The University of Luxembourg is an international research university with a distinctly multilingual and interdisciplinary character.
The Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM) at the University of Luxembourg contributes multidisciplinary expertise in the fields of Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Computer Science, Life Sciences and Medicine.
Through its dual mission of teaching and research, the FSTM seeks to generate and disseminate knowledge and train new generations of responsible citizens in order to better understand, explain and advance society and environment we live in.

The human microbiome represents a reservoir of pathogen-associated genes, more specifically virulence factors (VFs), including toxins, antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) and biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). Studies focusing on the role of these infection-mediating genes are typically limited to specific pathogenic taxa and seldomly consider the overall infective competence represented by them in the context of the microbiome. Here, using a triptych approach leveraging in silico, in vitro and in vivo methods, we aim to specifically and systematically characterize and validate microbiome-borne VFs, implicated in human diseases, with a particular focus on cancer. Our findings will broadly expand our current knowledge regarding the infective competence of the human microbiome. Overall, the project will expand our view on the functional role of the human microbiome in health and disease. This project is funded by the FNR (National Research Fund) and carried out in collaboration with Prof. Paul Wilmes at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (UL) and Rob Finn at EMBL-EBI in the UK, both involved in the identification of VFs through computational biology, as well as Kim Remans at EMBL in Germany, who is responsible for the generation of purified proteins. The MDM group at UL is responsible for validating the identified VFs and investigating their mechanisms using relevant in vitro and in vivo cancer models.

The candidate will be expected to:

• Determine the effects of the identified VFs using various in vitro and in vivo assays and investigate the underlying mechanisms
• Contribute to the development of new methods and assays to study VF functions
• Participate in and contribute to microbiome- and cancer-related projects
• Ensure scientific quality management and comply with quality assurance standards
• Actively participate in meetings
• Collect, manage, and analyze data
• Present results within the monthly Infectome consortium meetings and at national and international conferences
• Present the data in scientific publications
• Summarize and prepare findings for publication in peer-reviewed journals
• Perform experiments for the Infectome project

The activities can be subject to changes or adaptations if required by the project, the structure or the needs of the laboratory.
For further information, please contact Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Letellier Elisabeth.letellier@uni.lu