Joining us

We always welcome applications from enthusiastic and talented individuals who are keen to join our computional biology group.

Our key goal is to discover new mechanisms of transcriptome regulation. For this, we analyse exciting biological systems using the most appropriate computational methods and algorithms. To this end, we generate novel data sets in conjunction with our experimental collaborators and devise dedicated computational methods and algorithms ourselves. We have a particular focus on employing probabilistic computational machine learning methods and algorithms that can be trained and employed in a mathematically rigorous way. In this way, we can extract valuable information from our data and faciliate experimental follow-ups as we can rank our predictions.

We use:

• a combination of C++, Python and R for computational method development and data analyses
• Linux as OS on all of our machines, including our own high-performance compute cluster
• large-scale omics data sets, in particular RNA-seq data from transcriptome-wide studies
• new algorithms and dedicated theoretical frameworks to best analyse our data (typically, probabilistic machine learning methods)

Our scientific mission is to:

• discover new biological classes of trans RNA-RNA interactions
• investigate their functional roles, in particular during infection in a host-pathogen settings
• identify targets for therapeutic applications that prevent or enable particular trans RNA-RNA interactions

Our group is an inter-disciplinary team with frequent interactions with our experimental collaborators.

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Joining us as an undergraduate or intern

Undergraduates in Berlin often join us as MSc students, typically after attending our teaching module at the FU which I tend to teach each spring. This module gives an intense introduction to the algorithms, concepts and ongoing research in our area of research. We also welcome applications from students elsewhere, ideally with a dual background in one of the biological sciences as well as a quantitative science (mathematics, computer science, physics, statistics, etc).

If you are keen to join us, please email me key information on yourself including:

• briefly, why you are keen to join us (email text is fine)
• for how long you intend to join us
• for which purpose you intend to join us and for how long (BSc thesis, MSc thesis, ERASMUS, Hiwi)
• your full university transcripts
• your CV including any completed research projects and details on your programming skills

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Joining us as a PhD student

I typically recruit new PhD students via the following two graduate programs:

• the MDC graduate programs which recruits twice annually (please check the web-page for details)
• the HEIBRiDS data science program (please check the web-page for details)

If you intend to apply to one of these graduate programs, I strongly suggest you contact me well ahead of the application deadline in case you are keen to join us in the next recruitment round. For this, please email me key information on yourself including:

• briefly, why you are keen to join us (email text is fine)
• to which graduate program you intend to apply when
• your full university transcripts
• your CV including any completed research projects, the contact details of two or three reviewers, the title and abstract of your BSc and MSc theses and details on your programming skills

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Joining us as a post-doc

If you intend to join us as a post-doc, please be in touch via email including information on:

• why you are keen to join us and which research question you would like to tackle (email text is fine)
• your ideas for securing independent funding
• your full university transcripts
• your CV including research projects, publications, the contact details of two or three reviewers, the title and abstract of your PhD thesis and details on your programming skills

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Joining us as a visiting scientist or potential collaborator

We are always keen to hear from scientists (both experimental and computational) who are keen to collaborate with us or who wish to spend some time at the BIMSB as guest researcher. We are open to ideas of collaborations, joint grants etc etc. Please simply be in touch by email or phone.

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