Call for application for a Postdoctoral position at CNRS & the University of Bordeaux, France
Project’s title: How does the immune system see the microbiome?
Duration: 22 months
Start date: April 2025
Application deadline: February 14th, 2025
The project ‘Advancing Symbiosis Theory’ funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (PI: Thomas Pradeu) aims at exploring microbiome-centered issues by combining theoretical biology with conceptual exploration and critical thinking typical of philosophy of science. The host institution is the Conceptual Biology and Medicine team in Bordeaux, France, which is embedded in ImmunoConcept, a leading immunology lab, and practices ‘philosophy in science’ – the use of philosophical tools to contribute to scientific advancement (Laplane et al., 2019; Pradeu et al., 2024).
This postdoctoral position belongs to the first part of the project, devoted to the question ‘How does the immune system see the microbiome?’
Expected candidates for this position will be either conceptually and theoretically inclined biologists with a strong background in evolutionary biology, theoretical ecology, and/or immunology, or scientifically informed philosophers with a very good knowledge of evolution, ecology, and immunology.
Overview of the project
Every organism is best seen as a multispecies collective made of heterogeneous elements, including a huge number of microbes, which, far from being rejected by the immune system, are immunologically integrated into a cohesive whole (Belkaid and Harrison, 2017; Bosch, 2014; Pradeu, 2010). The challenge here is to determine how this dual process of immunological recognition and immunological integration works and, crucially, how it is built via host-microbe interactions in ontogeny. The question we will address in this project is: To what extent can current immunological and ecological theoretical frameworks account for the idea that the immune system is continuously co-constructed by its interactions with the microbiome throughout the organism’s life? If existing theories turn out to be inappropriate for accommodating these ideas, can we suggest new avenues for a more adequate and more powerful theory of immunological recognition?
The specific goals of this part of the project will be to:
- develop a comparative approach to this question by examining immune-microbiome interactions across a variety of species, especially in invertebrates;
- assess the extent to which existing concepts and theories in ecology may shed a new light on immune-microbiome interactions.
In practice:
- If you are interested, please contact Thomas Pradeu.
- Application: please send to Thomas Pradeu:
- A CV
- A letter of motivation, where you explain why you apply and what specific project you would conduct