One PhD Position is immediately available at the Pulmonary Gene Research group of the University Hospital Basel (Switzerland). http://www.math-jobs.com/0383.html Description The Pulmonary Gene Research is part of the Pneumology department at the University Hospital Basel. Our research is multidisciplinary involving the expertise of clinicians, molecular biologists, biostatisticians and bioinformaticians. Our work is focused on the understanding of lung diseases at the genomic level using the microarray technology. Our current collaborative projects include disease class prediction in sarcoidosis, biomarker identification in lung cancer, gene profiling of fibroblasts treated with steroids, etc. Methodological and analytical aspects of our research are of highest importance. These include statistical modelling, multivariate data analysis and "omics" data mining. We are looking for a highly motivated PhD student with a strong background in biostatistics and computational biology and preferably with an experience in microarray data analysis. The PhD student should have excellent English oral and written communication skills. The research topic of the PhD position focuses on modelling of sources of variation in microarray data. In order to remove non-biological variations from microarray data and to scale and stabilise the data variance, several normalisation procedures were proposed. Before analysing microarray experiments, pre-processing techniques are required. The choice of the normalisation method is crucial and may have a high impact on the following steps of the analysis. In addition, some systematic biases which are not related to the biological response (e.g. batch effects) must be controlled and possibly removed from the analysis. The PhD student will screen the different statistical approaches which have been developed so far in genomics and in other different fields of science (e.g. chemometrics, environmetrics). A comparative analysis of the most appropriate techniques will be performed with microarray data. The PhD student will be involved in the development of new methodological refinements and optimisation of normalisation, effects removing, sample classification and disease class prediction. This project should lead to the creation of statistical package including a set of methods for the analysis of microarray data structures. Requirements for the PhD student are a Master's diploma in biostatistics or equivalent. Applicants should have a knowledge of multivariate data analysis, and should be familiar with R, Bioconductor (optional), and other open sources software solutions. Knowledge of C++ would be advantageous. Information and application with CV and letter of motivation: PD M. Brutsche Pneumologie Universit?tsspital Petersgraben 4 CH-4031 Basel Tel. +41 61 265 51 95 e-mail: mbrutsche at uhbs.ch <mailto:mbrutsche at="" uhbs.ch="">