Post-doctoral position on “Bacteriohages infecting fish pathogenic Flavobacterium bacteria” Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen
A 3-year Post-doctoral position on bacteriophage-host interactions is offered at the Marine Biological Section, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. The position starts 1. April 2017 and will be associated with the 3-year research project “Bacteriophage-based technology to control Flavobacterium pathogens in aquaculture” EU and the Danish Innovation Foundation. The project involves Danish, Finnish and Polish partners.
Diseases at the larval and fry stages constitute a major bottleneck and cause economic losses to the aquaculture industry, a problem that has increased dramatically with the intensification of aquaculture production. Vaccines are not effective at the larval and fry stages, and antibiotics are needed to control the most important freshwater pathogens, Flavobacterium psychrophilum and F. columnare. This treatment occurs despite serious concerns about the development of bacterial antibiotic resistance and its potential transfer to human pathogenic bacteria. This project will go beyond the best practices and medical approaches currently used in disease treatment in salmonid aquaculture, and develop alternative environment-friendly approaches based on natural microbial warfare, using bacteriophages (phages).