Two postdoc positions in comparative evolutionary genomics at the University of Lausanne
24.6.2019The
Groups of Profs Christophe Dessimoz and Robert Waterhouse are seeking
candidates for two 3-year Postdoctoral positions at the Departments of
Computational Biology
and Ecology & Evolution, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, funded
by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
Working at the interface between biology and computer science, the Dessimoz Lab, https://lab.dessimoz.org/, seeks to better understand evolutionary and
functional relationships
between genes, genomes, and species.
The Waterhouse Group, https://rmwaterhouse.org/lab, is focused on elucidating interactions between
gene evolution and gene function through computational interrogation of arthropod genomics data.
Both Groups are members of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, https://www.sib.swiss/
The two Postdocs will lead the evolutionary genomics contributions to a
groundbreaking interdisciplinary project in collaboration with the Group
of Prof. Bruno Lemaitre, https://lemaitrelab.epfl.ch/
, at the neighbouring École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
The overall project aims to develop the computational tools required to
fully exploit new genomics data in a framework that also takes advantage
of the latest molecular biology tools to achieve combined evolutionary
and functional characterisation of the Drosophila
immune system. The two Postdocs will work closely together on the
project developing and applying
comparative genomics and evolutionary modelling approaches to fully
exploit new genomics data, with a biological focus on the insect innate
immune system.
The evolutionary genomics part of the project will focus on
(1) extending our current knowledge of immune effectors beyond the canonical repertoires of genes encoding for known antimicrobial peptides, and
(2) exploiting the rich genomics datasets across Drosophila species to trace the evolutionary histories of immune genes.
We seek candidates with demonstrated programming skills in the areas of
bioinformatics, computational biology, and comparative genomics.
Further
desirable attributes include knowledge of and interest in orthology
delineation, gene family evolution, phylogenetics, gene birth/death,
genome-wide synteny, selection
and constraint, gene prediction, genome annotation, immunity, infection,
insects.
Applications can only be made through the University of Lausanne online recruitment platform
, where the full job descriptions will be posted shortly. To ensure full consideration, applications should be received by 30 June 2019.
Note that the SNSF defines the position of ‘Postdoc’ as no more than
five years since obtaining a doctorate (i.e. since the doctoral thesis
defence).
Informal enquiries can in the meantime be made by writing to:
Prof. Christophe Dessimoz, Christophe.Dessimoz@unil.ch
Prof. Robert Waterhouse, Robert.Waterhouse@unil.ch