DESCRIPTION

The INCIPIT programme (http://www.igb.cnr.it/incipit) aims at creating a hub of excellence in research and training in the South of Italy through synergies among the eight institutes of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), already performing excellent research. Indeed, these institutes (IAC, IBB, IBP, ICAR, ICB, IEOS, IGB and IPCB) have different and complementary expertise, ranging from biology and genetics to mathematics, statistics, engineering, computer science, chemistry and medicine, and offer well-equipped laboratories and cutting-edge technologies.

The Position: We seek a talented (three years) Ph.D. student to take part to the newly established computational biology and bioinformatics activities at the High Performance Computing and Networking Institute. The appointed individual will focus on the development of novel algorithms and methodologies, and their implementation in computational pipelines, for the integration and analysis of genomics sequencing data. The focus is on statistical machine learning and data mining techniques for the analysis of biological experiments, particularly on next-generation sequencing data (DNA-seq, RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, etc). The student will integrate the developed pipelines in a software support tool for more accurate diagnosis and personalised treatment plans. He/she will also be engaged in collaborative research projects within the Institute and beyond, potentially resulting in high profile publications. He/she will be encouraged to develop his/her own research interests in areas related to the Institute activities.

The Candidate: The successful candidate holds a master degree in Mathematics, Computer Science, Computational Biology or Bioinformatics, and has a proven experience in biological data integration and analysis. Expertise in programs such as R, Python, Matlab is a requirement, and the ability to use PHP, SQL, Java, C, C++ are considered a plus. The working language at CDS-LAB is English, and excellent written and oral communication skills as well as high accuracy, reliability and excellent interpersonal and organizational skills are a requirement.

The Laboratory:
The aim of Computational and Data Lab is to develop algorithms, models and software tools to detect, understand and design scientific and technological solutions through the analysis of data obtained from experiments and tests, and/or through simulation of the processes generating them, dealing with new scientific challenges and multidisciplinary activities, related to ICT. Its activity is focused on the resolution of real problems with methodologies spanning from computer simulation, to scientific modelling and analysis, processing and management of complex and big data, sometimes heterogeneous, integrating knowledge domains and competences that belong to Computer Science, Applied Mathematics and Statistics.

Fields of applications are going to be characterized by big data from different sources (numeric variables, items and values, symbolic data, texts, pictures and video, streams and multi-way data, networks, etc.). At the same time, appropriately integrating the methodologies of CDS-Lab with different knowledge domains, it is possible to yield a new and more efficient perspective to real problems analysis and interpretation of the results. Moreover, the research activity will be held in collaboration with experts of different.

Fields of application include:
Computational Biology: development of models to describe and predict biological phenomena
Bioinformatics: data analysis of high throughput sequencing and spectrometry experiments
Biotechnology: detecting new prognostic and therapeutic targets
Video and image processing: pattern recognition and video tracking from phase contrast and fluorescence microscopy
Computer graphics: photorealistic rendering of interesting biological molecules and of ambience and landscapes

The Institute:
The Institute for High Performance Computing and Networking (ICAR-CNR) offers innovative solutions in terms of research, technology transfer and high education in the area of intelligent systems with complex functionality (cognitive systems and robotics, knowledge representation, extraction and reasoning, human-computer interface, optimization) and high performance computing (cloud computing, parallel and distributed environments and advanced technologies for the Internet). Significant applications are developed in the areas of e-health, energy, security, bioinformatics, cultural heritage, smart cities.

DESCRIPTION

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