Doctoral student in Medical Science - reproductive genetics and bioinformatics

University of Gothenburg
Sweden

Description

Duties

The PhD education in Medical Science comprises carrying out a scientific project and completing at least 30 credits of courses at third-cycle level. The doctoral student must also write a scientific compilation thesis or monograph corresponding to at least 120 credits. For more information about third-cycle studies at Sahlgrenska Academy, see www.gu.se/en/sahlgrenska-akademin/doctoral-studies

Doctoral studies comprises four years of full-time study, and leads to a doctoral degree. 

As part of your employment as a doctoral student, you may have departmental duties corresponding to up to 20 % of full-time employment, distributed throughout your study period, and result in a corresponding extension of the studies. Departmental duties usually consist of teaching at first- and second-cycle levels, but may also include research and administration.

Project title: The role of aneuploidies and fetal and maternal genetics in pregnancy loss

Project description:

Pregnancy loss is the most common pregnancy complication, affecting approximately 1 in 7 clinically recognized pregnancies. Around half of pregnancy losses involve fetal chromosomal abnormalities, particularly aneuploidies, while the causes of the other half are usualy unknown. This PhD project aims to improve our understanding of the genetic mechanisms underlying pregnancy loss by developing computational approaches that may contribute to improved molecular diagnostics.
The doctoral student will investigate the contribution of rare and common fetal genetic variants to pregnancy loss and how their effects differ between pregnancies with and without aneuploidies. The project will also develop scalable computational methods for detecting whole-chromosome and segmental aneuploidies using genotype-array and whole-genome sequencing data.

The project uses large-scale genetic datasets from pregnancy losses and population-based cohorts and will be conducted in a collaborative, international research environment at the Wallenberg Laboratory, Sahlgrenska Academy.


Qualifications

Doctoral education requires general eligibility and, where appropriate, specific eligibility as set out in the general syllabus for the subject.

The general eligibility requirements for doctoral studies are:

having completed a degree at second-cycle level, or
the fulfilment of course requirements totalling at least 240 credits, of which at least 60 credits must be at second-cycle level, or
the acquisition of equivalent knowledge in some other way, either in Sweden or abroad.

Specific entry requirements for this subject, according to the general syllabus, are:
having completed the English B/6 course or is considered to have acquired equivalent knowledge through previous studies

Meritorious experience includes:
– working in R/Python and UNIX environments
– statistical modelling in genetics or epidemiology;
– analysis of copy-number variants or aneuploidies;
– population genetics, GWAS or gene–environment interaction studies;
– large-scale data analysis or bioinformatics;
– pregnancy biology or statistics; and
– reproducible research using tools such as Git, Snakemake and conda.

Scientific writing experience, particularly demonstrated through authorship of scientific manuscripts, is also highly valued. The project requires close collaboration within and across research groups while providing substantial opportunities to develop and pursue independent research ideas.


Start date

As soon as possible

How to Apply

Apply via the following link:
web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/1035/job?site=7&lang=UK&validator=9b89bead79bb7258ad55c8d75228e5b7&job_id=41598


Contact

Pol Solé-Navais
pol.sole.navais@gu.se