We are seeking candidates to fill up to three 2-year positions, with possibilities of extension, to work on computational analysis of multi-omics data from the human gut microbiome. The positions are in the Microbiome Systems Biology group led by Associate Professor Manimozhiyan Arumugam. The starting date is August 1, 2019 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Background 
The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR) was established in 2010 to conduct fundamental research on metabolism. It is part of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. We are a Center of excellence where talented researchers and experienced laboratory technicians is bringing scientific discoveries from the laboratory to the society in an effort to tackle some of today’s biggest challenges – diabetes and obesity. The Center has around 200 employees from all over the world. Its employees moved into new laboratories, offices and meeting rooms in the Maersk Tower in summer 2017. You can read more about us at http://cbmr.ku.dk

The human microbiota, the collection of trillions of microbes inhabiting the human body, has a strong influence on human health and diseases. The Arumugam Group investigates the role of gut microbiota in several diseases – including type 2 diabetes, obesity, liver fibrosis, colorectal cancer and multiple sclerosis – using human cohorts and animal models. These studies involve integrated analysis of multi-omics data (including metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics, host genetics, and host transcriptomics) and clinical/metabolic phenotypes to better understand the role of gut microbiota in diseases. The group has access to a high-performance computing cluster with more than 500 CPUs to support these and other computational projects. You can read more about the group at:
https://cbmr.ku.dk/research/human-genomics-and-metagenomics-in-metabolism/arumugam-group/ and http://research.ku.dk/search/?pure=en/persons/441006

Project Description 
The advertised positions relates to two projects funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 framework – GALAXY and MICROB-PREDICT. GALAXY investigates the gut and liver axis in alcoholic liver fibrosis using host-microbial multi-omics consisting genetics, microRNAs, metabolomics, gut metagenomics (shotgun sequencing), gut metatranscriptomics, in order to identify biomarkers of fibrosis. MICROB-PREDICT investigates the gut-liver axis in late stage liver cirrhosis using host-microbial multi-omics to identify biomarkers for late cirrhosis and predict response to treatment. Successful candidates will be integrating these multi-omics data in collaboration with the work package co-leader European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-Heidelberg) and other project partners in GALAXY and MICROB-PREDICT.

More information about GALAXY can be found at www.livergalaxy.eu
More information about MICROB-PREDICT can be found at www.microb-predict.eu

Your job
The positions are 2-year postdoctoral fellowship positions in computational biology under the supervision of Associate Professor Manimozhiyan Arumugam, where the candidates will be responsible for developing novel tools to analyze microbiome and multi-omics data in the context of alcoholic liver fibrosis and late liver cirrhosis, while also incorporating and improving existing state-of-the-art tools. The candidates are expected to participate in and lead existing projects within GALAXY/MICROB-PREDICT; and are highly encouraged to initiate new cutting-edge research projects. The candidates are also expected to interact and collaborate with other medical researchers, biologists, and bioinformaticians in the Center, the GALAXY consortium and MICROB-PREDICT consortium, to enhance and ensure proper interpretation of experimental results.

Profile
In connection with the appointment to the positions, special importance will be attached to applicants having the professional and personal qualifications stated below:

• PhD in bioinformatics, or in computer science (informatics) with experience in bioinformatics research, or in biology with strong experience in software development
• academic preparation as well as experience in machine learning and statistical analysis
• rxperience in handling next-generation sequencing data
• strong programming skills in C/C++, Python or Perl
• experience in statistical computing environments such as R
• experience in high performance computing environment using any flavor of UNIX
• an excellent research record exemplified by strong publications
• strong communication skills in English, both spoken and written, are essential

The following qualifications are highly preferred, but not required. Candidates who possess any of these qualifications are encouraged to highlight them in the application:

• basic understanding of human disease biology and/or microbiology
• experience in analyzing metagenomic datasets from human gut microbiota
• experience in handling multi-omics data, including metabolomics and proteomics
• experience in distributed and cloud computing technologies
• familiarity with bioinformatics programming environments such as BioPython/BioPerl

Place of employment 
The place of employment is at Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Maersk Tower, Panum Institute, University of Copenhagen. We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in dynamic and international research environment.

Terms of employment
The three postdoc positions are full-time positions for 2 years. The starting date is August 1, 2019 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Salary, pension and terms of employment will be in accordance with the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and AC (Danish Confederation of Professional Associations). Depending on qualifications, a supplement may be negotiated.

Non-Danish and Danish applicants may be eligible for tax reductions, if they hold a PhD degree and have not lived in Denmark the last 10 years.
The positions are covered by the “Memorandum on Job Structure for Academic Staff at the Universities” of June 28, 2013

Questions
For further information, please contact Associate Professor Manimozhiyan Arumugam at arumugam@sund.ku.dk . For questions regarding the recruitment procedure, please contact SUND HR CBMR at mlr@sund.ku.dk