Descripción
Develop robust preclinical outcome measures in zebrafish models of leukodystrophies. Combine behavioural studies and advanced imaging to improve disease modelling and bridge the gap between experimental findings and clinically meaningful outcomes. POLARIS doctoral network POLARIS is a European Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network focused on accelerating therapy development for leukodystrophies: rare genetic disorders affecting the brain’s white matter. The network aims to strengthen the full translational pathway, from understanding disease mechanisms and developing disease models to preclinical therapy testing, clinical readiness and patient-informed treatment priorities. To achieve this, POLARIS brings together expertise in leukodystrophy biology, advanced disease models, therapeutic innovation, biomarker development, clinical translation, patient engagement, and ethical, regulatory and health-economic aspects of therapy development. The network will train a cohort of doctoral candidates in an international and interdisciplinary environment, combining academic research, industry-based preclinical development, secondments, network-wide training and transferable-skills development. PhD project For this position, the recruiting organisation is the University of York, UK. The selected candidate will be employed by the University of York and become part of the POLARIS consortium, with academic supervision and disease-specific expertise provided by Dr Noémie Hamilton at the York Biomedical Research Institute and the Department of Biology at the University of York. You will focus on developing and standardising robust preclinical outcome measures across multiple zebrafish models of leukodystrophy, including models of RNASET2 deficiency, adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), Krabbe disease and metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD). Zebrafish are widely used to model leukodystrophies because of their genetic tractability and the ability to study early brain development. To strengthe