PhD Fellowship: Agentic AI & LLMs for Global Pathogen Analysis

About the role

The Bhatt-Duchene Group at the University of Copenhagen invites applications for a PhD fellowship starting on 1 September 2026 (or as soon as possible thereafter). The fellow will join the Global Pathogen Analysis Platform (GPAP) consortium and focus on developing agentic AI systems and large language models to advance pathogen genomic analysis worldwide.

Key responsibilities

• Design and implement agentic AI tools for automated interpretation of pathogen genomes and scientific reporting.
• Integrate AI components with existing bioinformatics pipelines, databases, and scientific software.
• Adapt, fine‑tune, and evaluate large language and foundation models for biological, genomic, and phylogenetic tasks.
• Develop reproducible, auditable AI workflows for infectious disease surveillance and outbreak analysis.
• Collaborate with international partners across DTU, Statens Serum Institut, Imperial College London, and other consortium members.

Required profile

• Master’s degree (or equivalent) in computer science, bioinformatics, computational biology, or a related field.
• Strong interest in artificial intelligence applications for global health and pathogen genomics.
• Ability to work in an interdisciplinary, international research environment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.

Required skills

• Deep learning
• Large language models
• Bioinformatics

What we offer

• PhD degree awarded by the University of Copenhagen.
• Funding through the Novo Nordisk Foundation (up to DKK 200 million for the GPAP project).
• Access to a cutting‑edge AI‑powered platform for pathogen analysis.
• Opportunities to collaborate with leading researchers across Europe, Africa, and Asia.