Faculty of Science

The new Faculty of Science consists of six departments: Biology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Information and Computing Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry, and Mathematics. The Faculty is home to 3500 students and nearly 2000 staff and is internationally renowned for the quality of its research. The Faculty's academic programmes reflect developments in today's society.

The department of Biology offers a wide variety of research and education into the fundamental understanding of life: from molecular celbiology to ecosystems and evolution.

Within the department there is a vacancy for a

PhD-researcher in the Bioinformatic Analysis of Protein Interaction Networks (1.0 fte)

Job description

Genome sequencing projects have resulted in the listing of all the protein coding genes for a large number of organisms. However to fully understand the system we call the cell, simply listing the proteins is not enough: it is also imperative that we investigate the way in which all these proteins work together: the protein interaction network. As the protein interaction network in each species is the result of billions of years of (partly shared) evolutionary history, it is of great intrinsic as well as practical relevance to study its evolutionary dynamics.

This project, funded by the Utrecht academic biomedical centre, focuses on understanding the protein network as currently being discovered by hight throughput experiments. The prospective PhD student is expected to apply and develop bioinformatic tools that exploit comparative genomics and the available high throughout data to predict the protein interaction network and to study its evolution for a selection of organisms for which sufficient data is available such as the budding yeast S. cerevisiae. The aim of the study is thus twofold: firstly to increase our understanding of the functional architecture of the protein interaction network (i.e. to improve the prediction of protein networks); and secondly to explain why the protein interaction network has the properties that it seemingly has (i.e. to study its evolution in the context of its operation).

Qualifications

We are seeking applicants with a MSc, or equivalent, degree in the life, medical or computational sciences, and with interest in performing research into evolutionary dynamics of genomes and networks. Ideally a candidate should have training in bioinformatic (sequence) analysis and be able to program in a scripting language like perl or python.

Terms of employment

The full-time assignment will be for a period of four years, and should lead to a dissertation and PhD degree. Gross salary starts with € 1,956.- per month in the first year and increases to € 2,502.- in the fourth year of employment. The salary is supplemented with a holiday bonus of 8% and a year-end bonus of 3% per year. In addition we offer: a pension scheme, flexible employment conditions in which you may trade salary for vacation days or vice versa. Conditions are based on the Collective Employment Agreement of the Dutch Universities

Further details

For more information, please contact Dr. Berend Snel, e-mail: b.snel@uu.nl;
Tel: +31-(0)30 253 3004.

How to apply

Written applications, including a cover letter detailing your motivation and suitability for the position, and a curriculum vitae, should be sent before 28 September 2007 to the Personnel Department, Faculty of Sciences, P.O. Box 80010, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands or submitted by e-mail as a single PDF file to: science.peno@uu.nl. (Electronic applications are preferred). Please arrange for two referees to send references either by mail or e-mail, before the deadline. Please include the vacancy number 66708 in any correspondence.

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