UK : Two 3-Year EPSRC Funded DPhil Studentships Translating Biophysical Modelling to the Heart of the Clinic

University of Oxford - Oxford University Computing Laboratory

Translating Biophysical Modelling to the Heart of the Clinic is a recently announced "Grand Challenge" project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The goal of this project is to integrate medical imaging and integrative multi-scale computational models of the heart within clinical environments to improve diagnosis, treatment planning and cardiovascular interventions. The project team is multi-institutional and cross-disciplinary, including leading clinical and academic partners within the United Kingdom.

Applications are invited for two 3-year DPhil studentships funded by the project within the Computational Biology Group in the University of Oxford Computing Laboratory. The studentships include full support towards college and university fees (for home/EU nationals) , as well as maintenance of at least £13,290 per annum. Overseas students will need to have funding to cover the difference between home/eu and overseas fees. The aim is to develop personalised multi-scale electromechanical models of the heart. These models will be used to aid in the optimisation of cardiac resynchronisation therapy, one of the few clinically effective therapies used to treat the progression of congestive heart failure; a disease that continues to be a growing problem affecting 2-4 million people in the European Union and nearly 15 million people worldwide. The research will involve working within an interdisciplinary team involving engineers, clinicians and mathematicians.

Essential selection criteria include:

1. A degree in Engineering, Mathematical Biology, Applied Mathematics, Physics or Computer Science is required.

2. Demonstrated ability to develop mathematical algorithms in a modern computing environment (preferably one or more of Matlab/Fortan90/C++);

3. Willingness to work in biomedical computational modelling.

4. A background in partial differential equations and/or experience in continuum mechanics will be an advantage

5. Ability to work in a team, with good English and general communication skills.

Applications are made online and information about how to apply, including requirements and links to the online prospectus, colleges and university funding, is available from:

http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/admissions/dphil/

Please quote the following studentship codes on the application form:

10-COMP-NS-JOBS

The successful candidates are expected to start their DPhil between October 2008 and January 2009 and will be supervised by Dr. Steven Niederer and Prof. Nicolas Smith of the Computational Biology Group.

Closing date for the DPhil Studentships will be: 11^th December 2009.