Edinburgh Cancer Research

Cross-Disciplinary Fellowships (XDF) Programme

Up to 8 fellows who have acquired strong data analytical and/or computational skills from their PhD studies in physics, mathematics, computer science, engineering, or similar are to be recruited: Closing date 8 March 2018

XDF Programme

The beginning of the 21st century has seen enormous advances in science and technology. With the completion of the Human Genome Project and implementation of multiple “Big Data” approaches in biomedical sciences, there is now a pressing need to train a new generation of mathematically-minded biomedical scientists who will be able to bridge the gap between life sciences and mathematics/physics/informatics, and efficiently link modern biomedical research with the latest research technologies. In fact, the BBSRC and MRC review to identify vulnerable capabilities and skills within the UK bioscience and biomedical research base indicated that interdisciplinarity, maths, statistics and computation are among the most desired skills in today’s biomedical research.

To address this need a pioneering Cross-Disciplinary Post-Doctoral Fellowships (XDF) programme has been initiated by the MRC Institute of Genetics & Molecular Medicine and the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh with financial support from the Medical Research Council. The programme aims to fill crucial skill gaps in UK academia and industry with talented individuals possessing both “hard” data analyst skills and the “soft” skills for cross-disciplinary teamwork. The programme is seeking post-doctoral level physicists, chemists, mathematicians, statisticians, engineers, computer scientists, or similar, wishing to be trained and eventually become a leader in Quantitative Biomedicine.

The XDF-Programme is led by a Board of Directors (including Professors Chris Ponting, Jane Hillston, Guido Sanguinetti, Margaret Frame and Tim Aitman) who will provide Fellows with diverse perspectives.

Links

Visit the XDF-Programme Website

Learn more and apply