Federated and interpretable clinical AI for earlier diagnosis of inborn errors of immunity
The Infection and Immunity in Paediatric Patients Research Group at the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, is seeking an outstanding postdoctoral researcher interested in developing competitive applications for the next Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA-PF).
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA-PF)
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA-PF) are part of the Horizon Europe programme and support postdoctoral researchers in developing an original research and innovation project through international mobility.
The programme aims to strengthen researchers’ careers through excellent science, international collaboration and interdisciplinary experience, while fostering integration in both academic and non-academic environments. The MSCA-PF call is highly competitive and represents an excellent opportunity to attract international talent and support researchers in consolidating their scientific careers through an ambitious mobility-based fellowship.
The 2026 call closes on 09/09/2026 (17:00 Brussels time). For candidates applying to a European Postdoctoral Fellowship, the fellowship duration is from 12 to 24 months
Full eligibility details: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026
Background
Inborn errors of immunity (IEI) are rare, heterogeneous diseases in which diagnostic delay remains clinically relevant. Current referral pathways often depend on recognition by highly specialised clinicians or tertiary registries, which are accurate but difficult to scale and may amplify inequities in access to expert centres. At the same time, primary care and hospital electronic health records contain longitudinal signal: recurrent infections, bronchiectasis, cytopenia’s, autoimmunity, growth impairment, immunoglobulin patterns and other coded or laboratory features, that can be transformed into computable phenotypes.
The host group has developed PIDCAP, an expert-derived EHR-integrated scoring system for early identification of IEI in primary care, and is expanding this work through ontology mapping, AI-enabled clinical decision support, calculated globulin/hypogammaglobulinaemia detection, and federated learning collaborations. The proposed MSCA project will build on this platform to create generalisable, transparent and privacy-preserving methods for earlier detection of rare immune disorders in real-world health systems.
Objective
Develop and validate interoperable EHR phenotypes and clinical features for early suspicion of IEI, combining expert knowledge, ICD/laboratory data and ontology mapping.
Design interpretable prediction and risk-stratification models that can be calibrated for different clinical settings while minimising alert fatigue.
Implement a privacy-preserving validation strategy, including federated or distributed analytics, to assess transportability across centres or regions.
Evaluate clinical workflow integration, fairness and potential impact on referral pathways from primary care to specialised immunology units.
The Group
The Vall d’Hebron Research Institute Infection and Immunity in Paediatric Patients group focuses on improving the understanding, diagnosis and management of congenital errors of immunity in children. Its research combines clinical immunology, genomics, translational immunology, advanced immune monitoring and data science to support earlier and more precise diagnosis and personalised care. The group is closely linked to a highly specialised clinical unit at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and collaborates with national and international networks in primary immunodeficiencies, rare diseases, artificial intelligence and clinical data interoperability.
In parallel, the group integrates artificial intelligence tools to analyse complex clinical and biological datasets, identify predictive biomarkers and optimise diagnostic workflows. In the last year, the group reported 48 publications, 72.9% in Q1 journals, 140 citations, 12 ongoing projects and 16 active clinical trials, reflecting strong translational and collaborative activity.
Work closely with clinical immunologists, data scientists and health informatics teams, including the DS3 group and primary care collaborators in Catalonia.
Statistical learning, federated analytics, clinical NLP, ontology-driven feature engineering, or implementation science.
The fellow will have access to an active clinical research environment, real-world EHR use cases, international scientific networks in IEI and AI, and opportunities to contribute to European collaborations on interoperability, privacy-preserving data analysis and learning health systems.
Methodological publications, validated reusable code or data models, and a roadmap for clinically safe deployment of IEI screening tools.
Applicants must hold a PhD degree or have successfully defended their thesis before the call deadline (09/09/2026)
Applicants must comply with the mobility rule, meaning they must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work/studies) in the host country for more than 12 months during the 36 months prior to the call deadline.
Fluency in English (spoken and written)
Desirable:
Background in rare diseases, immunology, clinical epidemiology, digital health, real-world data, health informatics or implementation science
Applicants must have a maximum of 8 years of postdoctoral research experience by the call deadline. This means candidates are generally eligible if they obtained their PhD on or after 10/09/2018 (possible extensions may apply, e.g. parental leave or long-term illness).
Strong quantitative skills
Experience with R or Python
Reproducible data analysis
§ Statistical modelling or machine learning
Capacity to work with multidisciplinary clinical and technical teams
Experience with EHR data, ICD/SNOMED/ORPHA/HPO/OMOP or openEHR/FHIR standards, federated learning or privacy-preserving analytics, NLP, explainable AI, clinical decision support evaluation, or research software engineering.
Deadline to apply: 31-07-2026
VHIR embraces Equality and Diversity. As reflected in our values we work toward ensuring inclusion and equal opportunity in recruitment, hiring, training, and management for all staff within the organisation, regardless of gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, religion, age, functional diversity or ethnicity.
Information on Personal Data Protection:
Data Controller: Fundació Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron Institut de Recerca -VHIR-. Purpose: Personnel selection. Legal Basis: Your consent. Data retention period: One year. If you are selected, as long as the employment relationship is in force and legal responsibilities may arise. Data sharing: Does not occur, except for communications necessary to fulfill the purpose and those required by law to public and private bodies. Rights: You can access, rectify, delete, object to, and limit the processing of data, as well as request data portability where applicable, by contacting lopd@vhir.org DPO: dpd@ticsalutsocial.cat More information can be found here
Data Protection Authority: APDCAT
We are a public sector institution that promotes and develops the biomedical research, innovation and teaching at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, the hospital of Barcelona and the largest of Catalan Institute of Health (ICS). The members of our Board of Trustees are the Catalan Ministry of Health, the Catalan Ministry of Economy and Knowledge (we are a CERCA center), Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, Bank of blood and tissues, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), of which we are an accredited research institute, and the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), which together with VHIR is part of Accredited Institute of Campus Vall d’Hebron Institute by the Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII).
Since its creation in 1994, VHIR works to find solutions to the health problems of society, and contribute to spread them around the world. In more than 20 years we have achieved leadership in biomedical research at hospitals in our country, and we want to be recognised in 2020 as an excellent and competitive European Institute leader in clinical and traslational research linked to a university hospital.
In our institute are working more than 1,300 people, of which over 1,200 doing research and others, around 100, help to do it or transfer it to the society once made, whether in the form of projects, technology transfer and innovation, communication or fundraising, among others.
The best of our institution and its research staff is doing research to solve people’s health problems. Our task is not only basic or translational, we are leaders in clinical research. We have the beds of the hospital separated in less than 50 meters of laboratories and our patients will benefit from our research. In this we believe, and our efforts are focused on it. This is understood by industry leaders who are committed to our hospital, making it a world reference for its first clinical trials.
