Four PhD/Postdoc positions are available at Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology.

TERMS:
The positions are available from the 1st of June 2008 or earliest thereafter.

BACKGROUND:
The Center for Biological Sequence Analysis conducts basic research in the field of bioinformatics and systems biology and employs a staff of +100 with a highly multi-disciplinary profile (molecular biologists, biochemists, medical doctors, physicists, computer scientists, and technical staff). The center represents one of the largest bioinformatics and systems biology groups in academia in Europe.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
Two PhD positions within Disease Systems Biology:

A. The successful candidate will be working in interdisciplinary disease gene finding projects where information from biobanks and registries will be combined with biomolecular sequences, SNP data, expression data, and protein-protein interaction data to identify genes involved in diseases.

B. The successful candidate will be involved in the seventh framework program “DEER”, which is an interdisciplinary project aimed at delineating the developmental effects of environment on human reproductive health by integrating genomic and proteomics data, exposure data for potentially toxic environmental chemicals, lifestyle, dietary and medical history information. The overall goal of this project is to create new cause-effect frameworks and knowledge networks to increase our understanding of the biological mechanisms determining normal or abnormal development.

PhD/Postdoc position within EU Metagenomics project:

C. The successful candidate will primarily be involved in the seventh framework program “Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract, MetaHIT”. The project aims to boost our understanding of the microbial populations in the human gut and their relationship to human health. The tools developed by the project will be used to study obesity and inflammatory bowel diseases. The candidate will be working with in-silico metagenomic studies involving microarray data analysis, modeling species-species interactions and improving lateral gene transfer detections in metagenomic data.

PhD/Postdoc position within microRNA Disease Gene Finding:

D. The successful candidate will primarily be involved in the project “The World’s First MicroRNA Medicine”. The aim of the project is to gain further insight to the mechanism of the liver specific MicroRNA miRNA-122 and the consequences of compromising miRNA-122 by complementary LNA in human (see Elmén et al., Nature, 2008). The project will involve analysis of gene expression data in integration with other system wide data sources and predictions of microRNA behaviour, as well as planning and analysis of additional experiments. The project will be in collaboration with the private company Santaris Pharma A/S. The student will be part of a small project team based in the Integrative Systems Biology group at CBS.

REQUIREMENTS:
For the Postdoc positions:

Candidates applying for a postdoc position should in addition to a relevant MSc degree have academic qualifications equivalent to the PhD level.

The salary and appointment terms are negotiated in accordance with the current collective agreement for Danish University faculty members.

For the PhD positions:

Candidates applying for a PhD scholarship should have a master’s degree in bioinformatics, biology, biochemistry, engineering, computer science, or a similar degree.

The scholarships for the PhD degree are subject to academic approval, and the candidates will be enrolled in one of the general degree programmes of DTU. Information about the general requirements for enrolment and the general planning of the scholarship studies is included in the general rules of DTU, which may be obtained by application to the PhD programme office at tel: +45 45 25 11 76 or +45 45 25 11 77.

The salary and appointment terms are consistent with the current rules for PhD degree students.

For all positions:

It is essential that the applicant has strong computational skills and a fundamental understanding of biology. The applicant must be fluent in written as well as spoken English.

HOW TO APPLY:
Further information may be obtained from professor and center director Søren Brunak, tel.: +45 45 25 24 77 (for positions A and B), associate professor Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén, tel.: +45 45 25 24 22 (for position C) or associate professor Henrik Bjørn Nielsen, tel.: +45 45 25 24 89 (for position D).

All interested candidates irrespective of age, gender, race, or religion are encouraged to apply.

Applications should be forwarded as soon as possible, and must be received no later than: June 6th , 2008 at 12:00 noon

Please forward applications including CV, by email to center administrator Dorthe Kjærsgaard on dorthek[at]cbs.dtu.dk , or by ordinary mail to:

Søren Brunak
Center for Biological Sequence Analysis
Department of Systems Biology
Technical University of Denmark
Kemitorvet, Building 208
DK-2800 Lyngby
Denmark

Please DO NOT include reprints of already published papers with your application.