Stellenticket Freie Universität Berlin

Pro­ject title: PCR-4-ALL – Epi­demi­olo­gical mod­el­ling and Pan­demic Pre­pared­ness
Pro­ject descrip­tion:
The Depart­ment of Epi­demi­ology con­sists of more than 40 employ­ees. Our research focuses on
the fun­da­mental rela­tion­ships between the occur­rence, spread and pre­ven­tion of infec­tious
dis­eases in the human pop­u­la­tion at national and inter­na­tional level. We are work­ing on the area
of immun­o­logy and infec­tion as part of the NAKO health study (www.nako.de). The infra­struc­ture
of the depart­ment also includes the PhD course "Epi­demi­ology" (www.helmholtzhzi.
de/en/career/phd_programme_epidemiology).
In the "Clin­ical Epi­demi­ology & Evid­ence Syn­thesis" team (Head: Dr. Berit Lange), we con­duct
clin­ical and pop­u­la­tion-based epi­demi­olo­gical stud­ies (e.g. https://hzi-c19-antikoerperstudie.de),
create evid­ence syn­theses and meta-ana­lyses (www.serohub.net) and invest­ig­ate the dynam­ics of
res­pir­at­ory infec­tious dis­eases within the frame­work of large mod­el­ing net­works
(www.respinow.de). At the Ger­man Cen­ter for Infec­tion Research (www.dzif.de) we are act­ive as
co-coordin­at­ors of the “Trans­la­tional Infra­struc­ture Biore­sources, Biodata and Digital Health” unit.
In the "Cli­mate, Cohorts and PIA" team (leader: Dr. Stefanie Cas­tell), we focus on the area of
"digital epi­demi­ology", invest­ig­at­ing the determ­in­ants and con­sequences of infec­tions as well as
con­nec­tions with cli­matic changes. Pro­jects in the field of multi-omics and long-term cohort stud­ies
are also integ­rated. The study cen­ter of the NAKO health study in Han­over also belongs to the
team. A large part of the research activ­ity involves the eResearch sys­tem PIA (https://info-pia.de).
This has been developed as a free and open source soft­ware solu­tion (FOSS) by us as the product
owner since 2017 (https://github.com/hzi-braunschweig/pia-system). PIA is con­tinu­ously fur­ther
developed using a Scrum pro­cess, mod­ern devel­op­ments in the IT area such as Kuber­netes and
Green Cod­ing are also dis­cussed.
Both teams are involved in the EU pro­ject PCR-4-ALL (area: Pan­demic Pre­pared­ness). In addi­tion
to mod­el­ling, new labor­at­ory meth­ods of PCR test­ing are being piloted in a cohort and their
feas­ib­il­ity is being eval­u­ated in a pop­u­la­tion-based cohort of the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. As a PhD
stu­dent in this pro­ject, the job holder will carry out epi­demi­olo­gical mod­el­ling on the require­ments
for these labor­at­ory meth­ods, adapt them dur­ing the course of the pro­ject and be involved in set­ting
up and main­tain­ing the test cohort. The eResearch tool PIA will be used in the cohort, in which the
fur­ther devel­op­ment in the agile Scrum team will also be accom­pan­ied by the job holder. The aim
is for the job holder to do a doc­tor­ate in the Depart­ment’s PhD pro­gram Epi­demi­ology
(www.helmholtz-hzi.de/en/career/phd_programme_epidemiology).

Your tasks include:

• Infec­tion epi­demi­olo­gical mod­el­ling
• Data pre­par­a­tion and man­age­ment with R
• Ana­lyses in the field of feas­ib­il­ity stud­ies with R or Stata
• Pub­lic­a­tions of the res­ults
• Present­ing the res­ults at con­fer­ences
• Assist­ance with:
• Pre­par­a­tion and ment­or­ing of the cohort
• Ques­tion­naire devel­op­ment and digital imple­ment­a­tion of the study
• Com­pil­a­tion & sub­mis­sion the doc­u­ments for the eth­ics com­mit­tee & for the data pro­tec­tion officer
• Fur­ther devel­op­ment of the soft­ware
• Report­ing

• A lively sci­entific com­munity
• 30 days vaca­tion, (24.12. & 31.12. are con­sidered as com­pletely free days)
• An annual addi­tional pay­ment (Weih­nachts­geld) ana­logue to § 20 TVöD
• Social secur­ity included
• DO IT- PhD ini­ti­at­ive
• Wel­come Office
• Fam­ily Office, Child Hol­i­day Care

The suc­cess­ful can­did­ate will be integ­rated in the PhD Pro­gramme Epi­demi­ology which provides
an innov­at­ive struc­tured PhD pro­gramme within the field of Infec­tion Research www.helmholtzhzi.
de/en/career/phd_programme_epidemiology.

https://www.helmholtz-hzi.de/de/karriere/do-it-doktorandeninitiative

Star­ting date: As soon as pos­si­ble - initial con­tract for 3 years
Salary: TVöD/Bund E13 (65%)
Pro­ba­tion period: 6 mon­ths
Published on: Janu­ary 19th, 2023
Clo­sing date: March 2nd, 2023
App­li­ca­tion: App­li­cants are requi­red to com­plete the online app­li­ca­tion form here:
https://hzi.opencampus.net/ (Please select Job No. 24/2023).
For more details regar­ding the posi­tion, please con­tact Dr. Caro­lina J. Klett-Tam­men via email:
Carolina.Klett-Tammen@helmholtz-hzi.de, or by phone: +49 531 6181-3122.
Fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the insti­tute and the rese­arch group of Prof. Dr. Gérard Krause can be
found on our web­site: https://www.helmholtz-hzi.de/en/research/research-topics/bacterial-andviral-
pathogens/epidemiology/our-research/ and https://info-pia.de/