Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Mechanisms of Peripheral Nerve Aging

The position

A Postdoctoral Research Fellow position is available at the Department of Medical Biology (IMB), Faculty of Health Sciences. The position is on the project "The puzzle of nerve aging: unravelling the trinity of fat, chondral proteoglycans and fibroblast growth factors" within the aging priority area at IMB.

The position is for a duration of 3 years. It is a prerequisite that the applicant can carry out the project over the full course of the employment period. 

As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, you will have the opportunity to advance your scientific career and further qualify for academic positions. If you do not already have the educational competence that meets the requirements for an Associate Professor position in Norway, UiT will arrange such competence during the employment period.

The position is is available for commencement from August 2026. The workplace is at UiT in Tromsø. You must be able to start in the position within a reasonable time after receiving the offer. 

Unless special circumstances indicate otherwise, postdoctoral projects shall be planned with stays abroad. The duration should be at least 6 months.

The project

The project will be supervised by Associate Professor Luis Hortells. The aging initiative at IMB aims to study mechanisms of healthy aging related to loss of strength and the Hortells lab is focused on cell communication in the heart and the peripheral nervous system in the context of disease and aging. Specifically, this project focus on studying the roles of adipocyte cell signaling, Schwann cell exhaustion, and fibroblast activation in age-related peripheral nerve degeneration.

Sedentarism, also called “sitting disease”, poses a significant challenge to modern society, particularly among the elderly, increasing frailty and all-cause mortality. As individuals age, one of the main reasons for sedentarism is muscle loss (sarcopenia) and weakness, for which impaired innervation from the peripheral nervous system (PNS) is a major contributing factor. These age-associated alterations create a vicious circle that leads to a dramatic decline in personal independence and quality of life, increased chronic health issues, and a heavier burden on healthcare systems. While muscular aging has been more studied, cellular mechanisms underlying age-related deterioration of the PNS remains poorly understood, with no therapeutic interventions available. 

This project aims to address this gap by exploring how neural fat-originated signalling triggers cellular changes in peripheral nerves during aging, leading to neuromuscular loss of function and increased sedentarism. Thus, this work objective is to find strategies to disrupt the vicious

circle of nerve function deterioration, sarcopenia, and sedentarism in the elderly, ultimately attempting to prolong healthspan.

The candidate will collaborate with other researchers of the aging initiative and will be part of the “incubator stage” of this working group. In addition, it will be involved in supervision of master- and bachelor students in on-going projects. Relevant techniques include transgenic mouse work, mouse training and strength testing, mouse colony management, tissue harvests, confocal microscopy, antibody-based techniques, small molecules/nanoparticles-based therapies, and transcriptomics.

In order to achieve a targeted use of the postdoctoral position, and to strengthen the employee’s career development, a development plan must be available no later than three months after the appointment contract is signed. The development plan must be approved by the immediate leader with personnel responsibility.

Contact

For further information about the position, please contact Luis Hortells: 

• phone:  +47 77 64 45 17
• email: luis.hortells@uit.no

Qualifications

Required qualifications

• PhD degree in biomedicine, neuroscience, molecular biology, or similar. Qualification with a PhD degree is required before commencement in the position. If you are near completion of your PhD degree, you may still apply and submit a draft version of the thesis. You must document completion of your degree before commencement in the position. While not mandatory mentions like Summa cum laude or Magna cum laude will be taken into consideration
• Proficiency in both written and oral English. Applicants must have a documented knowledge of English which meets the requirements as stated in the Norwegian general university and college admission requirement
• The candidate must hold a FELASA function A/C/D - approval for work with research animals, or a comparable title to FELASA function A. Holding also a FELASA function B will be also positively taken into account.
• Documented experience in mouse colony management (breeding, genotyping…), transgenic mouse work, mouse training and transcriptomics. 
• Confocal microscopy, antibody-based techniques, small molecules/ligand-trap based therapies

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with bioinformatic analysis using R and/or Python.
• Experience with molecular/cellular neurobiology.

In the assessment the main emphasis will be attached to the submitted works for the qualifying work. Emphasis shall also be attached to experience from popularization/dissemination and academic policy and administrative activity.

We will emphasize personal suitability in our assessment. We are looking for a candidate who is highly career-driven, creative and enthusiastic, with a high degree of self-motivation that possesses the ability to work in a structured manner. The candidate should also have high organizational skills and ability to perform clean work in the lab and leadership skills. Both a strong academic track record and a genuine interest in conducting animal research are essential to qualify for the position. 

At UiT we put emphasis on the quality, relevance and significance of the research work and not on where the work is published, in accordance with the principles of The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).

Inclusion and diversity  

UiT The Arctic University i Norway is working actively to promote equality, gender balance and diversity among employees and students, and to create an inclusive and safe working environment. We believe that inclusion and diversity is a strength, and we want employees with different competencies, professional experience, life experience and perspectives.  

If you have a disability, a gap in your CV or immigrant background, we encourage you to tick the box for this in your application. If there are qualified applicants, we invite least one in each group for an interview. If you get the job, we will adapt the working conditions if you need it. Apart from selecting the right candidates, we will only use the information for anonymous statistics. 

We offer

• Involvement in an interesting research project 
• Good career opportunities 
• A good academic environment with dedicated colleagues  
• Flexible working hours and a state collective pay agreement  
• Pension scheme through the state pension fund 

Norwegian health policy aims to ensure that everyone, irrespective of their personal finances and where they live, has access to good health and care services of equal standard. As an employee you will become member of the National Insurance Scheme which also include health care services.

More practical information for working and living in Norway can be found here: https://uit.no/staffmobility 

Application

Please note that the application will only be assessed based on the information submitted by the application deadline via Jobbnorge. It is therefore important that you include all necessary documents demonstrating your qualifications for the position.

Your application must include:

• CV containing a complete overview of education, experience, professional work, pedagogical qualifications and reference
• Diplomas and certificates: 
  • diploma and transcript of Bachelor’s degree or equivalent (in original language and translated) 
  • diploma and transcript of Master’s degree or equivalent (in original language and translated) 
  • diploma and transcript of PhD degree or equivalent (in original language and translated)
• Documentation of English proficiency. If English proficiency is not documented in the application, it must be documented before starting in the position. 
• A statement detailing your research ambitions, motivation for joining the research project and group, and how you intend to contribute to and enhance the research within the project and group.This statement should be confined to a maximum of one page.
• Contact information to 2-3 references
• Documentation of educational competence, if available
• FELASA function A/C/D permit (or a comparable title to FELASA function A)
• The academic works (published or not) you wish us to take into consideration in the assessment
• Your PhD thesis

If you're in the final stages of your PhD, you may still apply for the position, provided that you submit parts of your thesis along with your application. This enables the evaluation committee to assess the quality and likelihood of completion by the desired employment date. You must include a statement from your supervisor or institution stating the expected completion date for your PhD degree. Documentation of your completed PhD degree must be submitted before commencement.

Documentation of your completed PhD degree must be submitted before commencement.

All documentation to be considered must be in a Scandinavian language or English. 

Assessment

The applicants will be assessed by an expert committee. The committee's mandate is to undertake an assessment of the applicants' qualifications based on the written material presented by the applicants, and the detailed description draw up for the position. A copy of the assessment report will be sent to all applicants. 

The applicants who are assessed as best qualified will be called to an interview. The interview should among other things, aim to clarify the applicant’s motivation and personal suitability for the position. A trial lecture may also be held.

General information

No person may hold more than one fixed term position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the same institution.

The appointment is made in accordance with State regulations and guidelines at UiT. At our website, you will find

The remuneration for Postdoctoral research fellow is in accordance with the State salary scale code 1352, within the salary range NOK 620 000 - 670 000 (annual salary). A compulsory contribution of 2 % to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund will be deducted. You will become a member of the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund, which gives you many benefits in addition to a lifelong pension. Read more about your employee benefits at: spk.no.

The successful candidate must be willing to get involved in the ongoing development of their department and the university as a whole.

According to the Norwegian Freedom and Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.