PhD Position available in Manchester. Please circulate to any
potential interested parties.
Sean
http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/phd/funding/projectstudentships/
06-25-19-semantic/
Application of semantic web technology for the automated integration
of scientific data in the drug discovery process.
Close date: 30.August.2010
Anticipated start date: 24.September.2010
About the project
The School of Computer Science invites applications from suitably
qualified students for a fully-funded Industrial CASE studentship.
This 3.5 year PhD studentship is sponsored jointly by EPSRC and
Pfizer, and will be supervised by Prof. Carole. A. Goble and Dr
Robert Stevens (University of Manchester) and Dr. Lee Harland (Pfizer).
There are numerous public and proprietary sources of information
relating to compounds, targets, genes, pathways and diseases.
However, the challenge now is how all this information can be
harnessed by the pharmaceutical industry to discover the next
generation of medicines for treating illnesses such as Alzheimer's
disease and cancer.
This studentship will investigate the realistic application of
semantic web technologies for automating the integration of
scientific data for use in the drug discovery process. The work will
address challenges in combining drug discovery pipelines with
ontological models that capture domain-specific relationships between
heterogeneous data in the chemical and life sciences. The aim is to
integrate large amounts of real-world public and proprietary
information in the pharmaceutical industry to create linked data
networks for answering scientific questions relating to diseases that
are posed by scientists during the development of drug compounds. The
results will be expected to be incorporated into the suite of tools
for bioinformatics that have been developed at Manchester.
The successful student will work in close collaboration with Pfizer
and have the opportunity to work at their research facility in
Sandwich, Kent. The student will benefit from the world-class
research in semantic web technologies, scientific workflows and
bioinformatics at the University of Manchester.
Qualifications
You should have, or expect to achieve, a first or upper second class
Honours degree in computer science. Alternatively you may have an
Honours degree in a chemical or biological science, and a Master's
degree in bioinformatics, cheminformatics or computing. In addition,
candidates should have a working knowledge of the Java programming
language, whilst experience of semantic web technologies such as RDF
will be an advantage.
Amount of funding available
Students must be a UK national to meet the requirements for an EPSRC
award which will cover university fees and provide an annual tax-free
maintenance stipend of £15,000. Details about EPSRC's eligibility
requirements are available at www.epsrc.ac.uk
How to Apply
Applications with an up-to-date CV and covering letter including a
summary as to why you wish to apply for this particular studentship
and how your interests and experience relate to the project should be
sent by email to Carole Goble:
E-mail: [email protected]
Contact for further information
Informal enquires may be addressed to Dr. Peter Li:
E-mail: [email protected]
Note: Interested applicants are encouraged to apply immediately as
the position may be filled before the closing date.
--
Sean Bechhofer
School of Computer Science
University of Manchester
[email protected]
http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/bechhofer
