PhD student on the project hips don’t lie

You will study and develop innovative prediction models in the context of the World COACH consortium. Through this consortium, you will have at your disposal all prospective data on hip osteoarthritis (OA) in the world. The main technical focus is on constructing machine learning models to predict disease development and progression. Aside from the clinical importance of these models, this project offers interesting challenges and opportunities for research into techniques for causal effect estimation, missing data, and learning from multiple data sources.

Background: OA of the hip is a chronic, painful, and disabling disease of the joints and is forecasted to become the most prevalent disease in the Netherlands by the year 2040. However, due to a lack of knowledge on the etiology and risk factors for hip OA there are no curative or preventive options and current treatment is therefore limited to a 'one size fits all' approach. By using a large dataset, a prediction model could potentially identify person specific risk factors for development and progression of hip OA, thereby creating opportunities for person-specific treatment and preventive actions.

You will be embedded in the Hip Research Group, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Sports Medicine, Erasmus MC, which is internationally in the forefront of OA research. Erasmus MC stands for groundbreaking work, pushing boundaries and leading the way in research, education, and healthcare. In addition, you will be affiliated to the Pattern Recognition & Bioinformatics group, TU Delft, with a track record in artificial intelligence and machine learning. This offers you a dynamic, challenging, collaborative, and cooperative research environment. The combination of medical and technical people with a high level of expertise are there to improve and renew the healthcare of today and the public health of tomorrow. Moreover, this project is part of the Worldwide Collaborative initiative on OsteoArthritis prediCtion of the Hip (World COACH) consortium, which is a unique international collaboration bringing together all prospective data available in the world on hip osteoarthritis (>40.000 participants). This consortium gives you the possibility to collaborate with international experts as well.