Cancer Research UK funded 4 year PhD studentship in Cancer Informatics

Applications are invited for two fully funded cancer informatics PhD studentships at the Edinburgh Cancer Research UK Centre (ECRC) of the University of Edinburgh starting in September 2016. The studentships will cover tuition fees for UK/EU residents, research expenses and travel, plus a generous £19,000/year stipend. The projects will be multidisciplinary benefiting from both a clinical or fundamental science supervisor as well as one that is more focused on computational biology and/or informatics.

Applications are encouraged from those combining a biological background with experience and/or an interest computing/data science or from those with a mathematical/computer science background and an interest in biology/medicine. We welcome applications from graduates from disciplines such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, statistics, physics, and informatics to a world leading biomedical research institution to work on exciting problems in computational biology.

These studentships will be awarded as part of the ECRC initiative to bridge the skills gap for cancer researchers with the knowledge and experience of the analysis of the latest high-throughput molecular, sequencing or image data. A package of career training will allow students to develop broad skills in research and data science. Successful candidates will receive substantial training tailored to individual requirements in their first year, including relevant biomedical subjects of their choice and/or required computational and modelling techniques. Students will be registered for their degree with the University of o Edinburgh and will have access to a number of specialist and advanced courses and transferable skills programmes. Further information and exemplar PhD projects, spanning bioinformatics, systems biology and statistical genetics are available here.

The Edinburgh CRUK Centre is now directly linked to the new, state of the art Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine (IGMM) Systems Medicine building, designed around our thriving community of computational biologists. The IGMM brings together over 500 research and support scientists in research programmes across the whole spectrum of basic, clinical and translational research. Edinburgh has often been voted as the city offering the highest quality of life in the UK, and is renowned for its affordability and rich cultural life.

Students should have, or expect to obtain a good Upper Second or First Class degree. Applicants should send a covering letter, stating why they are interested in the field, along with an up-to-date CV which includes contact details of two academic referees to andrew.sims@ed.ac.uk. Some previous laboratory experience and scripting in at least one programming language, Eg. Python, R or Matlab would be an advantage, but is not essential.

Informal enquiries can also be sent to Dr Andrew Sims - andrew.sims@ed.ac.uk

Deadline for applications is Friday 27th May 2016