Join us
We welcome inquiries from postdoctoral researchers, prospective PhD students, and master’s and bachelor’s students interested in bioinformatics, bioprocess modeling, network analysis, computational biology, and data science in the life sciences.
PhD and postdoctoral opportunities | Master’s thesis opportunities | Bachelor’s thesis opportunities
PhD and postdoctoral opportunities
There are two routes to joining our group: applying for an advertised funded position or developing a grant or fellowship application together with us to secure funding for your research.
Funded positions
We currently have no funded PhD or postdoctoral positions available. Future openings in our group will be advertised on the University of Vienna careers portal and linked here. Follow us on Bluesky or LinkedIn for updates.
Joint grant and fellowship applications
If your research interests align with ours, we would be happy to develop a project and prepare a grant or fellowship application together. Please reach out to Jürgen Zanghellini to discuss your ideas and suitable funding opportunities.
Diana Széliová
Master’s thesis opportunities
We are looking for master’s students to work on the following thesis topics:
- Sniffing out fungi: Design and build a VOC detector for museums
- Augmenting the human genome-scale metabolic model with viral reproduction and regulation reactions
We also welcome inquiries about other thesis topics related to our research. To learn more or apply for a listed project, get in touch with the supervisors named in the project description. To discuss other possible thesis topics, please contact Jürgen Zanghellini or Diana Széliová.
Sniffing out fungi: Design and build a VOC detector for museums
Supervisors of the Master’s thesis
Jürgen Zanghellini | Matthias Uiberacker
Background
As part of the project FunMuseSens: Sensing fungi in museums, this master’s thesis focuses on developing a complete device for detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of biological origin. The sensor has already been tested in mock-up studies. Building on this work, the next step is to design and assemble a detection device for deployment in lab-studies and for future field trials.
Your task will be to design and manufacture the sensor housing using through 3D printing with high-performance polymers and integrate the sensor and control electronics into a complete system. The housing design will aim to minimise the amount of material required for printing. Sensor control will be implemented using an Arduino microcontroller programmed in C++.
The completed device will be evaluated for its practical suitability for lab and field deployment. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) will be used to identify VOCs released by the 3D-printed ma-terials in its final state and assessed whether the background signals could overlap with or mask biologically produced VOCs.
Aims of the project
This project includes the following aims:
- Design and manufacture a housing using 3D printing (FDM) with high-performance polymers, includ-ing the focus on reducing material consumption.
- Integrate the existing sensor and implement Arduino-based control using C++ to assemble a complete detection device for lab and field trials.
- Evaluate the device’s practical suitability and use HS-SPME-GC–MS to investigate potential interfer-ence from VOCs released by the printed materials.
The duration of this project is set to 9 months.
Supervisors of the Master’s thesis
Jürgen Zanghellini | Leopold Zehetner
Background
Viruses rely on host-cell metabolism to synthesize the nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and energy required for progeny production. Human genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) can represent these demands by incorporating virus-specific biomass or reproduction reactions. However, conventional GEMs do not capture how viral proteins actively reprogrammetabolism through interactions with host enzymes, transcription factors, and signalling pathways. Building on recent regulatory–metabolic modelling approaches, this project will augment a human GEM with both viral reproduction reactions and regulatory effects mediated by viral proteins. The model will distinguish metabolic changes caused by viral biomass production from those caused by active viral regulation, helping identify host metabolic dependencies and potential antiviral targets.
Aims of the project
This project includes the following aims:
- Reconstruct constextualised human GEMs of specific tissues based on transcriptomics data.
- Add reactions and regulatory reactions of selected viruses to contextualised GEMs.
- Analyse and compare different states in the reproduction cycle of viruses.
The duration of this project is set to 9 months.
Bachelor’s thesis opportunities
We are happy to supervise Bachelor’s theses related to our research. If you are interested, just get in touch with Jürgen Zanghellini or Diana Széliová or come by and talk to us.