7. Project

Development of an acute lung infection model

The advertised subproject will be carried out by a PhD student (Early-stage Researcher, ESR) at the ARTORG Center – University of Bern over a period of 36 months. The recruited researcher will work in the OoC Group headed by Prof. Olivier Guenat, involved in the development of microfluidic in vitro models in collaboration with clinicians from Bern University Hospital (Inselspital) (S)he will develop a lung model for acute lung infection, a diseased condition with no current effective therapy, based on the lung-on-chip system. The main tasks of this project are:

• Study of immune cell recruitment and transmigration upon pro-inflammatory stimulation
• Integration of a bead-based multiplex immunoassay for cytokine detection
• Correlation of in vitro to in vivo clinical data

These task will be accomplished in cooperation with academic and industry partners during the following planned secondments:

• University Hospital Jena (PI: Dr. Alexander Mosig): 2 months
• University of Uppsala (PI: Dr. Maria Tenje): 2 months
• AlveoliX AG (Dr. Janick Stucki): 2 months