Biological Database Management and Bioinformatic Approaches to Characterizing Toxicological Outcomes
A complete application consists of:
- An application
- Transcripts – Click here for detailed information about acceptable transcripts
- A current resume/CV, including academic history, employment history, relevant experiences, and publication list
- Two educational or professional references
All documents must be in English or include an official English translation.
If you have questions, send an email to EPArpp@orau.org Please include the reference code for this opportunity in your email.
A research training opportunity is currently available at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD)/National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL). This appointment will be served with the Research Cores Unit (RCU) in Research Triangle Park, NC.
The EPA Chemical Safety and Sustainability (CSS) Research Program (http://www.epa.gov/research/chemicalscience/) needs computational tools to characterize the biological basis of adverse outcome pathways, as well understand the mechanism of variation in individual response to a given outcome. To accomplish this goal we take advantage of two tools being developed under EPA CSS Program, the Adverse Outcome Pathway knowledgebase (AOPKB, https://www.epa.gov/chemical-research/adverse-outcome-pathway-wiki) developed in collaboration with the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the AOP-DB, an internal EPA database resource used to integrate chemical, gene, protein, biological pathway, and species information with Adverse Outcome Pathway information from the AOP-wiki, as well as ToxCast assay target information (http://www.epa.gov/ncct/toxcast/). The participant will be a part of a larger effort to define AOPs (http://www.oecd.org/chemicalsafety/testing/adverse-outcome-pathways-molecular-screening-and-toxicogenomics.htm).
Major activities for this opportunity include: 1) programming in R, perl, SQL, Ruby/Rails; 2) managing and maintaining the AOP-DB, an SQL relational database; 3) evaluating and manipulating publicly available data sources for inclusion into the AOP-DB; 4) reading and interpreting relevant scientific literature; 5) interacting with researchers in the CSS Research Program to develop computational tools related to the AOP-DB; 5) presenting at professional meetings; and 6) authoring manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals.
This opportunity represents an excellent training opportunity for an aspiring computational biologist. A participant entering with a background in computer science will learn about biological processes underlying disease. A participant with a strong biological background will learn programming skills directly applicable for both data mining and mechanistic modeling approaches. The participant will become proficient in the perl, R, SQL programming languages. These are very common in computational and systems biology. The participant will collaborate with experts in the areas of computational and systems biology, genetics, toxicology, and dynamic modeling. This, combined with the programming skills they will develop, should make it possible for them to move into any of these areas or continue down a transdisciplinary path at their discretion.
This program, administered by ORAU through its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy to manage the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, was established through an interagency agreement between DOE and EPA.
The appointment is full time for one year and may be renewed upon recommendation of EPA and contingent on the availability of funds. The participant will receive a monthly stipend. Funding may be made available to reimburse the participant’s travel expenses to present the results of his/her research at scientific conferences. No funding will be made available to cover travel costs for pre-appointment visits, relocation costs, tuition and fees, or participant’s health insurance. The participant must show proof of health and medical insurance. The participant does not become an EPA employee.
The mentor for this project is Holly Mortensen (Mortensen.Holly@epa.gov). The desired start date for this appointment is November 1, 2017.
Applicants must have received a bachelor's or master’s degree in computer science, mathematics, engineering, statistics, bioinformatics, systems biology or a closely related field within five years of the desired starting date, or completion of all requirements for the degree should be expected prior to the starting date. Experience with computer programming, computational modeling or formal descriptions of biological processes, and statistics is desired.
- Degree: Bachelor's Degree or Master's Degree received within the last 60 month(s).
- Discipline(s):
ORISE GO
The ORISE GO mobile app helps you stay engaged, connected and informed during your ORISE experience – from application, to offer, through your appointment and even as an ORISE alum!
