"Postdoctoral Researcher in in vivo pharmacology and plant-based products"

Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research?

We explore plant-based traditional Chinese medicine as a source for evidence-based drug discovery and development. This is done by capitalizing on the combined clinical and preclinical expertise from western medicine and Chinese medicine in a unique collaboration between Karolinska Institutet, Uppsala University and Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine. We use bioactivity-based isolation of compounds applying a set of cell reporter and enzymatic assays, examining the clinical effects in mouse models of arthritis.

Your mission

We are seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher with strong expertise in in vivo pharmacology, pharmacognosy or experimental therapeutics. Our aim is to fill the position early June 2026. The successful candidate will participate in:

• Screening plant extracts and purified compounds using cell-based reporter and bioactivity assays (30-50% of the position)
• Investigating selected bioactive compounds in relevant in vivo models of inflammatory disease
• Characterizing novel compounds isolated from herbal extracts from the collaboration
• Compound target identification and mechanistic studies, in collaboration with researchers at Uppsala University
• Evaluation of promising drug candidates
• Mechanistic studies of antibody-mediated inflammation

The position combines natural product research, mechanistic pharmacology and translational in vivo studies

Your profile

Requirements:

• PhD in pharmacology, pharmacognosy, biomedical sciences or related field
• Extensive hands-on experience with rodent in vivo models
• Experience in bioactivity assays and experimental design

Meritorious:

• Experience with natural product research or plant extracts
• Knowledge of inflammatory or autoimmune disease models
• Experience with LC-MS data interpretation
• Molecular docking or computational analysis skills

To be eligible for employment as a postdoctoral researcher, a PhD or a foreign degree deemed to be equivalent to a Swedish PhD is required. This eligibility requirement must be fulfilled at the latest at the time of the employment decision. Completion of your doctoral degree within the last three years is considered an advantage. If there are special reasons, your degree may have been completed earlier.

What do we offer?

A creative and inspiring environment with wide-ranging expertise and interests. Karolinska Institutet is one of the world's leading medical universities. At Karolinska Institutet, we conduct successful medical research and hold the largest range of medical education in Sweden. At KI, you get to meet researchers working with a wide range of specialisms and methods, giving you ample opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with the various scientific fields within medicine and health. It is the crossover collaborations, which have pushed KI to where it is today, at the forefront of global research. Several of the people you meet in healthcare are educated at KI. A close relationship with the health care providers is important for creating groundbreaking top quality education and research. Karolinska Institutet is also a state university, which entitles you to several benefits through our collective agreement.

Location

The position is located within the Department of Medicine, Solna. The department consists of ten divisions and each division consists of several research groups. The position is located within the research group of Per-Johan Jakobsson.

Application

An employment application must contain the following documents in English or Swedish:

• PhD certificate
• A complete resumé, including date of the thesis defence, title of the thesis, previous academic positions, academic title, current position, academic distinctions, and committee work
• A complete list of publications
• A summary of current work (no more than one page)

The application is to be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.

Employment details

Type of employment: Temporary position
Contract type: Full time
Salary: Monthly salary
Number of positions: 1
Full-time equivalent: 100 %
City: Solna
County: Stockholms län
Country: Sweden
Reference number: STÖD 2-1106/2026