---- Mark Borodovsky a short intro

Position open: Scientist - Pathway Informatics (June 2009)

THE POSITION The successful candidate will join the Computational Science & Bioinformatics team and will play a major role in the processing and analysis of large scale data sets from various post genomic technologies and their applications in biomarker discovery. He/she will also have responsibility for establishing and maintaining analysis pipelines geared toward the identification of disease signature genes and pathways from experimental system response profiles. He/she will have the opportunity to apply and when necessary develop methods for systems wide analysis of gene expression patterns, their transcription factor and epigenetic control, and the role of small RNAs in regulating gene/protein products. Specifically, you will: •Establish innovative computational analysis for identification of deregulated pathways in various disease states •Provide analysis of large scale array based data (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics) to support the Computational Disease Biology team

THE PERSON •You have PhD in bioinformatics or related field •You have academic or industrial experience in bioinformatics with focus on integrated analysis of biological systems (gene/protein expression data, array CGH, ChiP-chip) •Good programming skills in Perl, C/C++,or Java , you have also solid expertise in R/Bioconductor, or Matlab •You have previous experience in Gene Regulatory Network reconstruction and pathway analysis

This International Research Training Group (IRTG) is formed by groups from Humboldt University Berlin, Free University Berlin, Boston University, Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo. It focuses on the education of doctoral students in the emerging field of genomics and systems biology of biomolecular networks.

The processes to be studied carry out fundamental processes within living cells, such as metabolic interconversions, cell division, cell differentiation and apoptosis. The basic research performed in this program is highly relevant for future medical applications, in particular with respect to cancer and other diseases resulting from a dysfunction of signaling pathways and gene-regulatory networks.

The IRTG provides the doctoral students with a wide range of interdisciplinary and topical research projects in four areas: (A) Dynamics and topology of metabolic networks, (B) Regulation of gene expression, (C) Intra- and intercellular signal transduction, and (D) Structure and function of protein families.

Candidates/jobs ratio

May & June 2009, source: naturejobs.org

BINF 252 jobs SystemsBio 21 jobs

Question #1Bioinformatics community has grown up earlier than the Systems Biology one;PhD in Bioinformatics programs has already been in place at many universities.

Now Systems Biology may become a new name for a PhD major.

Should a System Biology PhD program be separate from a Bioinformatics PhD program?

orShould a PhD in Bioinformatics extend its name to PhD in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (Comp Bio)?

Question #2Will addition of wet lab courses to Computational Biology graduate training lead to loosing the Comp Bio identity?