Postdoctoral research fellow focused on generative modelling of synthetic cohorts in brain research - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

Description of the workplace

We study the biological processes behind Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative diseases. We work with cohorts of patients and cognitively healthy volunteers, who undergo extensive testing with brain imaging, biomarker measurements and neuropsychological testing, as well as animal and cell biology experiments. You can read more about the research here. The research group is led by Professor Oskar Hansson. The position is located at BMC in Lund.

Neurodegenerative diseases are complex and multifaceted. The overarching goal of the project is to develop advanced statistical models and deep architectures that can contribute to improved ability to diagnose, prognosticate, and stratify neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease. Specifically, the project will focus on generation and validation of synthetic multimodal datasets, which can be used to facilitate sharing of data, train predictive models, and enable new discoveries of complex relationships in high-dimensional feature spaces.

The research will be conducted under the leadership of senior lecturer Niklas Mattsson-Carlgren, Professor Oskar Hansson and associate senior lecturer Jacob Vogel.

We care about creating a positive, respectful, and stimulating environment. We value communication and collaboration and a workplace that promotes learning and development for all employees. We are also committed to building a safe and positive environment for all employees through mutual respect and tolerance.

We offer

Lund University is a governmental authority, which means you get special benefits, generous holidays and a favorable occupational pension. We also have a flexible time agreement that creates good conditions for a balance between work and leisure.

Read more on the university's website about being employed at Lund University, Work with us.

Work duties and responsibilities

As a postdoctoral researcher, your key duty is to develop computational solutions to generate high-dimensional synthetic cohorts, consisting of simulated biomarker and imaging data from patients with neurodegenerative diseases, as well as healthy older people. You will be using generative machine learning models, which may include different approaches of generative deep learning (e.g., generative adversarial networks and diffusion-based transformers). When successful, the synthesis will result in cohorts that recapitulate the original data set’s associations between multimodal features (e.g., biochemical markers, neuroimaging, cognitive testing, proteomics, and genomics), but also allow for reproducible discoveries. Additionally, the generation of synthetic data should preserve patient integrity and privacy in a way that allows for flexible and rapid sharing of the synthetic data between researchers and labs.

The analyses will particularly leverage our own large, uniquely, deeply phenotyped cohorts (the BioFINDER studies) led from Lund and Malmö, but also cohorts from other sources that we analyse in various collaborations. We expect the analyses to be computationally demanding, requiring the use of powerful computational resources to solve the tasks. Your research will primarily consist of statistical analyses, writing scientific articles, and presenting results at national and international conferences. The majority of the research is conducted in collaboration with other members of the group. Other tasks within the research group may also occur.

Eligibility

Appointment to a postdoctoral position requires that the applicant has a PhD, or an international degree deemed equivalent to a PhD, within the subject of the position. This eligibility requirement needs to be met no later than the time when the employment decision is made, and evidence that this requirement is met needs to have been sent in by this time at the latest. Candidates should have completed their PhD degree no more than three (3) years before the last date for applications. Under special circumstances, the doctoral degree can have been completed earlier. These circumstances refer to leave due to illness, parental leave, clinical work, positions of trust within trade union organizations or other similar circumstances.

Basis for assessment      

At Lund University, employment as a postdoctoral researcher provides opportunities for scientific and pedagogical merit. There is mainly room for merit in research, but also for certain higher education pedagogical training. Teaching may be included in the tasks.

For the employment as a postdoctoral research, scientific ability will primarily be taken into account.

Qualifications

Requirements:

• PhD degree in engineering, bioinformatics, statistics, computer science, mathematics, computational biology, or a related discipline. This requirement needs to be met no later than when the employment decision is made. Therefore, we also welcome applicants whose PhD degree will be completed imminently
• Advanced programming skills, e.g., in R or Python.
• Good knowledge of machine learning, generative modelling and deep learning
• Good knowledge of parallelized computing and use of computer clusters
• Good knowledge of oral and written communication in English
• Very good communication, presentation and writing skills
• Good cooperation skills, and ability to work independently
• Good analytical and initiative skills

Meritorious:

• Experience of generating synthetic data
• Experience of privacy preserving technologies 
• Experience in dementia and aging research

Terms of employment

This is a full-time employment limited to two years, with a possible extension for up to one additional year. Preliminary start date 2024-09-01 or according to agreement. The period of employment is determined in accordance with the agreement “Avtal om tidsbegränsad anställning som postdoktor” (“Agreement on fixed-term employment as a post-doctoral researcher”) between SACO-S, OFR/S and SEKO, dated November 19, 2021.

How to apply

The position is sought via the university’s recruitment system. Applications must include a personal motivation letter, in which you describe how you meet the qualification requirements and why you are interested in the position. The application must also contain a CV, contact information of two references, a diploma (including a grade transcript) and other documents you wish to be considered (e.g. letters of recommendation and list of publications).