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Offer Description
The PhD candidate will join both the Datavers team based in the Inria center at the University of Lille (France) and the METRICS unit research based in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Lille.
Inria Datavers team is specialised in statistical learning and her members also belong either to Paul Painlevé laboratory or METRICS.
Research of Paul Painlevé laboratory covers a broad spectrum of mathematical research.
METRICS is a multidisciplinary public health research team that brings together clinicians and methodologists in the fields of ergonomics, biostatistics, medical informatics, data science and health economics.
The aim of the PhD thesis is to develop a new statistical method for variable selection in the context of survival analysis, with competing risks, where measurements are repeated over time on thousands of variables simultaneously. This PhD project is funded by the Numetab cross disciplinary project (Numerical transition in Obesity and Metabolic Research, PI: Pr. Pattou and Pr. Marot).
The application will be to identify new omics markers (transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics) for predictive purposes in order to adapt patients’ treatment (Precision Health). The originality of the statistical approach consists in simultaneously addressing three scientific challenges: i) high-dimensional analysis (more variables than individuals), ii) analysis of competing risks in the context of survival models and iii) analysis of longitudinal data (repeated measurements on the same individuals).
Results are expected both in terms of biostatistical methodology and software to provide a clinical decision support tool.
The main objective is to develop a statistical method for selecting variables in a context of survival prediction in the presence of competing risks.
Secondary objectives are:
- to improve the search for biomarkers in analyses with repeated omics data
- to develop a decision-support software tool that can be generic and can be used in any context of high-dimensional data analysis with survival models in the presence of competing risks.
PhD candidates who want to understand the concepts necessary for this PhD can read the following references:
related to statistics
- [1] Fine and Gray (1999) A proportional hazards model for the subdistribution of a competing risk. Journal of the American statistical association, 94(446):496–509.
- [2] Chi and Ibrahim (2006) Joint models for multivariate longitudinal and multivariate survival data. Biometrics, 62(2):432–445.
- [3] Binder, Allignol, Schumacher, and Beyersmann (2009) Boosting for high-dimensional time-to-event data with competing risks. Bioinformatics, 25(7):890–896.
related to another application which motivated the PhD subject (proteomics data analysis)
- [4] Heyse, Vandewalle, Marot, Amouyel, Bauters, and Pinet (2023) Identification of patient subtypes based on protein expression for prediction of heart failure after myocardial infarction. Iscience, 26(3).
Requirements
Skills/Qualifications
The candidate must hold a MSc in Biostatistics.
Technical skills and level required :
- Proficiency in R and at least one scripting language (e.g. python)
- In-depth knowledge of statistical learning to handle high-dimensional data
- Basic knowledge of biology (molecular and cellular biology, genomics and genetics)
Other valued appreciated : creativity, independence, team working and communication skills
Languages: FRENCH — Level: Basic
Languages: ENGLISH — Level: Good
Additional Information
Benefits
- Subsidized meals
- Partial reimbursement of public transport costs
- Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 extra days off due to RTT (statutory reduction in working hours) + possibility of exceptional leave (sick children, moving home, etc.)
- Possibility of teleworking and flexible organization of working hours
- Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)
- Social, cultural and sports events and activities
- Access to vocational training
- Social security coverage
€2,300 gross per month
Selection process
Please send us your CV and cover letter.
Work Location(s)
Number of offers available: 1
Company/Institute: Inria
Country: France
City: Villeneuve d'Ascq