BACKGROUND:
A number of PhD positions are available in the Translational Disease Systems Biology group at The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research (CPR – http://www.cpr.ku.dk). The Center has been established at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, to promote basic and applied discovery research on human proteins of medical relevance. The Center comprises a wide range of expertise and resources including proteomics, protein production, bioinformatics and general characterization of disease mechanisms. The Programme for Disease Systems Biology consists of two research groups covering many systems level aspects of biology and medicine, including the integration of molecular-level data and healthcare data, for example laboratory test data and biomedical texts.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
The Translational Disease Systems Biology group (http://www.cpr.ku.dk/research/disease-systems-biology/brunak/) led by Søren Brunak focuses on establishing early competitive advantage in disease-relevant computational analysis across the general areas of bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, systems biology and medical informatics. The PhD students will work on data-driven models of temporal disease development (diabetes, other immune system related disorders, comorbidities in general) using a combination of molecular data and data from the healthcare sector, where the latter has the form of registry data or complete electronic patient records. These models will in part be descriptive and show how different diseases and diagnosis follow each other over long periods of time and in part predictive in the sense that longitudinal patterns of illnesses, medication and procedures will indicate future events. The models may be augmented by molecular level biomarker data from genomics or proteomics further increasing the predictive power.

Projected start date: Early 2016.

REQUIREMENTS:
Qualifications:
The successful candidates will have strong qualifications or experience within one or several of the following areas:

• Bioinformatics and systems biology at the molecular level
• NGS or clinical proteomics data
• Disease biology
• Healthcare data from registries and electronic patient records
• Competence in statistics and/or machine learning techniques
• Experience with health care terminologies, schemes and ontologies

Formal requirements:
The translational disease systems biology is highly multidisciplinary and collaborates with many other research groups nationally and internationally. Strong networking and team player skills are therefore preferred. As the candidate may run several projects in parallel, strong organizational skills and the ability to keep an overview are important.

To be accepted for the positions, it is a condition that your Master of Science degree is considered to be equivalent to a Danish Master of Science.

It is a prerequisite that the PhD candidate is enrolled as a PhD student at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences according to the rules stipulated in the Ministerial order on the PhD programme at the universities (PhD order) from the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Higher Education and the guidelines for the PhD programme at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.

COMPENSATION:
Terms of salary and employment:
Salary, pension and terms of employment will be in accordance with the agreement between the Ministry of Finance and The Academics Central organization. Currently, the monthly salary is around 25,500-30,800 DKK (around 3,400-4,100 EUR ) plus 17.1 % in pension contribution.

The Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (AC) have agreed on a protocol that makes it possible for all international researchers employed by the University to achieve a pension exemption, where the pension will be paid as salary. For more information about the different pension schemes: http://ism.ku.dk/onarrival/pension/

TERMS:
Duration: 3 years

LOCALE:
Place of employment and work:
The employment is at CPR (http://www.cpr.ku.dk), University of Copenhagen, located in central Copenhagen. The research environment at CPR is ambitious and international, with approx. 30 different nationalities currently represented. The Center comprises modern laboratories, supercomputer resources and state-of-the-art facilities within protein science. Seminars with high-profile international speakers and regular internal research seminars are organized at the Center. The selected candidate should expect some travel activity.

For more information on working and living in Denmark visit http://www.ism.ku.dk (International staff mobility) and http://www.workingconditions.ku.dk.

HOW TO APPLY:
Your application should be submitted electronically to: http://employment.ku.dk/phd/. Please be aware that we only accept applications sent through this link.

Your application should include the following documents:

• Motivated letter of application
• Curriculum vitae, incl. education and experience
• Copy of diplomas/degree certificate(s)
• List of publications

After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the Appointments Committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an expert assessment committee. Selected applicants are notified of the composition of the committee and each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself. You can read about the recruitment process at http://employment.ku.dk

For further information about the position or the process, please contact CPR: jobs[at]cpr.ku.dk

DEADLINE:
Deadline for application: December 9, 2015

POLICY:
CPR and the University of Copenhagen wish to reflect the diversity of society and welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.