MRC 3-year Capacity Building PhD Studentship
Department of Mathematics
Imperial College London

Bayesian Methods in Metabonomics
October 2009

Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship funded by the Medical Research Council commencing October 2009 under the joint supervision of Dr Maria De Iorio (Biostatistics Centre, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health) and Dr Tim Ebbels (Computational Bioinformatics, Department of Biomolecular Medicine) in the field of statistical analysis of metabonomics data. The studentship is part of the Capacity Building Area Studentship Scheme, in the Informatics theme.

The Project
The term metabolome refers to the total chemical (metabolite) complement of a cell, tissue or organism. Scientific interest lies in investigating the static and dynamic constituents and development of the metabolome. Metabolic profiling is a rapidly developing field in biomedical science that combines the application of spectroscopic techniques with multivariate statistical analysis in studies of the composition of biofluids, cells and tissues. The success of metabonomics analysis depends on the development of an integrated ("systems biology") approach which synthesizes key techniques from mathematics, statistics, computing and analytical chemistry. The objectives of this research project are to design and implement biologically meaningful statistical models that allow the analysis of the large amounts of data that are becoming available. Typically, the data in a metabonomics experiment consist of spectra comprising thousands of measurements of the amounts of different metabolites.

The modelling and statistical analysis of metabonomics data is one of the most important areas of scientific investigation in the biological and life sciences. Advanced statistical, mathematical and computation techniques are vitally important in the success of this crucial technological area. The project will focus on the use of Bayesian statistical inference procedures, and the development of computational tools that can be used to analyze metabonomics data; specifically, the three types of analysis that will be used will be based on
o flexible models based on wavelets and other basis functions
o non-stationary time-series and state-space models
o finite mixture models.
Typical statistical objectives include matching, clustering and classification of spectra. Statistical computation will be based on filtering methods, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and other advanced procedures. Some knowledge of these areas would be considered and advantage, but is not essential.

Studentship Details

Applicants must hold (or obtain by October 2009) a First Class or an Upper Second Class degree (or equivalent overseas qualification) in mathematics, statistics or computing. The studentship is ONLY open to UK and EU students and cannot be held by a non EU Student.

Please note that the above details are preliminary, and potentially subject to change.

For informal enquiries please contact Dr Maria De Iorio ([log in to unmask]) or Dr Tim Ebbels ([log in to unmask]). For application, please send a full CV, stating your nationality, and the full contact details of two academic referees to [log in to unmask] Applications will be accepted until the 10th of September 2009.