The AITHYRA-CeMM Joint International PhD Call in Molecular Medicine and Artificial Intelligence (m/f

The AITHYRA-CeMM Joint International PhD Call in Molecular Medicine and Artificial Intelligence (m/f/d)

AITHYRA, the new Research Institute for Biomedical Artificial Intelligence and CeMM, the Research Center for Molecular Medicine, both institutes of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, open a new call for PhD Students.

• Do you want to work in a creative, free-minded scientific environment, and translate your findings to improve human health? Are you excited gain new understanding of the molecular physiology and pathology of humans and using innovative technologies to develop novel therapies? Do you want to join an international group of highly collaborative and successful colleagues that help you achieve your training and research goals? Are you a person who enjoys teamwork across disciplines and within a broader cultural and social context? Do you want to develop your innovation and entrepreneurship skills at the cutting-edge of AI/ML and biomedical research?

If yes, apply now of our 15-20 fully funded PhD positions here: https://apply.cemm.at/

Supported by the Medical University of Vienna, the Technical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, the AITHYRA and CeMM PhD programs for both life scientists and computational scientists/machine learning experts will start in September 2026.

We offer:

a highly interactive introductory program in a supportive peer-group environment supervision by a top scientist and support of the Faculty of either AITHYRA or CeMM a PhD degree awarded by the Medical University of Vienna, the Technical University of Vienna or University of Vienna a dynamic and highly multidisciplinary international research environment full access to state-of-the-art technologies excellent employee benefits including full insurance coverage (health, accident, retirement), health care services, subsidized lunch a wide range of social, cultural, and sports activities organized by the institutes a generous scholarship, which covers all research costs, university fees, work-related travel expenses for 4 years Minimum gross monthly salary of EUR 2.779,60 paid 14 times a year (following the recommendations of FWF) You are:

• an exceptionally motivated PhD candidate with a keen interest in interdisciplinary teamwork and science that nurtures the precise, personalized, predictive and preventive medicine of the future excellent in writing and speaking English an early career researcher with research experience, presentation skills and a commitment to research integrity a candidate with (or obtaining by September 2026) a final degree in medicine, biology, chemistry, bioinformatics, computer science, computational biology, bioengineering, engineering, physics, statistics, mathematics, or a related scientific or technical field (minimum requirement is a four-year Bachelor’s degree with honours)

The research area

The goal of both programs is to address real-world problems in inter-disciplinary computational, biomedical, clinical, and health research settings. CeMM focuses on the thematic areas of infection, immunity, cancer, network medicine, patient-derived organoids, bioengineering and aging research. At AITHYRA, particular emphasis will be placed on the integration of multimodal biological data, development of deep learning and large language models for biological discovery or graph-based methods for molecular and cellular networks. The technological foundation further consists of systems biology, virology, high-throughput genetics, genomics and proteomics, molecular and cell biology, high content automatic imaging, chemical biology, and organic chemical synthesis.

The program

Our goal is to enable and empower students with the ability to successfully design, execute, manage and explain a research project in modern AI-integrated molecular medicine, through a strongly participatory and interactive program. The program is conceptualized in three ‘modes’: collect, connect and contribute. These will guide you through scientific excellence in data generation and validation to responsible and professional scientific citizenship.

The host institutes

AITHYRA and CeMM are sister institutes with identical principles of excellence, competitiveness, internationality, as well as mentoring and training, operating in a unique mode of super-cooperation. Biology is connected with medicine, experiments with computation, discovery with translation, and science with society and the arts.

The mission of AITHYRA is to fundamentally transform biomedical science by embedding artificial intelligence as a co-pilot throughout the entire scientific process-from hypothesis generation and experimental design to biological interpretation and therapeutic innovation. Through a coherent integration of AI/ML across biological scales, the goal is to improve our understanding of the root cause of diseases, their diagnosis and the conceptualization of novel therapeutic strategies while inspiring new innovations in AI/ML. In order to create sufficient amounts of data to support AI applications, Aithyra will invest in experimental automation through a robotics laboratory infrastructure. While this research program is broadly applicable in life sciences, the focus will be on cancer, immunology, infectious diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. Aithyra is co-led by Michael Bronstein (Scientific Director for AI), Georg Winter (Scientific Director for Life Sciences), and Anita Ender (Managing Director) and is located at the Marxbox on the Campus of the Vienna Biocenter. https://aithyra.at/

The mission of CeMM is to achieve maximum scientific innovation in molecular medicine to improve healthcare. At CeMM, an international and creative team of scientists and medical doctors pursues free-minded, basic life science research in a large and vibrant hospital environment of outstanding medical tradition and practice. CeMM’s research is based on post-genomic technologies and focuses on societally important diseases, such as immune disorders and infections, cancer, metabolic disorders, and aging. The goal of CeMM is to pioneer the science that nurtures the precise, personalized, predictive, and preventive medicine of the future. CeMM is co-led by Maria Rescigno (Scientific Director) and Anita Ender (Administrative Director) located right at the heart of the Medical Campus Vienna, one of the largest in Europe, door-to-door with the Medical University of Vienna, the Vienna General Hospital (AKH). https://cemm.at/

Vienna is repeatedly ranked as the world’s best city to live in and is a United Nations city with a large international, English- speaking community. The official language at AITHYRA and CeMM is English, and 50 different nationalities are currently represented at the institutes.

For more information about applying to the PhD Program please visit the website:

https://apply.cemm.at/