Departments of Pediatrics and (Molecular) Genetics - PhD students for systems biology and experimental mouse studies

PhD students for systems biology and experimental mouse studies

Job description

- A post-doctoral fellow for GENIUS with strong affinity for bioinformatics. Tasks will be to integrate genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic datasets of individuals with very extreme lipid disorders that will be selected from both the patient databases of the Academic Medical Center (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and individuals selected from the prospective LifeLines population cohort study (www.lifelines.nl). Goal will be to identify possible causes of the extreme lipid disorders. The bioinformatic analyses will be conducted in close collaboration with the group of Prof. C. Wijmenga. Putative targets that are identified by the post-doctoral fellow and other consortium members will be studied/validated in a well-characterized substudy of LifeLines (LifeLinesDeep) and in the unique AtheroExpress biobanks (PI: Prof. Gerard Pasterkamp). Wet laboratory work will be conducted by a PhD student (already hired) in close collaboration with Assoc. Prof. J.A. Kuivenhoven. 

- A PhD student for GENIUS with strong affinity for bioinformatics and programming will dedicate him/herself to use systems biology approaches to help selecting targets for possible therapeutic intervention to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. For this purpose state of the art computational modeling developed in the Groningen Systems Biology Center will be used. This work will be conducted in the group of Profs. B. Bakker and A.K. Groen.

- A PhD student for RESOLVE will conduct dedicated experiments with ‘humanized mice’ to perturb processes that are important to the metabolic syndrome. Carefully collected data will be used to improve an existing computational model of lipid metabolism in mice. Output of this model will be validated in experimental studies in the subsequent years. A background in bioinformatics is helpful and strong affinity with working with experimental mouse studies is warranted. This work will be conducted in the team of Assoc. Prof. J.A. Kuivenhoven and Prof dr A.K. Groen.

Requirements

We are interested in recruiting self-motivated individuals with the drive to be competitive at the international level. Candidates will be strongly encouraged to develop new avenues.

The UMCG has a preventive Hepatitis B policy. It may be required to build up sufficient protection against Hepatitis B before you can be appointed. If necessary, vaccination is provided by the UMCG.

Conditions of employment

- A dynamic and international environment, with state-of-the-art technology.- Postdoc salary: depending on qualifications and work experience. - PhD salary: € 2.141,- gross per month in the first year up to a maximum of € 2.743,- gross per month in the last year (scale PhD).

- Conditions of employment comply with the Collective Labour Agreement for Medical Centers (CAO-UMC).

Organisation

Departments of Pediatrics and (Molecular) Genetics

Department

We are currently building strong research teams for two large collaborative national and international projects named GENIUS and RESOLVE (detailed below) at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), The Netherlands. 

GENIUS - Generating the best evidence-based pharmaceutical targets for atherosclerosis; CVON2011-19) - A significant part of the Dutch cardiovascular research community (14 principle investigators) has joined forces in GENIUS which is supported by the Netherlands CardioVascular Research Initiative. The consortium focusses on interactions between elevated levels of blood lipids and adverse immune responses, processes that are at the basis of atherogenesis. Target finding to realize successful pharmaceutical intervention will be performed in both human and mouse studies. At the University Medical Center in Groningen, Prof. A.K. Groen and Assoc. Prof. J.A. Kuivenhoven will drive the systems biology and target finding objectives, respectively.

RESOLVE - A systems biology approach to RESOLVE the molecular pathology of the metabolic syndrome It concerns an innovative EU-FP7 (305707-2) systems biology project with partners in Switzerland, France, Sweden, Finland and The Netherlands (www.resolve-diabetes.org). The work is coordinated by Prof. A.K. Groen of the University Medical Center Groningen while the computational modeling of the metabolic pathways that regulate plasma lipid fluxes will be performed by the group of Prof. Dr N. van Riel at the Technical University in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Additional information

Jan Albert Kuivenhoven+31(0)50-363 26 87

Bert Groen+31(0)50-363 26 69

RESOLVE

UMCG Corporate information/research

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