Berne to investigate the effect of range expansions on non-neutral
genomic diversity. Theoretical and simulation results suggest that
spatially expanding populations should accumulate non-neutral mutations
at a higher rate than stationary populations through the mechanism of
gene surfing. The present research project aims at verifying these
predictions in bacterias and in humans.
The first PhD student will perform and analyse the output of a series of
experiments with bacterias, measure their fitness at various stages of
their expansions and analyse the evolution of their genome by NGS. These
analyses will be done in collaboration with Prof. Martin Ackermann in
ETH Zurich. The candidate is expected to have a good background in
microbiology and a strong interest in evolution and population genomics.
The second PhD student will be involved in the analysis of full exomes
of human individuals from a region of Québec known to have been recently
colonized and where gene surfing has been evidenced (see
http://www.sciencemag.org/
be also involved in the modeling and simulation of genomic regions under
selection, and thus have a good background in population genomics or
bioinformatics, and in statistics. Programming abilities (e.g. R, C++)
will be a plus for this position.
The successful candidates will be able to further their education by
following courses organized by Swiss inter-University doctoral programs
in Population Genomics and Bioinformatics. Their salaries will follow
the Swiss NSF scale. The CMPG lab offers a very stimulating research
environment with access to a fully equipped wet lab, high performance
computation facilities and it is affiliated to the Swiss Institute of
Bioinformatics. Berne is ideally located in the middle of Switzerland
and Europe, and provides rich cultural and outdoor activities.
Please send before November 1 2012, an application letter stating your
motivation for one position, a CV, and contact information of two
references to laurent.excoffier@iee.unibe.ch
start in January 2013.
Prof. Laurent Excoffier
--
Laurent Excoffier
Computational and Molecular Population Genetics (CMPG)
Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern
6, Baltzerstrasse, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
Tel: Fax: +41 31 631 48 88
Email: laurent.excoffier@iee.unibe.ch
http://cmpg.iee.unibe.ch
Computational Population Genetics
Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB)
http://www.isb-sib.ch/groups/
