项目介绍

2026年7月16日

The Center of Allergy and Environment Munich (ZAUM) in co-operation with Volkswagen (VW) and the Allergy Friendly Buildings Alliance GmbH (AFBA) is looking for a motivated master student, working in an industry-funded project, focused on exposing in vitro lung models to indoor air.

The aim is to establish a cell culture-based lung model for exposing cells to volatile substances.
Air pollution is a leading environmental health risk, associated with high morbidity, strong impacts on productivity as well as well-being and estimated seven million premature deaths globally each year. Surprisingly, the issue of Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) is often overlooked, although individuals in the developed world spend approximately 80 – 90% of their time indoors. Of concern is also that IAP concentrations can be up to five times higher than those outdoors. Due to large gaps in research the full welfare impact of air pollution may be vastly underestimated.
Some of those gaps will be adressed by exposing human lung cells to substances known to reach health-relevant concentrations indoors. Readouts include analyses of cytotoxicity, barrier integrity, high-content imaging, live-cell imaging, multi-omics profiling such as transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, single-cell and spatial analyses, multiplex biomarker quantification, functional studies, machine learning-assisted image analysis, and AI-driven predictive modeling.
The project is part of an EU-wide initiative to address the growing issue of airborne health threats found indoors (AeroHealthScape).

Your profile:
• Bachelor’s Degree in natural sciences or related fields
• Experience in immunology, cell biology, molecular biology research
• Laboratory experience, ideally in culturing airway epithelial cells or/and mass spectrometry, or similar is a plus
• Enthusiasm and background in establishing techniques in molecular biology and data management
• Team player with the ability to work independently

Your project:
• Apply lung models at the ALI.
• Exposure of cells to airborne substances using state-of the art exposure chambers (Vitrocell)
• Evaluate bio-assays as readouts related to cellular toxicity and functions.
• Analyze and interpret resulting data and publish in established journals in the field.

We offer:
• Excellent interdisciplinary research environment
• Support by administrative structures of the TU (TUM Graduate School, TUM School of Medicine as well as Medical Graduate Center)
• Inclusion in mentoring programs, one-on-one coaching, soft skill courses, targeted workshops
• Instrumentation to fulfill task
• Working in a top-of-the-line institution, in an international consortium and addressing a world-wide health problem.

Application
Please send your CV, current transcript of records, letter of motivation, including current employment and career goals (max. 1 page) to
Inga Wessels (inga.wessels@tum.de)
The position is open until 31/07/2024 or until filled.
Further information on our research group is available at www.zaum-online.de