AITHYRA-CeMM Joint International PhD Call in Molecular Medicine and Artificial Intelligence (m/f/d)
AITHYRA, the Research Institute for Biomedical Artificial Intelligence of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, and CeMM, the Research Center for Molecular Medicine 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.