PhD OPENING OPPORTUNIES – FIRST CALL

Apply by February 26, 2026

SYNBIO-CSIC offers a diverse range of research project options within three primary axes:

• Bottom-up synthetic cell engineering: reconstituting life-like molecular systems and functional modules, and integrating them within artificial and natural cells
• Top-down synthetic biology: from protein engineering to reprogramming cell circuitry and essential processes to achieve novel functions, from cell therapeutics to cell factories.
• Computational synthetic biology: physics-guided and data-driven modeling, optimal experimental design, robotics, AI, and Machine Learning tools.

Participants will be guided by renowned supervisors and will have access to state-of-the-art research facilities within the host institutions and their associated partners.

In the first call, the 10 available positions will be hosted by the following CSIC institutes:

• CIB: Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas – Madrid (2 positions)
• CNB: Centro Nacional de Biotecnología – Madrid (2 positions)
• I₂SysBio: Instituto de Biología Integrativa y de Sistemas – Valencia (1 position)
• IBBTEC: Instituto de Biomedicina y Biomedicina – Cantabria (1 position)
• CBMSO: Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa – Madrid (1 position)
• ICP: Instituto de Catálisis y Petroleoquímica – Madrid (1 position)
• IQF: Instituto de Química Física Blas Cabrera – Madrid (1 position)
• IMBCP: Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas – Valencia (1 position)
  • IBMCP#1-P1: Gene Mining and Synthetic Gene Circuits for Plant Biopharming (Diego Orzáez, Manuel Rodríguez-Concepción)–See more
  • IBMCP#1-P2: Optogenetic regulation of plant virus-derived expression vectors (Diego Orzáez, José-Antonio Daròs) – See more

Here, you can find the various research lines (project proposals) to which you can apply until February 26, 2026.