Postdoctorate in ecological modelling of plankton communities for monitoring ocean health (M/F)

Updated: 19 days ago
Location: Nantes, PAYS DE LA LOIRE
Job Type: FullTime
Deadline: 20 May 2024

24 Apr 2024
Job Information
Organisation/Company

CNRS - National Center for Scientific Research
Department

Nantes University
Research Field

Biological sciences » Other
Computer science » Modelling tools
Researcher Profile

Recognised Researcher (R2)
Country

France
Application Deadline

20 May 2024 - 23:59 (Europe/Paris)
Type of Contract

Temporary
Job Status

Full-time
Hours Per Week

35
Offer Starting Date

3 Jun 2024
Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

HE
Reference Number

101082304
Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?

No

Offer Description

Microbial communities inhabiting our oceans are vital to environmental and societal health. They perform key roles to sustain life on Earth, from driving essential nutrient cycles to removing vast quantities of carbon dioxide from the air, supporting ocean food webs, and ensuring sustainability of our planet's resources. Crucially, they represent a treasure trove of bioresources, which can be exploited to meet societal needs, e.g. novel medicines and enzymes. Over the past two decades, significant strides have been made to understand the taxonomic
and functional diversity underpinning the ocean microbiome by leveraging technological advances multiple 'omics technologies, sampling, and computing, combined with concerted efforts to observe microbes across the global ocean. However, further exploration of the marine microbiome is needed to address a range of pressing environmental and societal issues. In this context, the European project BlueRemediomics aims to: (1) elucidate the content, functional repertoire, distribution, and interactions between different components of the marine microbiome; (2) develop the legislative and surveillance frameworks necessary to monitor, understand and protect the marine microbiome, as well as encourage its sustainable and equitable exploitation as a bioresource for new molecules, genes, and organisms; and (3) foster ocean literacy through an improved appreciation of ocean microbes on the planet we mutually share.

The main tasks of the project will be to develop computational methods and workflows to model marine microbiome communities and facilitate in vitro culturing of microbes with specific metabolic functions across a range of scales. Resulting models will then be leverage to evaluate and produce marine microbiome genes-to-community bioindicators to monitor and survey ocean ecosystems health.
- Model communities of marine microorganisms at genome scale using co-occurrence graph inference approaches via metagenomics data from recent oceanographic campaigns (Tara Oceans, Tara Europa, Bio-GO-SHIP, and AtlantECO).
- Leverage comprehensive environmental metadata for marine catalogues and implement niche modelling to identify biotic and abiotic factors shaping community structure and function.
- Identify communities, microbes and gene modules that co-vary with specific environments/pollutants in space and time, to derive biomarkers and new metrics for assessing ocean ecosystems health.
- Validate these biomarkers and new metrics using forthcoming datasets from Tara Pacific and TREC/Tara Europa projects.


Requirements
Research Field
Biological sciences » Other
Education Level
PhD or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

The candidate should hold a PhD in (bio)informatics, computational biology, biostatistics or related fields, with skills in modelling biological systems.
- Experience with high-throughput sequencing, metagenomics or metatranscriptomic analyses of large-scale datasets.
- Experience of data analysis, statistics and visualisation, for example in Python or R.
- Experience in statistical and machine (deep) learning.
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team, and at the interface between life sciences and computer science.
- Good writing and communication skills in English are expected as well as an aptitude for team work.


Languages
ENGLISH
Level
Good

Research Field
Biological sciences » OtherComputer science » Modelling tools
Years of Research Experience
1 - 4

Additional Information
Additional comments

The candidate will work in the LS2N ComBi team in Nantes, on the UFR Sciences et Techniques site.
Recruitment as part of the European (Horizon Europe) BlueRemediomics project (https://blueremediomics.eu/ ).


Work Location(s)
Number of offers available
1
Company/Institute
Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique de Nantes
Country
France
City
Nantes
Postal Code
44322
Street
2, chemin de la Houssinière
Geofield


Where to apply
Website

https://emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/UMR6004-SAMCHA-007/Default.aspx?lang=EN

Contact
City

Nantes
Website

http://www.cnrs.fr/
Street

2, chemin de la Houssinière
Postal Code

44322
E-Mail

[email protected]

STATUS: EXPIRED