"PhD position in understanding and designing nanomedicines-membranes interaction"

The Department of Physics of Leiden University welcomes applications for a fully funded 4-year PhD position on understanding and designing nanomedicine-membrane interactions. Nanomedicines have achieved tremendous successes in the treatment of and vaccination against a range of debilitating diseases. However, one of the key challenges that remains is to deliver the nanomedicines with high specificity to the desired target site in the body. In this PhD project, the candidate will experimentally study how to achieve high specificity by developing a quantitative understanding of the interactions between the nanomedicine and cellular membranes.

The PhD position will work under supervision of Prof. Daniela Kraft, whose group is embedded in the Smart Living Active Matter Center at the physics department of Leiden University (https://slam-leiden.nl/Slam/Main/). We offer a collaborative and inspiring environment, as well as state-of-the-art equipment. The PhD project is part of a national effort (NanoMedNL) to create novel nanomedicines for the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of patients, and the PhD student will collaborate with and contribute to this multidisciplinary consortium.

The ideal PhD candidate for this position has a background in physics and is committed to conducting independent and original scientific research. The results of this research will be reported in scientific publications and communicated through conference presentations, as well as described in a PhD thesis that is to be completed within 4 years. In addition, the candidate is expected to contribute 10% of their time to various teaching activities, such as supervision of exercise classes and research projects of BSc and MSc students.

Requirements: A (prospective) MSc degree in Physics (or an equivalent thereof). Good communication skills in English. Ability to work efficiently, both independently as well as in a team. Previous experience in the fields of soft matter or biophysics, quantitative image analysis and programming experience with Python are beneficial but not required. We particularly encourage women and candidates from other groups which are currently under-represented in academic posts. The preferred starting date is January 2026. Evaluation of applications will begin on September 22, 2025 and continue until the position is filled.

Applications should include: Curriculum vitae (max 2 pages), Transcript of grades from BSc and MSc studies, Short motivation letter, Name and email address of two professional references. For further information you can contact Prof. Daniela Kraft, kraft@physics.leidenuniv.nl. Applications sent directly to the above email address can unfortunately not be considered.