Sarcomas are rare cancers arising in soft tissue and bone. They are difficult to diagnose and treat, with 38-48% mortality for this often young age group. It is now generally accepted that molecular changes in cancer open avenues for personalized medicine. This is where you come on! Your program focuses on elucidating the molecular events underlying sarcoma development and progression in order to establish improved diagnosis, prognosis and treatment for patients with bone and soft tissue tumors. You will conduct your research in the newly established Leiden Center for Computational Oncology, which has chosen sarcoma as a prototype to develop computational tools (and generate a so-called “digital twin”) to implement personalized medicine approaches. Your tasks will consist of adopting existing algorithms, and developing new ones for cell type classification. Furthermore, you will develop methods for spatial cell type characterization of sarcomas. You will combine spatial omics data with imaging techniques, and you will derive quantitative biomarkers for precision medicine from this data.

In short

·         You hold a PhD in in a biomedical and/or data science area with a focus on computational approaches

·         You develop computational tools to implement personalized medicine for sarcoma patients by generating a so-called “digital twin”

·         You will be embedded in the recently established Leiden Center for Computational Oncology

You have obtained your PhD in a biomedical and/or data science area with a focus on computational approaches. You are flexible and you have great communication skills, as the project entails collaboration between many different groups. You must be fluent in English and you have good writing skills. Lastly, you are  performance driven, structured and accurate.

Fixed-term contract: 3 years.

You will be employed on the basis of 36 hours per week. Appointment is for 3 years. Your salary is based on your education and experience and is a maximum of € 4,615  gross per month for a full time position (scale 10 in the Collective Labour Agreement for University Hospitals).

LUMC

At the Leiden University Medical Center, we continuously work on improving patient care. We invest in groundbreaking, international research and work with the latest equipment. Together with our team of doctors, medical specialists, teachers, academic researchers and supporting staff, we aim for the best quality in health care, education and international research. And we need you to realize our goals!

Department of Pathology

Your work will be embedded jointly at the division of Image Processing (LKEB) (Prof. B. Lelieveldt) and the department of Pathology, for the research groups Bone and Soft Tissue Tumour Pathology and Immunogenomics Prof. J. Bovée). Prof. dr. Judith Bovée is a clinician scientist at department of Pathology, with a special focus on bone and soft tissue tumors. The LUMC has been recognized as a European reference Center for these tumors. Dr. Noel de Miranda leads the Immunogenomics group that combines immunology and genetics to both develop innovative immunotherapies and broaden the efficacy of existing ones.