Adam Mickiewicz University - Faculty of Biology

Poznan, Poland

Ancient DNA analyses in the studies of the Roman Iron and Middle Ages history of Central Europe

Faculty of Biology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan announces a call for the Post-doc position in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, in the interdisciplinary project entitled “Dynasty and population of the Piast state in view of the integrated historical, anthropological and genomic studies", funded by the National Science Centre (SYMPHONY 2). Principal investigator: Prof. Marek Figlerowicz, principal investigator of anthropological-genetic team: Prof. Janusz Piontek.

Detailed information can be found at: http://ncn.gov.pl/finansowanie-nauki/przyklady-projektow/figlerowicz.

Applicants for the position should meet the following qualification criteria:

• PhD degree in Life Sciences, Bioinformatics, Computational Science, Biology or equivalent;
• Experience in next-generation sequence data (NGS) analyses;
• Experience in bioinformatics programming (e.g. scripting in Python) and statistics for bioinformatics (e.g. programming in R Environment);
• Knowledge of bioinformatics methods for population analysis using NGS data;
• Basic understanding of molecular biology and population genetics;
• Research skills proven by publication record;
• Good knowledge in spoken and written English;
• Experience in analyzing aDNA sequences will be an advantage.

Description of tasks:

Analyzing the NGS data in regard to:

• Authenticating DNA data with the use of statistical methods e.g. PMDtools or mapDamage;
• Identifying nuclear SNPs datasets and performing statistical comparative studies using e.g. principal components analysis (population structure), admixture tests etc.;
• Sex determination by estimating the ratio of alignments to the X and Y chromosomes;
• Establishing relationships between individuals based on the results obtained from NGS data.

Conditions of Employment:

The position is available immediately and fixed-term for up to 57 months, in the period from March 2015 to December 2019. A fixed salary of 5000 PLN/month is offered on the basis of an employment contract.

Additional Information:

Required documents (PDF format, in Polish or English):

• CV taking into account scientific achievements and awards arising from academic research;
• Cover letter;
• Copy of the diploma degree in science or a relevant certificate;
• Contacts to two potential referees, including PhD supervisor.

The applications should be sent to prof. Janusz Piontek (piontek@amu.edu.pl) and dr Anna Juras (anna.juras@amu.edu.pl) no later than February 23, 2015.