Theoretical Biophysicist – Cellular and Tissue Architecture

About the role

Artidis, a clinical-stage health technology company focused on solid tumors, is hiring a Theoretical Biophysicist for its Signal Processing team. The role strengthens the biological and medical interpretation of signals from Artidis' automated atomic force microscopes (AFM), ensuring that hypotheses, experiments and models reflect the cellular composition, extracellular environment and structural organization of tissues. It works closely with experimental scientists, computational physicists, data scientists and the Signal Processing team.

Key responsibilities

• Identify cellular, extracellular and tissue-level structures that influence mechanical measurement signals and develop biologically grounded hypotheses about spatial and force-curve patterns.
• Propose targeted experiments and support the selection of biological model systems.
• Interpret microscopy, histology and other spatially resolved biological data, and annotate or segment tissue structures in imaging data.
• Define biologically meaningful regions, interfaces and geometries, and translate them into simplified representations for numerical simulation, including 2D and 3D meshes.
• Collaborate with computational colleagues on assumptions, boundary conditions, material regions and model parameters, and compare simulations with measurements.
• Review scientific and medical literature on tissue composition, cell morphology, extracellular matrix and disease-related changes, and document assumptions and hypotheses.
• Present findings and support the interpretation of measurement variability across samples and tissue types.

Required profile

• Master's degree, PhD, medical degree or equivalent research experience in biophysics, cell biology, tissue biology, mechanobiology, biomedical engineering, pathology, physiology or a related field.
• Strong understanding of cell and tissue composition, including the extracellular matrix and interfaces.
• Experience with biological tissues, cells, organoids or tissue sections.
• Ability to formulate and test scientific hypotheses and to simplify complex structures into clear geometric representations.
• Strong written and spoken English; German is a plus.

Nice to have

• Tissue mechanics, mechanobiology or extracellular-matrix biology.
• Human tissue, histopathology or connective, epithelial, stromal or tumor tissue experience.
• Fluorescence/confocal microscopy, image segmentation, and tools such as ImageJ, QuPath, napari or CellProfiler.
• Basic experience creating geometries from images, mesh generation, CAD or finite-element workflows.
• Python, MATLAB or R, and exposure to AFM or force spectroscopy.

What we offer

• A competitive salary and a bonus for outstanding performance.
• An international start-up environment with rapid advancement and the chance to take responsibility.