Uncovering silent threats

PhD position "Effects of indoor air on respiratory health"

13.07.2026, Academic staff

Join our team at the Center of Allergy and Environment as a PhD student and work on uncovering the impact of pollutants from indoor air on respiratory health using cutting-edge molecular and cell culture techniques. You will develop cell culture-based detection systems to uncover silent threats posed by indoor air, test possible prevention strategies and have the opportunity to contribute to scientific publications.

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 PhD candidate, working in an industry-funded project, focused on exposing in vitro lung models to indoor air.

The aim is to establish a co-culture-based lung model for exposing to indoor air at the air-liquid-interface (ALI) to evaluate the impact of volatile substances on the lung.
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 cell models to substances known to reach health-relevant concentration indoors as well as to indoor air directly. In addition to healthy cells, samples from patients with lung pathologies will be investigated.
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.

Your profile:
• Master’s Degree in natural sciences or related fields
• Experience in immunology, cell biology and / or molecular biology research
• Laboratory experience, ideally in culturing cells at the air liquid interface (ALI) and handling big data (sequencing, mass spectrometry, or similar)
• Enthusiasm and background in establishing techniques in molecular biology, data management (big data, sequencing analyses) and related software
• Team player with the ability to work independently

Your project:
• Develop and optimize co-culture lung models at the ALI (cell lines, primary cells, primary tissue).
• Exposure of cells to airborne substances using state-of the art exposure chambers (Vitrocell)
• Establish and evaluate various 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
• Employment for a minimum of three years
• 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 (incl publications), 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

Kontakt: inga.wessels@tum.de