Open positions
Open positions at the NCCR Microbiomes
If no suitable positions are listed here but our research resonates with you, we encourage you to visit the individual lab pages of our PIs as they may have independently funded openings.
Postdoctoral position in computational modeling of metabolic interactions
The Pacheco Lab has an open position in computational modeling to study the role of metabolic mechanisms in shaping microbial interactions and community ecology.
Expected start date: flexible, earliest 01 January 2026
In nature, microbes form complex communities whose functions are tightly linked to those of their host ecosystems. While individual microbes exhibit distinct resource utilization strategies and metabolic dependencies, connecting these physiological traits to emergent properties such as coexistence and ecological stability remains a major challenge, particularly in environments with fluctuating and heterogeneous resource profiles.
Through this project, we aim to uncover general principles that link individual metabolic traits to community assembly and stability, with applications in microbiome engineering and ecosystem management. The successful candidate will develop and curate genome-scale metabolic models of host-associated and environmental microbes, and apply constraint-based modeling and network analysis to simulate emergent microbe-microbe and microbe-host interactions relevant to ecosystem and host functional dynamics. These models will integrate experimental datasets (including genomic, growth, and metabolomic data) to improve physiological representativeness and predictive accuracy. The candidate will also lead efforts to standardize workflows for model construction, curation, and validation, incorporating state-of-the-art tools and practices to ensure reproducibility and scalability across projects. They will collaborate closely with group members to design and interpret experiments that inform model refinement, and work with external partners to extend modeling frameworks to additional host-associated and environmental systems.
This role is ideal for candidates with a strong background in computational biology, microbial ecology, or systems biology, and an interest in data-driven approaches to understanding and engineering microbial communities.
More information and how to apply here.