PhD position (Ageing & Disease; Computational Biology): curAIvasc – AI-based analysis of vascular imaging for optimized multidimensional information assessment (m/f/d)

Thinking of doing your PhD in the Life Sciences? The International PhD Programme (IPP) on Gene Regulation, Epigenetics & Genome Stability is offering talented students the chance to work at the cutting edge of research. As an IPP PhD student, you will join a community of exceptional scientists working on diverse topics ranging from how organisms age or how our DNA is repaired, to how epigenetics regulates cellular identity or neural memory.

Activities and responsibilities:
In the fields of “Ageing & Disease” and “Computational Biology”, the research group of Philipp Wild and Jürgen Prochaska offers the following PhD position in the curATime clusters4future initiative:

Current methods of highly standardized subclinical phenotyping enable high-resolution characterization of people with atherothrombosis or the risk of developing atherothrombosis. However, despite all the advances in recent years, only a fraction (about 15%) of the potential of biodata is currently being used in clinical and research applications. One of the reasons for this is that the available information from multidimensional image data for the characterization of the arterial vascular system, which is centrally involved in the development of atherothrombosis, is currently not sufficiently used.

New developments in the field of artificial intelligence and deep learning open up the possibility of exploiting the previously untapped potential of clinically relevant information from different modalities of vascular imaging for in-depth clinical phenotyping. The AI-assisted characterization of vascular structure and function is an innovative approach to improve the precision of traditional measurements, both in terms of time efficiency and quality. A comprehensive approach that uses all information contained in vascular images represents a promising tool to transform the use of vascular image information across different imaging modalities.

PhD project: “curAIvasc”
This project is part of “CurATime – Cluster for Atherothrombosis and Individualized Medicine” (www.curatime.org), a research cluster recently announced to be funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for €15 million for the first 3-year funding period. The goal of the curAIvasc-project is to develop innovative technologies and AI pipelines for the analysis of multi-dimensional biodata on vascular function and structure and to transfer them to patient-oriented research on atherothrombosis. As part of this project your tasks would be:
• In close collaboration with DFKI you will be implementing and using a multidimensional/multimodal deep learning (DL) pipeline for image-based prediction of individual disease progression and personalized risk assessment.
• Evaluating the created pipeline based on the harmonized analysis concept in the biodatabases. For this purpose, state-of-the-art methods of biostatistical analysis will be used, evaluating the quality and medical relevance of the newly developed pipeline.
• Application of the established AI pipeline for biomedical interpretation, which includes the integration of the information from the DL pipeline into high dimensional multi-omics data (e.g. proteomics, genetics).

The candidate will be integrated in a friendly, professional and highly multidisciplinary team, comprising clinicians, epidemiologists, bioinformaticians, biostatisticians, as well as biologists and biochemists. Specific competences and supervisors are present to support the PhD candidate. Within the curAIvasc project, the candidate will additionally interact with experts in the fields of artificial intelligence (DFKI, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), experimental research (Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis Mainz) and biotechnology (TRON/BioNTech).

If you are interested in this project, please select Wild (curAIvasc) as your group preference in the IPP application platform.

What we offer:
• Exciting, interdisciplinary projects in a fully international environment, with English as our working language
• Advanced training in scientific techniques and professional skills
• Access to our state-of-the-art Core Facilities and their technical expertise
• Fully funded positions with financing until the completion of your thesis
• A lively community of more than 190 PhD students from 44 different countries

Requirements:
Are you an ambitious, young scientist looking to push the boundaries of science while interacting with colleagues from multiple disciplines and cultures? Then the IPP is your opportunity to give your scientific career a flying start!
All you need is:
• Master or equivalent
• Interactive personality & good command of English
• 2 letters of reference

For more details on the projects offered and how to apply via our online form, please visit https://www.imb.de/phd

The deadline for applications is 19 November 2022. Interviews will take place on-site in Mainz 16-18 January 2023.
Starting date: 1 March 2023 – 1 July 2023