic PhD student who will conduct research jointly at two renowned labs: the Neurochemistry Lab, led by Prof. Dr. Teunissen, and the Molecular Neurodegeneration lab, led by Prof. Dr. Wiep Scheper.
Would you like to know more about the different phases within the PhD trajectory? You can read more about this on this page.

The project’s objectives are:

• To develop immunoassays using nanobodies to detect different tau species in bodily fluids such as CSF and blood, using advanced, high-sensitivity technologies such as Simoa.
• To validate the assays analytically and clinically in patients with tauopathies, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in samples of high-quality biobanks.
• To evaluate the potential of using nanobodies to block tau aggregation and downstream neuronal damage in advanced neuronal cell culture models.
• To validate the use of novel detection tools and nanobodies in brain tissue from patients with tauopathies.