The Institute of Biological Psychiatry (IBP; www.biopsych.dk) is hiring multiple qualified individuals to join a diverse, international team of quantitative researchers using population scale biobanks, health registers, and multi-omics data in the study of psychiatric disorders. These positions could be filled by postdoctoral fellows, research scientists, and/or bioinformaticians.

Contact:

Institute coordinator Frants Lüttichau, frants.von.luettichau@regionh.dk

Time frame:

Rolling interviews with posting closing on 31 January, 2021

Institute of Biological Psychiatry

IBP is a University of Copenhagen and University of Copenhagen Hospital affiliated research institute located just outside of Copenhagen on the campus of Sct. Hans Psychiatric Hospital in Roskilde. Under the guidance of institute director Thomas Werge, IBP has established itself as a leader in Nordic psychiatric genetics research by pioneering the integration of biobanks and Danish national health registers in psychiatry. As one of six principal groups in the iPSYCH initiative (https://ipsych.dk/), IBP has been integral in building and analyzing the largest psychiatric genetics cohort in existence, with more than 130,000 genotyped and 35,000 whole exome sequenced individuals linked to comprehensive national health register diagnostic, socio-demographic, and family history data. IBP enjoys a broad and fruitful international network of collaborators, including world-leading researchers in psychiatric, neuro-, and translational genetics and genetic epidemiology. Currently, IBP receives funding from the Capital Region of Denmark Hospitals in Psychiatry, the Lundbeck Foundation, the EU Horizon 2020, the U.S. National Institute of Health, and the Nordic Council of Ministers NordForsk initiative. The institute is a professional English-speaking working environment with an informal tone. While people work on their different projects, it is a supportive and collaborative environment with flexible hours to accommodate a good work-life-balance. 

In addition to director Thomas Werge, the institute’s research program is guided by lead scientists Alfonso Buil, Andres Ingason, and Andrew Schork.
 

Job Profiles

We are looking for highly motivated and skilled researchers with a Ph.D. in the fields of statistics, genomics, bioinformatics, epidemiology, or data science to fill multiple roles in projects focused on the analysis and interpretation of large scale genetic and epidemiological data in psychiatric disorders.  The ideal candidate will be ambitious, curious, and independent, while placing a strong value in collaboration and teamwork. Candidates should be comfortable in quantitative, data-driven research environments with minimum competencies in command line computing, scripting, and fundamental concepts in the statistical analysis of data, bioinformatics, or quantitative genetics. Ideally, candidates should also have special expertise in one or more core topics:

• Analysis and quality control of large scale-genotype data
• Analysis and quality control of whole genome or whole exome sequencing data
• Analysis and quality control RNA sequencing data
• Genome-wide association studies
• Rare and copy number variant calling and analysis
• (Poly)genetic risk estimation
• Family-based quantitative genetics
• Functional genetics (i.e., eQTL)
• Longitudinal and survival data analysis
• Population or register-based epidemiology
• Risk estimation
• Bioinformatics pipeline management, development, and/or execution
• Large scale data analysis and/or machine learning
   

These skills will be brought to bear on a number of new and on-going initiatives including:

• The identification of novel genetic risk factors for psychiatric disorders, with an emphasis on pleiotropic and heterogeneous factors
• The characterization of risk factors for psychiatric and non-psychiatric comorbidity in psychiatric patients
• Identifying risk factors for and predictors of treatment response and longitudinal outcomes for psychiatric patients
• Integrating multi-omic and epidemiological risk factors for clinical predictions in psychiatry
• Construction and analysis of population scale genealogies and their integration with diagnostic and environmental data
• Calling and analysis of CNVs from multiple genomic data types
• Use of transcriptomics to study genetics and environmental associations with mental disorders
• Analysis of ancient genome sequences for the study of the evolution and population genetics of psychiatric disorders
• Calibration of risk and effect sizes estimates to populations
• Assessing the social and economic impact of psychiatric disorders and associated risk factors in the population
• Development of bioinformatics workflows for analysis of large scale genomics and register data
• Construction and quality control of large scale biobank data resources
   

Terms of employment

The place of work is Institute of Biological Psychiatry, Sct. Hans Psychiatric Hospital in Roskilde, 30 km west of Copenhagen. The initial period of employment is 2 years with the possibility of extension. We offer competitive salaries in alignment with Danish costs of living that may be supplemented (PhD level) with a reduced tax rate applied to foreign researchers. The position is in accordance with best Danish labor practices, including a 37 hour work week, six weeks of paid vacation per annum, funded parental leave, matched pension contributions, enrollment in national healthcare, and labor union representation. The institute may be able to arrange temporary accommodation at the hospital campus to ease an international transition.  All interested candidates irrespective of age, gender, disability, nationality, race, religion, or ethnic background are encouraged to apply.
 

Why Denmark?

Denmark is consistently rated among the top countries to live in, boasting an attractive work-life culture, an emphasis on family life, and notoriously high happiness scores.  Copenhagen is the hub to the nordics and a charming city, with a stylish, active, laid back attitude, and thriving restaurant scene and nightlife.  The city is large enough to support all of the amenities and culture one could desire, but small enough to cycle in an afternoon. Typically there are numerous outdoor activities and music festivals, ensuring a weekend is rarely without an event. Non-Danish speakers will find no problems and little judgement conducting their day to day lives in English. For those interested, it is possible to enroll in free government sponsored language courses on arrival.

Read more about Copenhagen: https://www.visitcopenhagen.com/

Job type
Post doc.

Workplace
Region Hovedstadens Psykiatri

Work hours
37 hours per week

Job number
228773

Application due
31-01-2021

Contact us
Frants von Lüttichau

Apply

Read the job description at the Regional homepage

Post expires on Sunday January 31st, 2021