Three postdoc positions in statistical genomics and population genetics

We will have three postdoc positions at the universities of Padova and Torino, starting in January/March 2024. The positions are aimed at young researchers with a background in computational and/or biological sciences, to work in two projects at the crossroads between population genomics and complex trait analysis. 

Projects overview

The researchers will be working within two projects recently funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research under the PRIN program.

The first project is an inter-university collaboration involving, in addition to University of Padova and Torino, Prof. Nicola Barban at University of Bologna. The project aims to detect genetic assortative mating (GAM) for anthropometric, behavioral, cognitive and health-related complex traits in up to 600k individuals from the UK Biobank and the Estonian Biobank. 

The second project is an inter-university collaboration between University of Padova and Torino and aims to identify the most recent evolutionary innovations that define the anatomy of the modern human brain leveraging on genetic variants derived from Neandertal introgression. 

Both projects involve HPC-based  analysis of large genetic datasets such as the UK Biobank with state-of-the-art methods from population genetics and statistical genomics, including for example: identification of parental haploid genomes, local ancestry inference, genome-wide variant-association analyses, polygenic scores computation and identification of Neandertal introgressed segments.

The day-to-day activity will consist in implementing command line tools, writing custom scripts, and building reproducible and robust computational pipelines, with regular contacts between the groups involved in the project and the larger AnthroPopGen meta-lab.

What we are looking for

Post graduate researchers (previous experience as post-graduate researchers and/or a PhD degree will be considered a plus) with experience in the application of computational methods for the analysis of genetic data. The ideal candidate should be at ease within a Linux/Unix environment, be familiar with the management of common data formats in genetics (PLINK, VCF,...) and demonstrate coding skills in Python/R or other useful programming languages.

What we are offering

• Two positions at the Department of Biology, University of Padua under the supervision of Prof. Luca Pagani. Prof. Pagani has a long term experience in modern and ancient human population genetics, and in supervising a medium-sized group of postdoctoral and doctoral researchers developed at Padova and at the Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, where the he holds a research affiliation as head of the Modern Human Population Genomics unit. 

• One position at the Computational Biology Unit (Corso Massimo D’Azeglio 52, 10126, Turin, Italy), under the supervision of Dr Davide Marnetto. This is a medium-small purely computational group led by Prof Paolo Provero with decades of experience in bioinformatics and computational genomics, in addition to a great track record in mentoring young researchers towards expertise in computational biology research.

Contract duration: 2 years

Net monthly salary:  approx. 1800 €/ month after all income and local taxes

Contract type: Assegno di Ricerca

If interested please get in contact with us by email (luca.pagani@unipd.it; davide.marnetto@unito.it) enclosing a CV, by October 15th 2023!