We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher to lead the biological and translational side of a four-year project building microbiomeGPT - a generative foundation model of the human gut microbiome — and fine-tuning it into a personalized digital twin for disease prediction and intervention simulation. The work builds directly on our recent preprint, GUT-FORMer (ref. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.16.699869v1).
**Key responsibilities**
- Lead the analysis and biological interpretation of metagenomic data across tens of thousands of public samples and project-specific cohorts
- Coordinate the longitudinal validation study with the Estonian Microbiome Cohort, in collaboration with Prof. Elin Org (University of Tartu)
- Drive biomarker discovery for target indications (IBD, colorectal cancer, Parkinson's disease), in consultation with our industry partner Diagnostyka S.A.
- Lead first-author publications in high-impact journals
- Contribute to mentoring PhD and master's students within the group
**Required qualifications**
- PhD in bioinformatics, computational biology, microbiology, or a related field
- Demonstrated experience with metagenomic data analysis (e.g., MetaPhlAn, HUMAnN)
- Track record of peer-reviewed publications
- Proficiency in Python
- Strong written and spoken English
**Desirable qualifications**
- Experience with longitudinal/time-series microbiome data
- Familiarity with ML methods applied to omics data
- Experience with HPC environments
**What we offer**
- Competitive salary aligned with Sano's compensation framework, adjusted for Kraków cost of living
- Access to state-of-the-art compute: Sano's in-house cluster (16× NVIDIA A100), plus EuroHPC resources (LUMI, Helios, Athena)
- Collaboration with Prof. Elin Org (Tartu), Prof. Ewa Szczurek (Helmholtz Munich / University of Warsaw), and Diagnostyka S.A.
- Clear path to first-author publications and conference participation
- International, English-speaking environment (~70 researchers, 13+ nationalities)
website: sano.science/job-offers/sano-postdoc-fnp-first-team/