Training the next generation of scientists
Bioinformatics and data science education
‟
Data science is an hybrid field that relies on computer science, statistics and analytical science. By now, it is at the core of the scientific process. The students from the Master in Data Science will strengthen Luxembourg’s work force in general and some will contribute to biomedical research.
Research scientist and lecturer

Doctoral education

The LCSB is very much involved in training the next generation of scientists, more than 60 PhD students working on scientific projects and learning how to become fully fledged researchers.
Funded by the Fonds National de la Recherche, the Doctoral Training Units (DTUs) promote interdisciplinary education and collaboration between research institutions. The PhD students receive high-quality training that go beyond traditional doctoral supervision.
LCSB experts in the field of science communication teach courses part of the Doctoral Education in Science Communication (DESCOM) programme, bringing their extensive expertise and cutting-edge research into the classroom.
The LCSB’s involvement in DTUs
The LCSB is currently involved in several DTUs:
Building on the previous MICROH DTU, the vision for MICRO-PATH is to understand the causal and mechanistic links between the microbiome and chronic diseases and to lay the foundation for establishing the microbiome as a therapeutic and preventative target in the future.
Duration: 2025-2031
Partners:
Funding source: Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR)
MICROH is an interdisciplinary DTU studying the interactions within and between microbiomes in relation to two major healthcare challenges of our time, i.e. the spread of antimicrobial resistance genes and the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases. MICROH bridges microbiology and big data analytics in a structured doctoral training environment.
Duration: 2018 – 2024
Partners:
Funding source: Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR)
The Xpose DTU will train the next generation of exposome scientists and extend our understanding of the relationship between the exposome and the associated biological processes leading to diseases. The main objective is to develop novel methodologies for a holistic analysis of the impact of environmental, chemical, nutritional, social, and lifestyle-related exposures on health. Taking advantage of new technological developments, such as digital health solutions, Big Data and AI, Xpose will put a particular focus on modifiable factors that can influence exposure and its effects on individuals’ health. The knowledge gained will translate into designing exposome-based prevention and treatment interventions, i.e. for policymakers, clinicians but also individuals, making human lives healthier and more resilient.
Duration: 2024 – 2031
Partners:
Funding source: Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR), Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), University of Luxembourg
The DTU ACTIVE aims at training PhD students in the emerging field of active systems. This field is rapidly growing in importance and has enormous implications for the understanding of living systems, which represent by the most complex class of active systems. A particular focus is placed on the multiscale organisation of primary metabolism as the essential mechanism to keep living systems out of equilibrium. The links between intramolecular energy transfers, enzyme activity and nutrient exchanges are analysed from the perspective of active interactions at the molecular, cellular and population level. The integration of these complementary approaches lays out more general strategies to study active interactions in mesoscopic systems and provides new insights into the nonequilibrium organisation of life.
Duration: 2020 – 2027
Partners:
Funding source: Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR)
Cohorts of PhD students are trained to develop data-driven modelling approaches common to a number of applications strategic to the Luxembourgish Research Area and Luxembourg’s Smart Specialisation Strategies. The DTU creates a bridge between strong methodological core competencies and application domains by training each PhD student in state-of-the-art data-driven approaches, and in the particular application domain in which these approaches are expected to lead to new discoveries: Computational Physics and Engineering, Computational Biology and Life Sciences, Computational Behavioural and Social Sciences.
Duration: 2018 –
Partners:
External partners: Digital Lëtzebuerg
Funding source: Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR)
Inflammation represents a common hallmark shared across different non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as auto-immune disease, cancer and neurodegeneration. In Luxembourg, a considerable translational research expertise has been built up based on aberrant immune mechanisms bridging between these disease domains. i2TRON will leverage on this fundamental and clinical research expertise to train next generation translational scientists with the aim to advance our mechanistic insight on selected prototypic NCDs. Such insights will lead to discoveries of new biomarkers and therapeutic targets of NCDs, and facilitate translation into novel treatment strategies.
Duration: 2021 – 2027
Partners:
External partners: University of Southern Denmark
Funding source: Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR)
The NextImmune2 DTU takes advantage of the network and expertise generated by the first NextImmune DTU, built on the path leading from big data to personalised medicine and focuses on open questions in the immunology field. Educating PhD candidates in classical analytical approaches and bioinformatics is still the main need in biomedical research.
This programme investigates different human diseases and disease models to study immune-metabolic crosstalk and understand how communication networks orchestrate and coordinate responses to environmental cues or immunological challenges.
Duration: 2023 – 2029
Partners:
Funding source: Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR), Luxembourg Ministry of Higher Education and Research
Mentoring young researchers
‟
These discussions gave me the opportunity to explore different career options. I now have some insights into what it means to be a team leader in academia but also to work in other positions. As a result, I have a much clearer picture of what I would like to do next.
post-doctoral researcher and mentee
