PhD fellow, postdoctoral fellow, or staff scientist in statistical genetics, bioinformatics, register-based epidemiology, or data science to work as a part of an international, collaborative research program in psychiatric genetic epidemiology

The Institute of Biological Psychiatry (IBP; www.biopsych.dk) is hiring highly motivated scientists with experience or training in data, statistical, epidemiological or computational approaches and an interest in psychiatric outcomes. The host group and institute are a diverse team of international scientists, at multiple career stages and with interdisciplinary backgrounds.

About the position The new team members will contribute to collaborative research projects in the field of psychiatric genetic epidemiology funded by a combination of NIH, EU, and Danish research grants. This research seeks to integrate unique, large-scale Danish data resources – biobanks, genetic data, family data, and register outcomes – to better model and understand the causes of psychiatric disorders and translate such data science to improved clinical care.

Potential projects and role are flexible and will be tailored to the career stage, goals, and skillset of the candidate, but will focus on psychiatric outcomes and quantitative approaches to psychiatric genetic epidemiology.

The research topics may include topics such as understanding genetic contributions to major depression, using genetic approaches to disentangling clinical subtypes, understanding the utility of data-science predictions in psychiatric care, and identifying predictors of treatment response or other long-term outcomes in diagnosed individuals.

The research approaches such as genome-wide association studies, polygenic score predictions, estimates of heritability and genetic correlations, modeling familial inheritance, multivariate statistical and machine learning approaches, survival analysis, and other epidemiological frameworks.

The research resources stem from available data on ~10,000,000 individuals from Danish National Registers (health, diagnosis, prescriptions, socio-demographics), ~80,000,000 pairs of relatives (family-based kinship from reconstructed pedigrees), ~500,000 individuals genotyped as a part of national biobanks (iPSYCH, the Danish Blood Donors Study (DBDS), Copenhagen Hospital Biobank (CHB), and others).

The research environment is dynamic and informal, with ~30 scientists from different professional, national, and academic backgrounds. It also involves close collaboration with international leaders in psychiatric genetic epidemiology from across Denmark, the Nordic countries, Europe, and the US. The institute is a professional English-speaking working environment with an informal tone and offers partial hybrid work-from-home/work-from-abroad affordances.

About the candidate The ideal candidate will be:

• Kind, curious, intrinsically motivated to pursue research, and thrive in collaborative, team settings
• Experienced in a relevant computational field, e.g., statistical genetics, quantitative genetics, bioinformatics, statistics, epidemiology, machine learning, or data science.
• Familiar with statistical programming, command line computing via linux terminals, and use of high-performance computing (HPC) systems (i.e., remote clusters).
• Experienced working with large healthcare, genetics, or -omics data, with a preference for experience with the Danish health and social registers
• An interest in understanding psychiatric disorders and improving psychiatric care
• Have completed an advanced degree (MSc, MD, or PhD), with a preference for those who have completed a PhD in a relevant field

About the Institute of Biological Psychiatry The host institution, Institute of Biological Psychiatry (IBP), is a Copenhagen University Hospital research center located just outside of Copenhagen on the campus of Mental Health Center Sct. Hans in Roskilde. IBP has established itself as a world leader in psychiatric genetics by pioneering the integration of biobank-based, large-scale genetics and Danish national health registers in psychiatry. As one of six principal groups in the iPSYCH initiative (https://ipsych.dk/), IBP has been integral in developing and studying the largest psychiatric genetics cohort in existence, with extensive genome-wide genotyping, whole exome sequencing and linkage to Danish national registers for health, diagnostic, socio-demographic, and family history data for more than 130,000 Danes.

IBP enjoys a broad and fruitful international network of collaborators, including world-leading researchers in psychiatric, neuro-, and translational genetics and genetic epidemiology. Currently, research groups are funded by the Capital Region of Denmark Hospitals in Psychiatry, the Lundbeck Foundation, the EU Horizon 2020, the U.S. National Institute of Health, the Nordic Council of Ministers NordForsk initiative, and others. The institute is a professional English-speaking working environment with an informal tone.

IBP is led by Director Prof. Thomas Werge in collaboration with the senior researchers and group leaders Drs. Alfonso Buil, Dorte Helenius, Andres Ingason, and Andrew Schork.



Terms of employment The place of work is Institute of Biological Psychiatry, Mental Health Centre Sct. Hans in Roskilde, a 20-minute train-ride west of Copenhagen. IBP is hybrid work environment, with work from home and work from abroad allowances. We offer competitive salaries in alignment with Danish costs of living that may be supplemented (PhD level) with a reduced tax rate applied to foreign researchers. The position is in accordance with best Danish labor practices, including a 37-hour work week, six weeks of paid vacation per annum, funded parental leave, matched pension contributions, enrollment in national healthcare, and labor union representation. All interested candidates irrespective of age, gender, disability, nationality, race, religion, or ethnic background are encouraged to apply.



Contact Frants Lüttichau, Senior Executive Officer, [email protected]



Time frame The deadline for applications is 5th of December 2024. Rolling interviews will be held as applications are reviewed.

The position is available at the earliest convenience.