Research context This job opening has been created in the context of an FWO research grant entitled: “Complementary use of ribosome profiling and positional proteomics for mapping the translation initiation and nascent protein modification landscape in human cell lines”. The PhD student will be working in a multi-disciplinary environment within a collaboration of three different research groups: the Proteomics and CompOmics groups of the VIB Department of Medical Protein Research, and the BioBix-Lab of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics. Job description High-throughput applications such as next-generation sequencing are frequently applied in modern biological and medical research. Recent technology advancements enable protein translation measurement on the RNA level by massive sequencing of ribosome-captured messenger RNA footprints. This work will focus on the intersection between the state-of-the-art fields of high-throughput RNA sequencing and high-throughput positional proteomics analysis. Specific tasks include preprocessing, statistical validation and genome-wide visualization of sequencing and proteomics data, and development of a toolbox integrating experimental sequencing data and search space optimization for mass spectrometry based proteomics research. A start date of 1 March 2013 is proposed but this is flexible depending on the availability of the successful candidate. Profile The successful candidate will have obtained or will obtain a Master’s degree in a relevant field (life sciences, informatics, statistics, biology, (bio-) engineering) and will have a keen interest/knowledge in bioinformatics and data processing. Experience in computational genomics or proteomics is considered an advantage. Experience with programming languages (notably Perl, Java, C++) and/or relational database systems (e.g., MySQL, SQLite) is also considered an advantage. Contact Please submit a cover letter, a full c.v., and a list of at least two contact persons (with name, email, address, phone number) for letters of reference to petra.vandamme@vib-ugent.be, or: Prof. Dr. Petra Van Damme, VIB Department of Medical Protein Research , A. Baertsoenkaai 3, B-9000 Gent, BELGIUM. Links http://www.vib.be/en/research/scientists/Pages/kris-gevaert-Lab.aspx http://www.biobix.be http://www.compomics.com