3 Master Students (m/f/d)

Deutsches Institut für Ernährungsforschung Potsdam-Rehbrücke (DIfE)

About

The German Institute of Human Nutrition
Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE) is a member of the Leibniz Association. The institute’s mission is to conduct experimental and clinical research in the field of nutrition and health, with the aim of understanding the molecular basis of nutrition-dependent diseases, and of developing new strategies for treatment and prevention.

The Junior Research Group of Epigenetic of Obesity and Diabetes (EOD) is an internationally recognized research-based reseach group encompassing life sciences and a partner of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD). We invite applications for 3 Master Students (m/f/d) starting as soon as possible.

We offer excellent technical equipment and a productive working environment and expect interested and committed candidates.

Your tasks

The candidate will join an interdisciplinary team to perform bioinformatic analyses on brain insulin resistance and the epigenetic regulation of type 2 diabetes subtypes. The master’s project focuses on developing analysis pipelines to extract deeper insights from existing epigenetic and phenotypic datasets.

Project 1: Epigenetic score for brain insulin resistance

• Analyze blood DNA methylation from a large cohort
• Apply machine and deep learning methods to build an epigenetic risk score
• Optimize a data-integration pipeline combining epigenetic and proteomic data into a composite score

Project 2: Epigenetics and alternative splicing in type 2 diabetes

• Analyze DNA methylation in muscle biopsies
• Integrate methylome and transcriptome data to predict the relationship between DNA methylation and alternative splicing
• Use established clustering methods in the group (PAM and WGCNA)

Project 3: Epigenetic score for early T2D endotypes

• Analyze blood DNA methylation in a large cohort
• Integrate clinical and epigenetic data for correlation analyses
• Use machine and deep learning to derive an epigenetic risk score
• Apply PAM and WGCNA for data-driven patient stratification

The student will gain hands-on experience in multi-omics integration (epigenomics, transcriptomics, and clinical data) and advanced bioinformatic methods within a collaborative academic and clinical research environment.

Your profile

• Bachelor’s degree in bioinformatics, mathematics, statistics, or in a biological science with substantial analytical background knowledge
• Basic skills in Unix operation systems and intrinsic interest in genetics would be an asset

Your benefits

The candidates will enjoy team working and interactions with experimental scientists and other bioinformaticians to work on complex datasets, and will have experience using tools such as R/Bioconductor or python. 

Your application

Please send your application until latest January 31st, 2026 via E-Mail to studenten@dife.de.

For further information please do not hesitate to contact: 
Dr. Meriem Ouni
Head of the Junior Research Group Epigenetics of Obesity and Diabetes
E-Mail: Meriem.Ouni@dife.de 

We process your application documents for the purpose of carrying out the application procedure in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b) GDPR, Art. 88 GDPR. For more information on the collection, processing and use of personal data by the German Institute of Human Nutrition as part of the application process and your rights under data protection law, please contact the Department of Human Resources and Social Services (jobs@dife.de).