PhD position in Metabarcoding

I just got this announcement for an opening (PhD position) at the University of Duisburg-Essen. So, if you are a student considering doing your PhD and are interested in Metabarcoding, this is a great opportunity as these guys are doing some pretty cool things:

We are one of the youngest universities in Germany and think in terms of possibilities, not limitations. In the heart of the Ruhrregion, we develop ideas of the future at our 11 faculties. We are strong in research and teaching, live diversity, support potential and are highly committed to an educational equality that has earned this name.

The University of Duisburg-Essen (Campus Essen) Centre for Water and Environmental Research (ZWU) Aquatic Ecosystem Research Group (AG Leese) offers

1 PhD position, Doktorandenstelle (f/m)

(Part-time 55%; salary equivalent TV-L 13)

in Genetic Monitoring / Metabarcoding

(BMBF German Barcode of Life 2 subproject)

The group of Prof. Florian Leese is interested in developing new molecular approaches to assess the

ecological status of aquatic ecosystems. Specifically, we develop and apply DNA metabarcoding to

monitor changes in stream communities under environmental stressors. Furthermore, we utilize genomewide markers and perform transcriptional profiling to understand population and organismal responses to multiple stressors. As part of a recently granted subproject within the large collaborative German Barcode of Life Project (GBOL2, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF), we want to bring DNA metabarcoding of freshwater invertebrates to the application stage. In cooperation with our collaborators at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig (Bonn, Germany), the candidate will conduct collect samples, perform experiments, generate and analyse next-generation sequencing data on whole communities (amplicon sequencing). Further reading: Elbrecht & Leese, PLoS ONE 2015; Macher et al., Ecological Indicators, 2016. 

The successful candidate (f/m) will hold a Master in Biology, Chemistry or Bioinformatics and has good experience in molecular lab work. Furthermore, he/she has experience and strong interest in a

programming or scripting language (e.g. R, C, Python). Candidates will benefit from the international and interdisciplinary research environment at the research group, the GBOL2 project and the ZWU. Excellent high-throughput genomics and bioinformatics equipment are available in the newly equipped labs.

The position will start as soon as possible initially for 2,5 years.

Deadline: 29. February 2016

Please send applications as a single pdf file with reference code 42-16 to miriam.schmidt@uni-due.de. For questions please contact florian.leese@uni-due.de.

The University Duisburg-Essen aims at promoting the diversity of its members. Applications from disabled or equivalents according to § 2 Abs. 3 SGB IX are encouraged. The University Duisburg-Essen has been awarded for its effort to promote gender equality with the "Total-EQuality-Award". It aims at increasing the share of women in the scientific personnel and therefore explicitly encourages women to apply. Women will be preferentially considered when equally qualified according to the state equality law.