Postdoc/Assistant Professor in scientific database programming

Postdoc/Assistant Professor in scientific database programming

Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology
Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences
University of Copenhagen

We are looking for a highly motivated and ambitious bioinformatician or software/database developer for a 4-year position with a flexible start.

Our research
The Gloriam group (www.gloriamgroup.org) conducts computational drug design, tightly integrated with chemistry and pharmacology, and structure-function studies of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) – one of the largest drug target families. The group also heads the GPCR field’s main database and web server, GPCRdb (www.GPCRdb.org) serving 3,200 monthly users. The group currently has 16 members, whereof 9 from abroad of Denmark and an equal representation of PhD students and postdoc/assistant professors. The group provides a strong and ambitious research environment and has recently published in e.g. Nature, Cell, Nature Reviews in Drug Discovery, Nature Chemistry and Nucleic Acids Research.

Your job
Your job will be to create online open access research resources for reference research data, data visualisation and analysis and data-driven tools to design new experiments. This will be achieved in tight collaboration with a strong local team of fellow developers and interdisciplinary scientists, as well as experts and users from the international research community.

The position is part of an interdisciplinary project funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation Ascending Investigator (10M DKK, 5-year). This aims to lay the ground for safer drugs with fewer side effects by exploiting a new drug discovery paradigm, GPCR cellular pathway-“biased signalling”. You will create an online hub for a consolidated global “open science” effort to make a knowledge base for GPCR pathways in function and disease and molecular mechanistic maps of hotspots for bias drug/probe design.

Carrier development within research and education is part of the position. The candidate is expected to take part in activities relating to educational programmes at the department, such as teaching, course development, and examination, to support the development of a relevant teaching portfolio of the candidate (10% of the time). The candidate is offered adjunct pedagogical training.

Profile
We are looking for a highly motivated and ambitious bioinformatician or software/database developer with experience with biological driven question – preferably with experience in web programming.

Essential experience and skills:

• A PhD relevant to web database development
• Proficient communication skills and ability to work in teams
• Excellent English skills written and spoken
• Excellent programming skills, preferably in Python (especially Django)
• Understanding of protein biology and pharmacological data
• Experience in big dataset analysis and parsing
• Demonstrated ability to learn new methods and biological subjects
• Demonstrated strong career progression and high ambition

Desirable experience and skills:

• Web-programming (CSS/JavaScript)
  Knowledge of G protein-coupled receptors and pharmacological ligands
• Experience in project management (own and others)
• Experience in lead development
• Experience in using D3.js / jquery javascript packages
• Strong publication list
• Code versioning with Github
• Database frameworks (not required, as everything is handled through python/django interface)

Place of employment
The place of employment is at Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen (www.drug.ku.dk). We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in dynamic and international research environment. Our research facilities include modern laboratories and computational facilities.

Terms of employment
The employment as postdoc/assistant professor is a full time and fixed-term position for 4 years. Starting date is after agreement.

Salary, pension and terms of employment will be in accordance with the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and AC (Danish Confederation of Professional Associations). Currently, the monthly salary starts at 33,600 DKK/ approx. 4,480 Euro (April 2018-level). Depending on qualifications, a supplement may be negotiated. The employer will pay an additional 17.1 % to your pension fund.

Non-Danish and Danish applicants may be eligible for tax reductions, if they hold a PhD degree and have not lived in Denmark the last 10 years.

The position is covered by the “Memorandum on Job Structure for Academic Staff at the Universities” of June 28, 2013.

Questions
For further information please contact David E. Gloriam via david.gloriam@sund.ku.dk.  

Foreign applicants may find this link useful: www.ism.ku.dk (International Staff Mobility).

Application procedure
Your online application must be submitted in English by clicking ‘Apply now’ below. Furthermore, your application must include the following documents/attachments – all in PDF format:

1. Letter of motivation for application
2. CV incl. education, work/research experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position.
3. A certified/signed copy of a) PhD certificate and b) Master of Science certificate. If the PhD is not completed, a written statement from the supervisor will do.
4. List of publications, including a separate section or marking of up to 5 most important selected articles.

Application deadline: 30 August 2019, 23.59pm CET

We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.

The further process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor. Once the assessment work has been completed each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.

You can read about the recruitment process at http://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/.  

The applicant will be assessed according to the Ministerial Order no. 242 of 13 March 2012 on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.

Interviews are expected to be held within a month after the application deadline.

University of Copenhagen wish to reflect the diversity of society and welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of age, disability, gender, nationality, race, religion or sexual orientation. Appointment will be based on merit alone.

Part of the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU), and among Europe’s top-ranking universities, the University of Copenhagen promotes research and teaching of the highest international standard. Rich in tradition and modern in outlook, the University gives students and staff the opportunity to cultivate their talent in an ambitious and informal environment. An effective organisation – with good working conditions and a collaborative work culture – creates the ideal framework for a successful academic career