PhD candidate ‘Multimodal imaging in a mouse model of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy’

In this project, you will contribute to the development of a multimodal preclinical imaging platform, which you will then apply longitudinally to study skeletal muscle changes in a mouse model of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FlexDUX4). Are you the one who will help us with the development and validation of this model?

Muscle disorders have an immense impact not only on the patients who experience them but also on their families and close acquaintances. Imaging methods that capture structural or compositional changes in diseased skeletal muscle do not directly reflect the functional capacity of an individual that is ultimately lost due to progression of the disease.

This project proposes a comprehensive and innovative tool based on three complementary imaging technologies—MRI, ultrasound, and multispectral optoacoustic tomography—including muscle force measurements, for assessing skeletal muscle contractile function and muscle quality non-invasively, to be used in a mouse model of muscular dystrophy.

This advanced multimodal imaging protocol will provide a readout of disease activity in muscle in unprecedented detail, with the ultimate goal of predicting disease progression and providing timely detection of disease effects on muscle tissue during treatment.

In this project, you will contribute to the development of a multimodal preclinical imaging platform, which you will then apply longitudinally to study skeletal muscle changes in a mouse model of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FlexDUX4). You will also have the opportunity to (co-)develop an exercise ergometer setup to permit imaging during an exercise challenge.

The project will involve close collaboration with other team members with imaging expertise from the Clinical Neuromuscular Imaging Group at Radboudumc, the preclinical research facility PRIME, the Soft Robotics Lab at the department of Biomedical Engineering at University of Twente, and with collaborators with experience in muscle histology, as well as with clinical and pharmaceutical industry shareholders who will facilitate the translation of these methods for use in the clinic and in pharmaceutical trials.

Tasks will also include presenting at international scientific conferences and writing papers on the newly-developed methods and study results.

Profile

You are a creative and enthusiastic researcher with an MSc degree in physics, mathematics, computer science, engineering, medical physics, technical medicine or similar. You are a team player with project organisation skills. Your communication skills in English are excellent, both written and spoken.

You have experience in:

Image processing, medical imaging, and an interest in biomedical research.
Programming in Python, C/C++, MATLAB, or similar.
Experience or interest in electrical engineering is preferred.