We are offering a 3.5-year full-time (0.8 - 1.0 FTE) postdoctoral position. The Julius Center, University Medical Center Utrecht and the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research at Leiden University are looking for an enthusiastic and forward-thinking life scientist that is interested in integrating insights from cell biology, omics technologies, and systems biology into epidemiological studies of chemical exposure and adverse health effects using bioinformatics and statistical tools.

The human population is exposed to a vast number of chemical pollutants. It is estimated that of the over 140,000 approved chemicals, 5000 lead to significant exposure levels in the human population. Many of these chemicals, let along their combination, have not been adequately tested. To better understand the toxicological footprint of these exposures integrated interdisciplinary approaches are needed. Combining inference from human molecular observational studies and in vitro experiments through bioinformatics and statistical tools provides possibilities to improve chemical risk assessment.

This postdoctoral position embedded in the RISK-HUNT3R project (https://www.risk-hunt3r.eu/). RISK-HUNT3R, short for "RISK assessment of chemicals integrating HUman centric Next generation Testing strategies promoting the 3Rs", is a European Research & Innovation project funded under the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme. In this position you will work on developing, validating, and implementing integrated approaches to lead the way towards next-generation risk assessment (NGRA).

Your work will be on the interface of environmental epidemiology and in vitro and in silico mechanism-based approaches and will have the explicit ambition to integrate strategies for the assessment of chemical exposure, toxicokinetics, and toxicodynamics.

You will be supervised by Prof. R.C.H. Vermeulen, Prof B. de Water and Dr. Jelle Vlaanderen.

We are looking for an ambitious post-doctoral researcher. To excel in your role, you have:

• A PhD in (computational) biology or epidemiology, (medical) statistics, or a related discipline
• Affinity with environmental health, and/or molecular (OMICs) data
• Strong programming skills
• Experience in epidemiological or bioinformatics data analysis
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills (written and spoken)
• A strong motivation to work in a multidisciplinary international research team

Candidates with the following skills are especially encouraged to apply:

• Experience in working with R or a related programming language
• Experience in working with high-dimensional OMICs data

The maximum salary for this position (32 - 36 hours) is € 5.919,00 gross per month based on full-time employment.

In addition, we offer an annual benefit of 8.3%, holiday allowance, travel expenses and career opportunities. The terms of employment are in accordance with the Cao University Medical Centers (UMC).

This postdoctoral position will be hosted at the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care (~500 staff members), which is part of the University Medical Center Utrecht. You will be appointed at the Environmental Epidemiology and Exposome Science group, headed by Prof. Roel Vermeulen. You will collaborate closely with the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS; ~200 staff members) at Utrecht University, directed by Prof. Roel Vermeulen. The UMC Utrecht is a leading international academic medical center where knowledge on health, illness and care is generated, evaluated, shared and applied for the benefit of patients and society. The Julius Center is a leading and multidisciplinary research center with four primary research programs: cardiovascular epidemiology, cancer, infectious diseases and methodology of clinical research.

You will also collaborate closely with The Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR; ~200 staff members) at Leiden Univeristy. LACDR is one of the leading academic centres in the world in advancing innovative drug research, developing knowledge and expertise crucial for drug discovery, evaluation, and (clinical) application.