Science jobs from University College Dublin: job description
NB: this position is restricted to European Union candidates (EU status is based largely on recent residency – www.ucd.ie/registry/adminservices/fees/eu_fees.htm#2)
Are you interested in interdisciplinary research in mathematics, computing and biology?
New high-throughput technologies in biology have opened up exciting opportunities for numerate scientists to work in advanced areas of biological research. Our programme takes students from a variety of backgrounds (statistics, engineering, mathematics, computer science, biology, chemistry, physics) and gives them a structured training during their PhD, tailored to their needs. Each project is jointly run by two supervisors, one with a background in modelling or computational analysis and one with an experimental research programme. The student is integrated into the research teams of both research groups. Applications are invited from EU students for 4-year PhD positions under the graduate education programme (GREP) of the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET). Most studentships commence Oct 2009 .
Spatiotemporal code of signal specificity and systems-level modeling of pathway crosstalk
Supervisors: Boris Kholodenko UCD, Zoltan Neufeld UCD, Walter Kolch; (Systems Biology)
Cells respond to a myriad of external cues using a limited number of signaling pathways that convert multiple inputs into diverse cellular decisions. A challenge in cell signaling research is to understand how different cues and receptors give rise to unique gene expression responses despite the promiscuous routing of signals through overlapping pathways. The current modeling and experimental project will connect cell response specificity with distinct temporal and spatial activation profiles of key effector kinases, such as the mitogen-activated protein kinases, protein kinase B/AKT, and critical transcriptional regulators (immediate early genes). A closely related topic, which will be explored in this project, is how pathway crosstalk influences the spatiotemporal activation profiles of these key regulators. In fact, during the past 25 years of signaling research, individual receptors and pathways have been extensively studied, yet how signaling networks integrate multiple cues is not understood.
This project will focus on understanding signal specificity and crosstalk in receptor tyrosine kinase networks stimulated by a variety of growth factors, including epidermal growth factor, insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1, fibroblast growth factor and some other stimuli. Central to the research will be the construction and analysis of mechanistic, compartmental ordinary differential equation models for signal propagation in time and space. The PhD candidate may choose to work only on the modeling aspects of the project, or alternatively can also be involved with both modeling and experimental aspects. Modeling work will benefit from large amounts of quantitative data that will be generated specifically for modeling purposes by experimentalists working on the project.
Application procedure procedure and further detailshttp://bioinformatics.ucd.ie/PhD/apply_09.html
This studentship is funded by IRCSET (www.ircset.ie). Funds are available for a student stipend (€16,000), fees, some lab consumables ( up to €5,000 per year), and a travel budget to allow the student to get work experience abroad and industrial work experience in a company in Ireland or abroad.
Contact Details: bioinfo@ucd.ie
Closing date: 30th March 2009
University College Dublin
Website:
http://bioinformatics.ucd.ie/…
Location:
Conway Institute, UCD, Dublin
Posted:
March 16, 2009
Expires:
May 15, 2009
