Karolinska Institutet,

The Department of Clinical Neuroscience (CNS) conducts research and education in the field of neuroscience from the molecular level to the society level. The clinical research and education is conducted in collaboration with Region Stockholm as well as other research groups from Karolinska Institutet and other universities.
Please visit our website for more information: ki.se/en/cns

The position is funded through the Innovative Medicines Initiative ULTRA-DD project (www.ultra-dd.org), which focuses on definition and validation of drug targets in inflammatory and related diseases.

Division

The successful candidate will work in the Epigenetic group headed by Dr M. Jagodic (http://ki.se/en/cns/maja-jagodics-research-group). The group is a part of the Karolinska Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis (KNIMS) center which gathers around 40 researchers working on different aspects of pathogenesis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS), including genetics, epidemiology, immunology and epigenetics, with excellent clinical cohorts and experimental models. The Epigenetics group is physically located at the Center for Molecular Medicine (www.cmm.ki.se), with ~500 researchers working on complex diseases, and with extensive national and international collaborations. The Epigenetic group studies epigenetic mechanisms underlying neuroinflammation and neuronal loss in MS using both large-scale omics approaches and molecular in vivo and in vitro functional experiments.

Duties

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an immune-mediated disease with complex interactions between genetic and environmental risk factors resulting in a highly heterogeneous disease with respect to its clinical presentation and treatment response. Therefore, identifying factors that contribute to this clinical variability is a major research goal within our group using a cohort of clinically  well characterised patients followed up for over 12 years. We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher who will develop and implement bioinformatic approaches to (i) stratify patients into distinct subgroups based on multiple omics and phenotypic data, and (ii) identify prognostic biomarkers based on most discriminative classifiers. This includes analysis of data generated from different genomic platforms (e.g. HumanMethylation450 BeadChip array) as well as developing predictive algorithms for disease severity based on genetic, epigenetic and environmental information.  

The work will include design of analysis, data processing, quality control, statistical analyses, data interpretation and presentation of findings in the form of scientific publications, grant applications and at meetings and conferences. The post-holder will to a minor extent also provide support to the ULTRA-DD research teams at the Division of Rheumatology regarding data management and analysis, using the Scarab database system.

The tasks will be carried out in close collaboration with Prof. Julian Knight at the Welcome Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and with Dr. Brian Marsden, at Structural Genomics ConsortiumOxford. To this end, it is expected that the successful candidate will spend a minimum of ¼ of the time in Oxford as a visiting scientist and carry out relevant parts of the project at our collaborators’ laboratories.

The candidate is expected to interact with many collaborators at KI and externally and to contribute to the efficient functioning of the unit.

We offer a very stimulating and welcoming working environment in a unit of motivated co-workers with diverse competencies.

Entry requirements/Qualifications

 

Absolute Requirements

  • A PhD or in exceptional cases expected to obtain soon, in bioinformatics, mathematics, statistics, computer sciences or a related discipline including where sufficient bioinformatic expertise is demonstrated in life sciences
  • Excellent analytical and quantitative skills
  • Documented research experience of complex data analysis
  • Excellent knowledge of statistics
  • Experience and competence in scientific computing including skills in at least one language (preferably R)
  • Ability to deliver high-quality scientific outputs with a strong publication record
  • High level of demonstrable communication skills
  • Ability to work independently and take own initiatives

Preferred Requirements

We will look favorably upon if the candidate has experiences in one or more of the following areas:

  • Classification methods, clustering methods and predictive analytics
  • NGS/array data analysis
  • High-performance computing
  • Proficiency in Unix/Linux; Java, C, C++
  • Database management

The candidate should also have good interpersonal skills and the ability to work both independently but also as a part of a large team. Good knowledge of spoken and written English and good communication skills are also required. Experience with writing scientific papers is required and experience with writing grant applications would be an advantage.


Application process
An employment application must contain the following documents in English:

  1. A complete curriculum vitae, including date of the thesis defence, title of the thesis, previous academic positions, academic title, current position, academic distinctions, and committee work
  2. A complete list of publications
  3. A summary of current work (no more than one page)

The application is to be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.

Type of employment Temporary position
Contract type Full time
Number of positions 1
Full-time equivalent 100%
City Stockholm
County Stockholms län
Country Sweden
Reference number 2-4143/2018
Contact
  • Maja Jagodic, Senior researcher, Maja.Jagodic@ki.se
  • Elin Hammergård, HR Administrator, elin.hammergård@ki.se
Union representative
  • Henry Wölling, SEKO, henry.wolling@ki.se
  • Venus Azhary, OFR, 0707-124 127
  • Arsalan Amir, SACO, 08 - 517 733 37, arsalan.amir@ki.se
Published 23.Jul.2018
Last application date 26.Aug.2018 11:59 PM CEST

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