Ph.D. student in Medical Radiation Physics with a focus on MR-Physics - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

The department of Medical Radiation Physics is engaged in research and education in ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, and its use mainly in medical applications. The major areas are magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), radiation therapy, X-ray physics, and nuclear medicine.

The MR physics research group (https://www.msf.lu.se/research/mr-physics-group), situated in the expanding Öresund region in southern Sweden, is active in the field of medical magnetic resonance, and has its primary focus on development of new techniques for assessment of functional information related to perfusion, diffusion, cortical activation/fMRI, flow, CEST as well as quantitative MRI in the brain and in the musculoskeletal system.

Description
Diffusion MRI (dMRI) measures microscopic properties in the tissue by studying random motion of water molecules. In dense tissue, diffusion is slow, while it appears to be faster in looser tissue. dMRI can therefore detect cancers that cause the tissue to be abnormally dense. Unfortunately, current dMRI methods have a poor clinical performance. This shortcoming can be remedied by performing a wider range of diffusion encoding, and thereby learning more about the tissue microstructure. For example, we aim to distinguish properties like cell density, cell shape, cell size, blood volume, and cell membrane permeability. Once estimated, these parameters can serve as biomarkers to improve the diagnostics and monitoring of disease.

Job Assignment
The main assignment is to work within the MR physics group on the development of prostate cancer diagnostics and radiotherapy monitoring in both the clinical and pre-clinical environment. We will strive to map tissue microstructure and link it to clinically relevant biomarkers. Moreover, we continuously work on improving our technical approach, meaning that the work can include image reconstruction, machine learning and programming of the actual MRI system. The research group has a large international collaborative network, which means that travel for planning and execution of various future collaborative projects will be encouraged.

Eligibility
Students with basic eligibility for third-cycle studies are those who- have completed a second-cycle degree- have completed courses of at least 240 credits, of which at least 60 credits are from second-cycle courses, or- have acquired largely equivalent knowledge in some other way, in Sweden or abroad.

The employment of doctoral students is regulated in the Swedish Code of Statues 1998: 80. Only those who are or have been admitted to PhD-studies may be appointed to doctoral studentships. When an appointment to a doctoral studentship is made, the ability of the student to benefit from PhD-studies shall primarily be taken into account. In addition to devoting themselves to their studies, those appointed to doctoral studentships may be required to work with educational tasks, research and administration, in accordance with specific regulations in the ordinance.

Additionally, to be accepted for third-cycle studies in Medical Radiation Physics the applicant must have a MSc degree in Medical Physics (or an equivalent foreign degree), or completed an alternative university education to achieve basic eligibility equivalent to 240 credits, of which courses of at least 60 credits are directly relevant for the doctoral studies announced here, and has completed a research project thesis (MSc thesis, or equivalent) corresponding to at least 30 credits.

Other requirements:

• Ability to communicate well in spoken and written English, to a standard that allows writing of scientific publications
• The holder of this position must have the ability and willingness to teach, as part of the departmental assignments.

Evaluation criteria: 

• Good knowledge of MR physics
• Completed degree project aimed at diffusion MRI or similar
• Previous experience of research in the field of diffusion MRI
• Documented good knowledge of various programming languages
• Ability to cooperate with colleagues

Application
The application is to be made online. An incomplete application will not be processed.

The application must contain: 

1. CV
2. A copy of the 30 credit master's degree project thesis (or equivalent)
3. Copies of certificates and documents that the applicant wishes to claim.

Type of employment
Limit of tenure is four years according to HF 5 kap 7§.