The Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (SILS) of the Faculty of Science has a vacancy for an Assistant professor Microbial Biology (nr. 1).

The faculty has defined a Research Priority Area Systems Biology (RPA-SB) with a focus on modeling host-microbe interactions in different fields of biology. The current vacancy for an assistant professor is part of this RPA-SB. Therefore we expect you to help build the network in this RPA-SB with microbiome specialists in the microbiology groups.

You will be based in the SILS 'Molecular Biology and Microbial Food Safety' group. The central mission of this group is to understand the interaction of microbes and their environment. We focus on the molecular physiology and importance of environmental interactions as signals for growth, survival and death.

There is growing evidence that host-microbe interactions play a significant role in many organisms. In a biomedical context such interactions are crucial for a better understanding and future treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases such as IBS and Crohn’s disease as well as diseases of the upper digestive tract. Since the development of the genomic technologies molecular host-microbe interaction can be studied holistically from a mechanistic point of view.

Data interpretation of the dynamics of microbial consortia in terms of metabolome, proteome, transcriptome and genome is central for the new position. You will be active in generating descriptive and predictive models of microbial behavior to underpin our mechanistic understanding of human intestinal microbial consortia and their role in health and disease. Also you will be involved in teaching in this field.

You should:

• have a PhD and several years of post-doctoral experience in the area of systems biology and a strong affinity for quantitative microbiology;
• be able to successfully interact with bioinformatics and data analysis experts;
• have a good understanding of state of the art data-analysis and modeling packages such as R, Matlab and COBRA;
• have knowledge of Molecular Cell Biology, Microbiology and Biomedical applications;
• have a clear affinity with education demonstrated by a University Teaching Qualification (BKO) or the willingness to train to obtain one and
• be fluent in Dutch and English (SILS expects its staff to acquire sufficient fluency in the Dutch language within two years of the appointment).

Within the Faculty of Science, newly appointed Assistant professors , who do not yet have a BKO certificate, follow a didactic training trajectory, which should lead up to completion of a certificate qualifying yourself for academic teaching (basiskwalificatie onderwijs, BKO).

The vacancy is for a permanent position. According to standard university policies this implies that you will be offered a permanent contract, after an initial two year probation period during which you should show your competence in science and teaching.

Based on a full-time appointment (38 hours per week) the gross monthly salary in the first year will be between €3,637 and €4,978 (scale 11), depending on CV and experience. The Collective Labour Agreement (Cao) of the Dutch Universities is applicable.

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

Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (SILS)

The Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (SILS) is an institute that belongs to the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Its approximately 230 scientists and staff members work in 16 research groups that perform excellent research, centred on four themes:

1) Cell & Systems Biology

2) Neurosciences

3) Microbiology and

4) Green Life Sciences

http://sils.uva.nl/