Researcher in therapeutic antibody development at SciLifeLab, DDD

Umeå University, Faculty of Medicine

Umeå University is one of Sweden’s largest institutions of higher education with over 37,000 students and 4,800 faculty and staff. We are characterised by world-leading research in several scientific fields and a multitude of educations ranked highly in international comparison. Umeå University is also the site of the pioneering discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors – a revolution in genetic engineering that has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

At Umeå University, everything is nearby. Our cohesive campus environment makes it easy to meet, collaborate and exchange knowledge, which promotes a dynamic and open culture where we rejoice in each other’s successes.

Are you interested in knowing more about Umeå University as a workplace read more at: Work with us.

The Faculty of Medicine, which consists of 13 departments, is responsible for biomedical research and courses in the field of nursing and health care and has an extensive research and graduate education in more than 80 subjects.

A fully funded, two-year postdoc position is immediately available in the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Umeå University. The position is open to computational scientists with an interest in microbial (meta)genomic data analysis. 

Application deadline November 24, 2022

Description of the project

Data-driven discovery of novel microbial secondary metabolites involved in host-microbe and/or microbe-microbe interactions

Work responsibilities

Microbes produce a wide array of secondary metabolites (SMs), which allow them to interact with their environment, as well as with each other. The postdoctoral project proposed here will involve developing (meta)genome mining approaches, which can be used to identify novel microbial SMs involved in microbe-host and/or microbe-microbe interactions. The tools developed here will be applied to large amounts of microbial (meta)genomic data, with the goal of identifying microbial SMs responsible for host disease phenotypes (e.g., microbiome-associated cancers) or SMs with novel antimicrobial activities.

Eligibility 

A person who has been awarded a doctorate or a foreign qualification deemed to be the equivalent of a doctorate is eligible for appointment as postdoctoral researcher. This eligibility requirement must be met no later than the time at which the appointment decision is made. 

Applicants must:

Hold a PhD, preferably in bioinformatics, computational biology, computer science, (bio)statistics, or a related field; candidates from other fields with strong programming/coding skills (see below) are also encouraged to apply.
Be proficient in UNIX shell scripting, plus another relevant language (e.g., Python, R).
Be proficient in written and spoken English.
Be comfortable working in a diverse, inclusive, interdisciplinary, and highly collaborative environment.

Additional useful qualifications 

Since appointment as a postdoctoral researcher is a career-development position for junior researchers, we are primarily interested in applicants who completed their doctoral degree no more than three years before the application deadline. If there are special reasons, an applicant who has completed their degree earlier than that may be considered. Special reasons include absence due to illness, parental leave, clinical practice, appointments of trust for a trade union organisation or other similar circumstances, and for relevant duties/assignments within the subject area.

Additionally, applicants might have previous experience:

·       Analyzing genomic data

·       Developing software

·       Computing in HPC environments

·       With JavaScript or related languages (e.g., Vega, Shiny)

·       In the biological or chemical sciences