The Centre for Health Informatics, Computation and Statistics (CHICAS) at the Lancaster Medical School has an opportunity for a talented machine learning researcher or computational statistician to work on an Academy of Medical Science funded two-year research project into neurodegenerative diseases. As the successful applicant, you will help develop accurate prediction models for patient outcomes in Alzheimer’s disease, motor neuron disease and Parkinson’s disease, based on a combination of clinical, molecular and neuroimaging data.

The project is a collaboration with researchers at the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN), the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB). You will work on data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), the PRO-ACT motor neurone database, and the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) study. The goal will be to use semi-supervised approaches to identify disease subtypes and predict clinical progression.

You will have regular interactions with clinical and medical science researchers to discuss ideas and validate findings. The research will lead to a better understanding of variable phenotypes underlying neurodegenerative diseases, as well as resulting in accurate machine learning methods for predicting the cognitive and physical decline in patients.

CHICAS is a vibrant and diverse research group within the Lancaster Medical School, comprising researchers into epidemiology, machine learning, statistical genomics and spatial and longitudinal statistics. The group has close ties to both the School of Mathematics and Statistics and the Lancaster Data Science Institute, both of which have a reputation for excellence in statistical and computational research.

Lancaster Medical School is at an exciting stage of its development having just been awarded its PMQ. Lancaster University is one of the top ten UK universities (The Complete University Guide 2018) and the Times University of the Year 2018.

Applications close Sunday 10 June 2018. Interviews will take place in June 2018.

Informal inquiries can be made to Dr Frank Dondelinger: f.dondelinger@lancaster.ac.uk <mailto:f.dondelinger@lancaster.ac.uk>

Applications can be submitted via the online system: https://hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=A2222-R