Research assistant (database and web programmer)

The post is funded by a EU POC-A1-A1.1.4-E- 2015 Competitiveness Operational Programme 2014-2020 award, for the development of a „Multi-omics prediction system for prioritization of gerontological interventions” (GERONTOMICS). The duration of the post is one year, extendable up to the end of the project (almost three years), based on satisfactory performance. The selected candidate will work full-time in the project.

GERONTOMICS aims to use a systems biology approach to combine data from different “omics” levels (e.g.: genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic, etc) and from various models of ageing in order to create a large-scale data-driven analysis and prediction platform for experimental interventions in gerontology. The project will involve both computational aspects (data aggregation and processing, multidimensional data analysis, network-based methods, systems theory approaches, etc) as well as wet-lab experiments (some of the predicted interventions will be tested in vivo), with a highly multi-disciplinary team.

Candidates should be highly motivated with a BSc in Computer Science (or a similar/equivalent academic degree) with excellent command of the English language.

The research assistant will be involved in the development of databases and web interfaces (with a stronger focus on backend technologies), required by the project, as well as web-tools for the group’s research and management. The research assistant will also support the group in automatic data gathering, data aggregation and developing code for some stages of data processing.

As a database and web programmer the candidate’s responsibility will be to:

• collaborate with the rest of the team to identify system requirements,
• design, configure and manage data portals (e.g. CKAN) and database structures,
• implement scripts and programs (writing clean and testable code) for querying databases, data management and visualization, communication with pipelines for large-scale data integration, etc
• create technical documentation and presentations for the team

While not the main focus of the post, being in an interdisciplinary team will also offer the successful candidate the opportunity to train in other fields than his/her own (e.g. gerontology, theoretical and experimental biology, bioinformatics, computer science, statistics and systems biology).

The post  will require the succesful candidate to be able to present his/her work to the rest of the group and occasionally might also require him/her to attend and present at national and international meetings. Depending on the existing skill set and the candidate’s career goals, attendance to various training courses could also be available.