PhD student in musculoskeletal health

Job content

Position Snapshot

Location: Lausanne, Switzerland

Company: Nestlé Research

Act. Rate: 100%

Starting date: as soon as possible

Type of contract: 4 years PhD studentship

Genuine opportunities for career and personal development

Dynamic international working environment

Position Summary

Nestlé Research is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, employs approximately 1000 people and is comprised of four Nestlé Institutes: Material Sciences; Health Sciences, Food Safety & Analytical Sciences and Packaging Sciences. Please have a tour of our facilities using this link or read more about Nestlé Research at our website.

In the musculoskeletal health department, we are seeking a PhD student to work on a nutritional strategy involving probiotic(s) to improved bone health during aging.

In the last decade, the gut-bone axis has become a key topic of investigation in the context of nutritional prevention of osteoporosis. You will use state of the art metabolomics and metagenomics technologies, and learn multiple techniques related to bone and microbiome physiology from clinical data to pre-clinical intervention in a model of osteoporosis. You will work in the Musculoskeletal Physiology and Nutrition group, a dynamic and enthusiastic team of PhD researchers striving to find nutritional solutions to preserve bone health during aging.

Your PhD project:

You will investigate in postmenopausal women the association between bone clinical data, circulating microbial metabolites and feces bacterial species. Based on these results you will select in an in-house database a list of probiotic(s) able to impact bone remodeling.

Molecular and bone cellular mechanisms of these probiotics will be investigated in in-vitro models. In the project you will finally assess the efficacy of these probiotic(s) to limit bone loss with age in a model of estrogen deficiency.

Through this work, the student will collaborate with a clinical service at UNIGE to link metabolomics and metagenomics with clinical outcomes. He will receive a profound training in cell and molecular biology (culture of cell lines, WB, real-time PCR, immunofluorescence, viability/apoptosis assays, ELISAs, etc.), fermentation process through probiotics culture on food matrix; animal experimentation, comprehensive bone phenotyping (µCT, mineralization, serum analysis of bone turnover markers, biomechanical testing of bones…).

As a PhD student in our musculoskeletal department, you will establish the microbiome signature of bone loss, select the probiotics of interest and deliver translational solutions to improved bone health during aging.

The student will be affiliated to the UNIGE University of Geneva - PhD School of Life Sciences | Welcome to the PhD School in Life Sciences at the Faculties of Medicine and Science (unige.ch) under the supervision of Drs Nicolas Bonnet and Emmanuel Biver and the position will be homed on the EPFL campus at the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences (NIHS). NIHS is one of the four major research institutes of Nestlé Research, and delivers innovative translational research in biomedical science to maintain and improve health through nutrition. We offer a truly international working environment with an internal PhD program where the candidate will work at the interface between academia and industry and will interact with other students and post-docs. For more details, please contact Dr. Nicolas Bonnet (nicolas.bonnet@rd.neste.com).

We offer a dynamic, inclusive, and international working environment with many opportunities across different companies, functions, and regions. Don’t miss the opportunity to join us and work with different teams in an agile and diverse context.

A day in the life of a PhD student

• Design and lead the experimental activities of the project
• Analyze, interpret and present scientific results
• Integrate the literature in the field & propose translational perspectives
• Interface with team members and collaborators
• Present at scientific conferences & publish scientific papers
  
  

What Will Make You Successful

• Master’s degree in biology or equivalent with deep understanding of bone or microbiome biology
• Training and laboratory experience in cellular metabolism and/or physiology
• Experience with in-vivo experimentation and statistics will be considered a plus
  

At Nestlé, we want to help shape a better and healthier world, inspire people to live healthier lives and deliver impact at a scale and pace that makes a difference. We do this by fostering a diverse, friendly, supportive, and collaborative environment, that creates positive disruption, embraces innovation, and empowers people and teams to win.

We aim to hire friendly, respectful, inspiring people who care about the people’s lives that we touch every single day.

Be a force for good. Join Nestlé and visit us on www.nestle.com.