Career Opportunities and Thesis Projects

Graduate student positions (BAT IIa/2) and postdoc positions (BAT IIa) are available in the Department. The Graduate student positions provide the opportunity to earn a Ph. D. degree, and the Postdoc positions give the opportunity to obtain the Habilitation degree. Both types of Department-funded positions require participation in classes for students of Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy and/or Medicinal Chemistry. Prerequisites for the positions are excellent academic records, strong dedication to laboratory work, proven capability to work in a team across traditional discipline borders as well as excellent communication and computer skills.

Particularly well qualified Ph. D. student candidates can receive a stipend within the Graduate Student Program “Medicinal Chemistry” (GRK 760). Actually,
a PhD position is available in the Department. Unfortunately, not all qualified applicants can be appointed to a BAT IIa position or become member of the Graduate Student Program. In those cases, The Department will support applicants with excellent academic records and solid preliminary data for the proposed research to obtain an externally funded stipend for their scientific work. While the latter avenue may not be easy, it offers applicants the unique opportunity to develop the essential grant-writing skills early in the career. Click here for more information on Ph. D student fellowships.

Students of Medicine and Dentistry who have finished their preclinical studies are invited to work towards the Dr. med. and Dr. med. dent. degree, respectively. Generally, those research projects are not supported by a salary. Only students with a strong desire to work in the laboratory and a serious interest in a basic or clinical research career will be considered to join the Department.

We also invite students of Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biology to apply for Master thesis projects. These projects cover well-defined aspects of our research program so that they can be completed within the given thesis time frame of nine months. Despite the limited scope of these projects, we still aim at completing a publishable piece of work and giving our students the opportunity to experience the atmosphere of an interdisciplinary research team. Master thesis projects will be tailored according to the applicant's research interests and specialization and comprise techniques from the broad areas of molecular pharmacology, protein biochemistry, cell biology, analytical biochemistry and molecular biology. In collaboration with the group of Prof. König from the Department of Organic Chemistry, we offer Master thesis projects with a focus on ligand design, specifically in the areas of fluorescent probes.

The Department cordially invites applications from international graduate students and postdocs. We will work with the applicants to obtain funding such as through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service and provide an open and stimulating work environment. English will be the language in the laboratory and in seminars. The Department will also help finding suitable laboratories for students and postdocs abroad to enhance their competitiveness in the job market and academic skills.

The Department has scientific contact to several drug and biotech companies (Amgen, Bayer Health Care, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson PRD) that enrich academic research projects.

Recently, we have also begun to offer short-term research internships for students in Biochemistry who wish to have Pharmacology as a minor subject for their Master diploma. Those internships will be offered to experienced Biochemistry students and comprise 4-6-week full-time research projects supervised by a postdoc or senior graduate student.

Finally, we are actively participating in the RISE international student exchange program (USA and Canada) of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).