PROJECT OUTLINE

INTEGRATIVE ANALYSIS OF GENOMICS, EPIGENOMICS AND TRANSCRIPTOMICS

The rapid evolution of analytical strategies in the last years has permitted an exhaustive analysis of biological processes providing us with different views of the origin of genetic diseases. Enormous datasets including genomics, transcriptomics and epigenomics have been regularly generated by Systems Biology approaches and new bioinformatics strategies must be developed to find relevant patterns and retrieve useful information from them. The individual approach to analyze those databases does not seem to be sufficient while integrative strategies start to be used, which provide us with a multi-perspective vision of the biological processes and diseases. At the Laprise lab in the context of the Canada Research Chair in asthma at UQAC, Chicoutimi, Québec both genomic, transcriptomics and epigenomics analysis have been run since 2000. The expertise of CODeS group, KULAK, Belgium includes integrative and combinatorial optimization approaches in, among others, bioinformatics.

The doctoral project will be developed under both GEPROMIC and CODeS groups and new bioinformatics methodologies will have to be designed and developed with aim to integrate data from the previously mentioned heterogeneous biological databases in an efficient and relevant manner.

TIME FRAME

From beginning 2013 to end of the 2016, the project on integrative genomics in asthma will be performed.

CANDIDATE REQUIREMENTS

The candidate should have a master degree in Bioinformatics, Bio-engineering, Biomedical Sciences, Engineering or Computer Sciences and demonstrate deep knowledge in programming (e.g. perl, Java), computational statistics (e.g. R) and/or machine learning. Experience with sequence data or genome-wide data sets will be assets.

The candidate should have good organizational skills, interest for interdisciplinary research, good presenting skills and be able to work independently.

LOCATION

The Ph.D. research will be conducted partially in the Katholieke University of Leuven campus Kortrijk and in the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.

CONTACT DETAILS

Please contact Dr. Catherine Laprise (catherine_laprise@uqac.ca) and Dr. Francisco Bonachela-Capdevila (Francisco.BonachelaCapdevila@kuleuven-kortrijk.be). When applying please ensure you include a CV, a covering letter and your student record.

CLOSING DATE

Closing date: 3 February 2013