Curricular Internship

**APPLICATION CLOSING DATE: April 28th 2025**

**Human Technopole (HT)**is an interdisciplinary life science research institute, created and supported by the Italian Government, with the aim of developing innovative strategies to improve human health. HT is composed of five Centres: Neurogenomics, Computational Biology, Structural Biology, Genomics, and Health Data Science. The Centres work together to enable interdisciplinary research and to create an open, collaborative environment that will help promote life science research both nationally and internationally.

The Neurogenomics Centre at HT investigates the mechanisms of human neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases, ranging from neurodevelopmental to neurodegenerative disorders, combining basic and translational research through different experimental systems and computational approaches (from brain organoids to animal models to epidemiological cohorts) to probe the structure, function and development of the nervous system at multiple scales of resolution.

In the Testa research group we focus on the dynamics of brain disorders, with a strong emphasis on human experimental models and straddling multiple scales of analysis from single cell resolution to organismal function, working in close integration with national and international deeply phenotyped cohorts that provide unique edges for the study of gene/environment interactions in mental health vulnerability and resilience. Our lab has developed a unique ecosystem characterized by the systematic integration of wet and dry research flows to foster an authentic culture of hybridity that transgresses experimental/computational divides.

Our research environment includes transformative facilities encompassing reprogramming, editing and brain organoids automation, state of the art genomics and microscopy infrastructures along with a HT-wide architecture of high-performance computing (HPC) attuned to the needs of contemporary computational biology.

**Internship Project Description**

We are seeking a highly motivated **curricular intern** to join our team and contribute to advancing research on disease modelling inherent to neurodevelopmental disorders and recent human brain evolution. The intern will be involved in a project whose aim is to study the involvement of specific cell types in the occurrence of pathophysiological traits associated with mutations in CHD2, with a particular focus on its role in cerebellar development, disease and evolution. This gene, encoding for a chromatin remodeler causes early-onset epileptic encephalopathy, intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder.

**Key tasks and activities**
- Culture of cortical/cerebellar brain organoids
- Partecipate in imaging experiments on living/fixed samples
- Partecipate in molecular biology experiments
- Partecipate in bioinformatic analyses of transcriptomics data

**Essential requirements**
- Bachelor in Biotechnology
- Fluent English
- Previous learning experience of Nucleic Acids extraction
- Previous learning experience of cell culture of different biological models

**Preferred requirements**
- Prior learning experience with R/Python programming
- Previous use of microscopes

**Organizational and social skills**
- Excellent communication skills.
- Team working

**Application Instructions**
- a CV.
- a motivation letter in English.

***Why Human Technopole**

HT seeks scientific excellence, we recruit the best scientific talents through international, open calls.

Our working environment is international, friendly and inclusive. Our scientists work together across disciplines on research topics of biomedical relevance, leveraging synergies between their diverse skillsets and methodological approaches.

We believe that highly diverse teams yield the best and most innovative results.

We engage in outward-facing scientific activities aimed at benefiting the national and international research community. Training is also at the heart of our activity, with initiatives and opportunities for our staff, including scientific courses, conferences and workshops.

**What we offer**
- Canteen service.
- Guest House upon availability, if needed.
- Access to all training initiatives targeted to HT scientists.
- International research environment with networking and training opportunities.
- Supervision by experienced researchers providing personalized feedback and career advice.

**Number of positions offered**:1

**Internship duration**:12 months.

**Reimbursement**: lunch expenses

**The position is based in Milan.