PhD-Student GROW-School for Oncology and Developmental Biology - Department of Radiotherapy

PhD student to develop a Multicentric Radiomics Data Platform.

Job Specifications - (uitleg)

Solliciteer binnen 13 dagen op deze vacature

Maastricht University has a vacancy for a PhD student  at the faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences in the department of Radiation Oncology (MAASTRO). MAASTRO’s strategic goal is to tailor cancer treatments to the clinical, biological and genetic characteristics of an individual patient so that the best outcome can be achieved. An important part of MAASTRO’s strategy is the research line Radiomics where "machine learning" techniques are applied for knowledge discovery from large imaging datasets (http://www.radiomics.org). Together with partners UMC Groningen and Radboud MC Nijmegen, MAASTRO has received STW Perspectief funding to develop a Multicentric Radiomics Data Platform.

The general aim of this STW project is to develop and deploy a scalable Radiomics data platform that enables processing and analysis of large, multimodal imaging datasets of multiple cancer patients at multiple time points. This platform will be used to learn cancer outcome prediction models.

In this project, you will be member of a team which develops a platform to extract on a global scale quantitative features from medical imaging data sets (DICOM) to ultimately serve as imaging biomarkers to predict patient survival and other outcome measures.

Specifically, your research will first focus on the development and validation of the Radiomics agents which can extract Radiomics features from images and store these using Semantic Web technology. As images from patients are highly privacy sensitive, these agents need to be deployed in a distributed data infrastructure. You will then develop, deploy and validate machine learning agents which can learn predictive models from a combination of imaging (Radiomics) and non-imaging features (e.g. patient features such as age, gender, general condition and tumour features such as histology and stage). Again a distributed learning approach is required which includes mathematical approaches for privacy preserving learning.

Specific: You are a highly motivated individual with a MSc in biomedical engineering, (medical) physics, computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning or equivalent. Interest and experience with medical images, DICOM and image analysis is highly recommended as is Machine Learning expertise. You should have a strong interest in data integration, ontologies, Linked Data and Semantic Web technology. Proven software engineering skills are a plus.

Generic: You are open-minded, independent, pragmatic and result-oriented individual with a strong international orientation and are able to take initiative. You are fluent in English, both in writing and speech. We are looking for a positively minded student motivated to learn new approaches and ready to work hard to build a scientific career in the area of basic and translational oncology research. You will closely collaborate with other members of the MAASTRO Knowledge Engineering and Radiomics team.

The terms of employment of Maastricht University are set out in the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (CAO). Furthermore, local UM provisions also apply. For more information look at the website http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl > Support > UM employees.

Temporary employment for 4 years.

Your salary would be € 2.174,- gross per month in the first year up to € 2.779,- gross per month in the fourth year according to the PhD-student salary scale.

Each year an evaluation will take place.

Employment: Temporary, 4 Years

http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/

Maastricht University is renowned for its unique, innovative, problem-based learning system, which is characterized by a small-scale and student-oriented approach. Research at UM is characterized by a multidisciplinary and thematic approach, and is concentrated in research institutes and schools. Maastricht University has around 16,000 students and 4,000 employees. Reflecting the university's strong international profile, a fair amount of both students and staff are from abroad. The university hosts 6 faculties: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Faculty of Law, School of Business and Economics, Faculty of Humanities and Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience.

GROW - School for Oncology and Developmental Biology

GROW focuses on research and teaching of (epi)genetic, cellular and (micro)environmental factors and mechanisms underlying normal (embryonic and fetal) and abnormal (cancer) development, with emphasis on translational research aiming at innovative approac

MAASTRO Knowledge Engineering

The MAASTRO research division “Knowledge Engineering” is a computer science focused department embedded within a clinical environment (MAASTRO Clinic) and closely affiliated with GROW. MAASTRO KE performs research with the aim to provide decision support systems for individualized radiotherapy.  It has two research themes:

- Build global data and application IT infrastructures across radiotherapy centers

- Use these data to machine learn individual prediction models that can be used for decision support.

For more information contact: Prof.dr.ir. A.L.A.J. (Andre) Dekker, PhD, Medical Physicist, Manager Research and Education
MAASTRO Clinic
Head of Knowledge Engineering Department of Radiation Oncology (MAASTRO)
GROW School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University Medical Centre+
Full Professor “Clinical Data Science” Maastricht University

Contact details T: +31-(0)88-4455824 E: andre.dekker@maastro.nl