Postdoc (m/f/d) Single-cell & Spatial Omics in Kidney Adaptation

Department of Nephrology and Hypertension, University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), and Kiel University (CAU)

You will work at the interface of Kiel University (CAU) and the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), one of Germany’s leading academic medical centers. The research environment includes close collaboration with the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB) and the Competence Centre for Genomic Analysis (CCGA), providing access to cutting-edge genomics infrastructure and expertise. Kiel hosts multiple Excellence Clusters (including Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation) and Collaborative Research Centers (SFBs), offering a highly interactive ecosystem connecting basic science, computation, and clinical research.

We are seeking a postdoctoral researcher to join the ERC Starting Grant project SINGuLAR (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101219388) at the Balzer Lab (https://balzer-lab.org), investigating how human kidneys adapt to organ loss.

Our lab studies how human kidneys regenerate after organ loss using cutting-edge single-cell and translational approaches. Rather than focusing on injury, this project investigates pure adaptation in living kidney donors—a unique human model in which individuals lose 50% of kidney mass yet show remarkable compensatory growth.

Start in our team

We are looking for professional and competent support to start as soon as possible, limited for 2 years.

What we offer:

• The salary will be based on the German E13 TV-L scale, if terms and conditions under collective bargaining law are fulfilled
• A full-time employment, currently 38.5 hours/week; a part-time employment may be possible within the framework of certain working time models
• Access to state-of-the-art single-cell and spatial omics technologies
• Structured supervision and training, with strong support for skill development, publications, and career progression
• You can find more attractive UKSH benefits here: Benefits (uksh.de)

Your role:

• You will contribute to building the first longitudinal single-cell and spatial atlas of human kidney adaptation, combining single-cell RNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics, and single-cell ATAC-seq with deeply phenotyped clinical cohorts
• You will help establish and drive the experimental and computational framework of the project, including developing single-cell and spatial omics pipelines, generating and integrating multi-omic datasets, and collaborating closely with clinicians and interdisciplinary partners

Your profile:

We are looking for candidates with a strong background in single-cell and/or spatial omics and experience in bioinformatics analysis and data integration.

• PhD in bioinformatics, computational biology, genomics, molecular biology, or a related field
• Proven experience with single-cell data analysis (e.g., scRNA-seq; spatial or epigenomics is a strong plus)
• Programming skills in R and/or Python
• Interest in or willingness to engage in wet-lab work (single-cell workflows)

We are looking forward to your application including a motivation letter, CV and contact details of two references. Please submit your application until 21st May 2026, indicating the reference number 28481.

Contact for Information:

• Prof. Dr. med. Michael Sören Balzer (E-Mail: MichaelSoeren.Balzer@uksh.de)