Postdoc in RNA Vaccine Design and Delivery at Department of Pharmacy

Postdoc in RNA Vaccine Design and Delivery

We are looking for a highly motivated and dynamic postdoc for a 2‑year position to commence April 1st‑2026. The postdoc’s duties will primarily be research, including publication, scientific communication and grant writing within the area of vaccine design and delivery, and research‑based teaching. The position is financed by the Danish Council for Independent Research | Natural Sciences via the research project “Decoding Coexisting Particle Populations in Lipid Nanoparticles for Enhanced mRNA Delivery”.

Information on the department can be found at: (Use the "Apply for this Job" box below)./

The Vaccine Design and Delivery group is a research group within the Department of Pharmacy led by Professor Camilla Foged. The group aims to gain new fundamental knowledge that can enable design, optimisation and development of novel advanced delivery systems capable of delivering loaded biopharmaceuticals to the intended target site(s). We address the complex challenges associated with formulation and targeted delivery of vaccines and nucleic acid‑based therapeutics, in particular RNA vaccines.

We are an established group and will increase in size in the near future to form a team with 2‑3 postdoctoral researchers and 4‑5 Phd students. Personal and professional development are key ambitions, which reinforce our team approach to our science. We value individual input and opinion to help the team to grow. The group’s focus is on an interdisciplinary approach to understanding design criteria for nanoparticle‑based delivery systems for RNA drugs, in particular RNA vaccines and oligonucleotides.

This includes design, manufacture and physicochemical characterization of advanced next‑generation RNA delivery systems. We also focus on in vitro testing, in vivo imaging of biodistribution, and in vivo immunogenicity and protection studies in animal models. We have a special interest in mucosal delivery of vaccines to induce mucosal immunity that can protect against infection and transmission. We also focus on designing thermostable vaccines that can be stored and distributed independently of a cold chain.

The overall aim of the project is to reveal the relationship between composition, structure and function of coexisting populations in therapeutic LNPs. The postdoc will be employed with the aim of achieving this goal. More specifically, your tasks would be to:

• separate and characterise the structure of coexisting particle populations
• investigate the biological function of LNP populations
• engineer the composition of LNP for increasing the proportion of functional particles

The postdoc is expected to teach up to 10% of the time and contribute to the supervision of master students. The postdoc is expected to travel for experiments at large scale facilities.

We are looking for a highly motivated and enthusiastic scientist with the following competencies and experience.

• You have a PhD within the subject area – physico‑chemical background with interest in biomaterials and nanomedicine and basic knowledge in cell biology.
• You are highly experienced in planning and performing small angle X‑ray scattering experiments.
• You have experience in the analysis of scattering data.
• You have an active interest in writing grant applications.
• Proficient communication skills and ability to work in teams.
• Excellent English skills written and spoken.

• Knowledge of separation methods for nanoparticles, such as Asymmetrical Flow Field‑Flow Fractionation.
• Experience on writing beamtime proposals.
• Experience with fluorescence microscopy and cryo‑TEM.
• Experience with the design and formulation of lipid‑based nanoparticles.
• The appointee should have qualifications within at least some of the following areas:
  Experimentally oriented scientist, advanced drug delivery, delivery of biopharmaceuticals.

The place of employment is at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Copenhagen. We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in dynamic and international research environment. Our research…