INSIST is a collaborative project in which the Informatics Institute of the University of Amsterdam participates, funded by the European Commission, where 9 laboratories from all over Europe, one medical device company and one pharmaceutical company collaborate. The main goal of INSIST is to realize in silico clinical stroke trials for biomedical products for treatment of acute ischemic stroke. As PhD candidate, you will contribute in advancing in silico clinical trial methods in the field of acute ischemic stroke by simulating randomized controlled trials for novel acute ischemic stroke treatments. More information can be read in the Background paper on the Virtual Artery.

Within the Netherlands the University of Amsterdam, the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam participate in INSIST. As PhD candidate, you will be in the unique position to collaborate intensively with the other labs that participate within INSIST. You will have regular contacts with the Dutch partners, and will be encouraged to spent part of your time in other labs within the INSIST project, e.g. in Oxford, Moscow, Milano, or Geneva.

In close collaboration with a postdoctoral researcher, who will be recruited later in 2018, and embedded in a group of one postdoctoral researcher, three PhD candidates and one scientific programmer working on Computational Biomedicine within the Computational Science Lab, you will be working on several key aspects of in-silico clinical stroke trials. You will develop specific models in relation to brain perfusion (in collaboration with a lab in Oxford), models for thrombolysis (i.e. removing the clot using pharmaceuticals, in collaboration with labs in Geneva and Moscow), and virtual stroke populations (in collaboration with AMC and EMC in the Netherlands). You will also integrate all these models, and those developed by other labs for thrombectomy treatments, into a final in silico clinical stroke trial, and together with other partners in INSIST (most notably AMC), carry out in silico clinical trials as a proof of concept.

The main purpose of the PhD project therefore is to deliver a final integrated in silico stroke trial and provide a proof of concept. To do so you will contribute to models for thrombolysis, for brain perfusion, and for virtual stroke populations, and integrate all this into the final in silico clinical trial. This requires a broad interest, a strong capability to collaborate with other labs, a proactive attitude, a good knowledge from biomedicine (or willingness to learn this) and strong technical computational science skills.

The candidate should have:

• a Master degree in either Computational Science, Computational (bio)Physics, Computational Biomedicine, or related disciplines;
• relevant experience somewhere on the spectrum of topics as described above;
• a strong drive to acquire deep knowledge of biomedicine, if that is lacking;
•  experience in modelling and simulation, with good knowledge of modern computing environments such as Python;
• experience with, or willingness to learn required computer science technologies to integrate individual models into a final in silico clinical stroke trial.

Experience with high performance computing is preferred.

We seek a candidate able to collaborate with researchers working on other topics, thus forming a bridge between their own domain and collaborators with the larger European project. Candidates should be able to work in an international multidisciplinary team. The PhD candidate should form a bridge between several communities within the project (medicine, image analysis, modellers, experimental groups) and should therefore be capable to ‘speak their languages’. Candidates should be able to work in an international multidisciplinary team and be willing to travel to labs all over Europe.

The appointment will be on a temporary basis for a period of four years (initial appointment will be for a period of 18 months and after satisfactory evaluations it can be extended to a total duration of four years) and should lead to a dissertation (PhD thesis). Periodic evaluations will be held after nine and 14 months. An educational plan will be drafted that includes attendance of courses, summer and/or winter schools and (international) meetings. The PhD candidate is also expected to assist in teaching of undergraduates.

Based on a full-time appointment (38 hours per week) the gross monthly salary will range from €2,222 in the first year to €2,840 in the last year. The Collective Labour (cao) for Dutch universities is applicable.

Some of the things we have to offer:

• competitive pay and good benefits;
• top-50 university worldwide;
• one of the best deep learning ecosystems in the world;
• interactive, open-minded and a very international city;
• excellent computing facilities.

English is the working language in the Informatics Institute. As in Amsterdam almost everybody speaks and understands English, candidates need not to be afraid of the language barrier.

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

http://www.uva.nl/en/home

Informatics Institute

The Faculty of Science is one of Europe’s foremost institutions of higher education and research in its chosen fields of specialization. It plays an active role in international science networks and collaborates with universities and industry. The faculty has approximately 2,000 students and 1,500 staff members spread over four departments and ten research institutes. Each institute has its own research programme, a substantial part of which is externally funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Dutch government, the EU and various private enterprises. The mission of the Informatics Institute is to perform curiosity driven and use-inspired fundamental research in Computer Science. The research in the institute involves complex information systems at large, with a focus on Collaborative, Data Driven, Computational and Intelligent Systems, all with a strong interactive component.

http://ivi.uva.nl/