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

• Are you passionate about pushing the boundaries of AI and life sciences to solve pressing biomedical needs and translate your findings to impact medical practice and improve healthcare?
• Are you excited to develop and apply cutting-edge machine learning (e.g. geometric deep learning, generative models, representation learning) to decode molecular physiology, pathology, and therapeutic design?
• Do you want to join an international group of highly collaborative, interdisciplinary, and successful colleagues that help you achieve your training and research goals?
• Do you want to bridge science and innovation, gaining entrepreneurship skills to translate breakthroughs into tools, therapies, or startups?

If yes, apply now to one of our 15-20 fully funded PhD positions here: https://apply.cemm.at
Deadline: 30 January 2026

The next PhD Program, together with our partners the TU Wien, Uni Wien, Meduni Wien, and CeMM will start in September 2026. The goal of the PhD Program is to address real-world problems in interdisciplinary computational, biomedical, clinical, and health research settings. If you’re eager to work at the intersection of computational innovation and wet-lab discovery, we want you on our team.

At both 10:00 and 17:00 CET on 14 January 2026, CeMM and AITHYRA will host an online information event where you will be able to find out more about doing a PhD at the institutes and applying to the joint call as well as have the chance to meet and talk directly with current PhD students. Please sign-up here PhD Open Day – AITHYRA-CeMM and or visit the PhD program page on the CeMM website.

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

• a "full-scale" thinker: You are fascinated by the integration of AI across biological scales, from the molecular level to entire biological systems, and you are excited by the prospect of working alongside robotics and automated laboratories.
• a lifelong learner: You have a solid foundation in a quantitative field (computer science, bioinformatics, mathematics, physics, etc.) and are excited to expand your horizons into the life sciences.
• a collaborative thinker: You enjoy working closely with others, communicate effectively across disciplines, and believe that impactful research thrives on teamwork and shared problem-solving.
• multidisciplinary at heart: You may have a background that doesn't follow a traditional path; you bring a unique perspective that enriches our research community and believe that impactful research is cultivated through teamwork and shared problem-solving.
• computationally skilled: You hold (or will hold by September 2026) a master’s degree in computer science, computational biology, bioengineering, engineering, physics, statistics, mathematics, or a related scientific or technical field.

If you are passionate about this intersection of AI and Life Sciences but don't check all of the boxes, we still encourage you to apply!

The research area

The 2026 AITHYRA PhD Program will focus on the thematic areas of cancer, immunology, infectious diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. We merge geometric deep learning, generative AI, representation learning, robotics, and experimental biology to decode molecular mechanisms, design novel therapeutics, and engineer biological systems. These areas are built on the pillars of epigenetics and genome integrity, bioinformatics, machine learning, systems biology, 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. This program will guide you to scientific excellence in data generation and validation to responsible and professional scientific citizenship.

The host institutes

AITHYRA and CeMM are sister institutes with identical commitment to excellence, world-class standards, 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 invests 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.

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Advancing AI-Driven Life Science Through Global Collaborations

The Opportunity: The AITHYRA Institute for Biomedical AI is launching its Global Adjunct Principal Investigator (PI) Program, an initiative designed to connect the world’s leading minds in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the life sciences to shape the future of data-driven biology and biomedicine. We are seeking visionary researchers whose work pushes the boundaries of AI-enabled biological discovery, programmable biology, and AI-integrated experimentation. Through this program, AITHYRA aims to build a global faculty network that bridges computational and experimental sciences, fostering transformative collaborations that redefine how we understand and engineer living systems across biological scales. Each Global Adjunct PI will receive a five-year appointment with an annual budget of €150,000, typically supporting two PhD students who will spend a significant portion of their studies at AITHYRA in Vienna. The Global Adjunct PI program is designed to enable deep integration between leading innovators and AITHYRA’s core faculty.

Your Profile: We want to continue to connect to emerging or established leaders in AI/ML, life sciences, biomedicine, and engineering with the required qualifications to supervise PhD students. We will recruit broadly but are particularly interested in AI/ML experts with a background in generative models, LLMs, agentic AI, ML-based simulations (e.g. molecular dynamics) with interest or track record of applying these methods within the domains of life sciences. Within the life sciences and biomedicine, we particularly welcome candidates with a strong background in cancer, immunological, neurological, or infectious disease research. We are especially interested in candidates with a medical background that can contribute a clinical perspective in these fields. We also have a strong interest in candidates with a background in the development of application of cutting-edge technologies, including high-throughput perturbation screening, single cell multi-omics, spatial biology, structural biology, imaging or proteomics.

Learn more about the Program: Download PDF

Appointment Process: Appointments will be made through a competitive and transparent selection process with minimal administrative burden. We only require:

• Your CV including publication list and overview of competitive 3^rd party funding

• An informal application document (maximum of 3 pages, Figures allowed) that outlines two points. First, your idea of what constitutes a grand scientific challenge in your field that requires a coordinated effort of AI/ML researchers and life scientists to solve. Second, how you would like to contribute to that question in the framework of your Adjunct PI position at AITHYRA.

Application Deadline, 30 January 2026: application(at)aithyra.at 

#AITHYRA #GlobalAdjunctPI

Key points of an AITHYRA Global Collaborator Affiliation that needs to be supported by the Host Institution:

• Cooperation/affiliation agreement for 5 years
• AITHYRA funding commitment of EUR 150,000 per year, request for funds/transfer of money once a year
• Definition of PhD project(s) on a cooperation topic relevant to the Partners
• The PhD student (m/f/d) receives an employment contract and PhD degree by the host institution, and is financed by AITHYRA, project stay(s) of at least 1 year in Vienna to promote the exchange of cooperation
• Any project related costs, such as consumables, travel costs, student fees, and project leader compensation of the Adjunct PI of up to 20% of previous salary costs can be covered by the global collaborator budget.
• Integration of the Global Collaborator in activities of the AITHYRA faculty to promote scientific collaboration, involvement in faculty meetings, retreats, training activities, etc.
• If required, access to administrative support from AITHYRA (travel bookings, PR, finance, grants, etc.) and mutual use of facility services
• Intellectual property: Work results from cooperation projects to which employees of both Partners have made significant contributions belong jointly to these Partners. In this case, an amicable approach to safeguarding and utilizing the Partner contributions is sought.
• Affiliations on publications of the common PhD project:
  • Global Collaborator = (host institution) first, AITHYRA second;
  • PhD Student (funded by AITHYRA) = AITHYRA first, (host institution) second;
• The Partners are permitted to publish and manage the AITHYRA Global Collaborator Affiliation during the term of the agreement and with reference to the respective contractual partners within the framework of normal practice (websites, annual reports). Press releases and special publications/events must be agreed in advance.
• Mid-term review by the Scientific Advisory Board of AITHYRA

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