PhD in Microbiology

If you are curious about how microorganisms and plants communicate - and you want a PhD project where you can develop advanced skills in microfluidics, molecular ecology, and environmental data analysis - this position offers an exceptional opportunity to grow as a scientist./nIn RhizoTrack, you will work at the interface of microbiology, chemical ecology, and sustainable agriculture, contributing knowledge that can support more resilient plant-microbe partnerships in the future./nThe DFF-funded project RhizoTrack explores how soil microorganisms sense, differentiate, and transform plant root exudates, and how these chemical interactions shape which microbes successfully colonize plant roots. By resolving these mechanisms, the project aims to build a foundation for designing microbial and chemical strategies that can strengthen plant health and reduce dependency on agrochemical inputs./nThe project introduces microfluidic in situ chemotaxis assays (ISCAs) into soil ecosystems, a technique that allows us to measure microbial movement directly in natural soil matrices. We take a stepwise approach, beginning with synthetic communities and soil-analogue environments before progressing to more complex natural soils. You will work with chemotaxis experiments, long-read sequencing, microbial community analysis, and LC-MS-based chemical characterization./nThe PhD project is part of the research activities at the Section for Microbial and Chemical Ecology (MCE) at DTU Bioengineering. MCE hosts internationally leading groups in microbial ecology, environmental biotechnology, microfluidics, and chemical ecology. The section provides state-of-the-art facilities for environmental genomics, chemical analytics, and microbial cultivation.