UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

Postdoc

We have funding for a postdoc for up to one year to work on metabolic modeling in the context of immunometabolism in plant systems starting in January 2026. If you are interested, please get in touch with Nadine Töpfer.

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PhD position

We have an open PhD position for a person seeking to work on computational modelling of plant-microbe interactions starting next year.

Short description:

Unraveling metabolic interactions between plants and root microbiota through computational modelling

Plants interact with diverse soil microbes that enhance nutrient acquisition, reduce fertilizer needs, and improve plant health and stress resistance. Plants exude up to 40% of their carbon through roots to nourish these microbes, yet how metabolite exchange shapes these interactions remains poorly understood. Recent advances in genomics and synthetic biology enable us to use genome-scale metabolic models to study plant-microbe interactions at a community level. In this project, we will employ genome-scale metabolic modeling to investigate factors driving microbial community establishment and stability on plant roots, examine how environmental changes affect community structure, and design synthetic communities (SynComs). This research will advance understanding of plant-microbe metabolic interactions and provide a foundation for engineering beneficial rhizosphere communities to enhance agricultural sustainability and crop resilience.
Please note that the project will be hosted at the University of Cologne and supervised by Nadine Töpfer. You will be part of the IMPRS Graduate School of the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research.

For any questions, please get in touch with Nadine Töpfer.

Application deadline is January 5th, 2026. Please send your application through the IMPRS submission system (further application info). Submissions sent via email to Nadine Töpfer cannot be considered.

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We are continuously looking for interns, BSc, and MSc students to join our team. Applications of postdoc seeking to acquire independent funding are welcome. We offer a range of projects to study plant metabolic systems and their interactions. This involves, for example, the following topics:

• Photosynthetic diversity
• Seedling metabolism
• Whole-plant modelling
• Multi-scale modelling
• Aspects of resource allocation
• Metabolic plasticity
• Plant-microbe metabolic interactions
• Evolution of metabolism
• Tool development for metabolic network analysis and visualization

The projects will be conducted embedded in our team and/or in collaboration with experimental or other computational groups. For more information and details about possible projects contact Nadine Töpfer (ntoepferuni-koeln.de).