INSIGNEO Institute for in silico Medicine
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sheffield
Computational Imaging and Simulation Technologies in Biomedicine
Various R&D posts available: Research Fellow, Research Associate (3 posts), Scientific Software Developer (2 posts)
Mechanical Engineering has been a major discipline in the University of Sheffield since its foundation in 1905. In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise the Department came second in the country in the league table of Mechanical Engineering departments, and achieved an "Excellent" rating in the last Teaching Quality Assessment. The Department currently has 41 members of academic staff who support the learning and development of an ever-growing undergraduate and postgraduate student body. For more information on the Department please see our web site http://www.shef.ac.uk/mecheng/.
The INSIGNEO Institute for in silico Medicine is an initiative between the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sheffield and the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust. INSIGNEO will realise the scientific ambition behind the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH), producing a transformational impact on healthcare. INSIGNEO performs cutting edge research in areas of fundamental and applied biomedical modelling, imaging and informatics. It will pursue the research agenda of the VPH initiative; in particular, in the first five years it will focus on the Digital Patient, In Silico Clinical Trials, and Personal Health Forecasting. It will achieve transformational impact on healthcare through multidisciplinary collaboration in strategic areas, which initially will include personalised treatments and independent, active and healthy ageing.
The Computational Imaging and Simulation Technologies in Biomedicine (CISTIB) Group at the University of Sheffield is part of INSIGNEO. CISTIB focuses on algorithmic and applied research in the areas of computational imaging, modeling and simulation. CISTIB is working in different areas of medical image segmentation, statistical shape analysis, pattern recognition and image-based personalized computational electro-mechanics and fluid dynamics, and modeling of virtual interventions with endovascular and cardiac rhythm management devices. The centre hosts academic members from the University of Sheffield as well as research fellows, research associates, PhD Students and scientific software developers forming a cross-disciplinary team of biomedical engineers, computer scientists, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, physicists, and mathematicians.
The main objective of CISTIB is to contribute to the development of technologies for advanced screening, diagnostics, interventional guidance and therapy planning of cardio- and neurovascular diseases as well as growing activity in the musculo-skeletal system. Converging technologies such as computational imaging, computational physiology and virtual implantation of medical devices are integrated with state of the art multimodal acquisition systems to achieve an enhanced interpretation of human physiology and pathology and supply integrative approaches for in silico medical device customization, optimization and image-based efficacy assessment. Core technologies include spatial and temporal image segmentation, non-rigid image registration, multimodal image fusion, pattern recognition, statistical shape analysis, multi-view geometry, image-based tissue property estimation, tissue deformation quantification, computational geometry, image-based mesh generation, computational fluid dynamics and electro-mechanical simulation.
CISTIB fosters basic and applied research and promotes technology transfer to industry. It participates to a number of national and international research projects funded by the European Commission, and holds collaborations with several national and international companies. CISTIB also very close cooperation with clinical centers at the local level and worldwide and has a strong clinically-oriented translational vision.
Open positions
CISTIB seeks proactive and talented junior and senior researchers with proven track record of publications in leading international journals and conferences. Candidates must hold a PhD degree and have expertise in the area of interest. Background or strong interest in biomedical engineering and proficiency in spoken and written English is expected.
We are interested in individuals with excellent communication and leadership skills, able to work in a multidisciplinary and international team and contribute to the visibility of the centre in the international scientific community. The ability to interact with other disciplines is essential. The candidate will cooperate with members of the lab working on related topics as well as with our collaborators at several academic institutions in UK and across Europe.
The current open positions are advertised in
and each of the indicated positions will fit one of the profiles listed below:
§ Research Positions on Computational modelling and Simulation in Angiology: Profile CMSA-100101
§ Research Positions on Computational Modelling and Simulation in Cardiology: Profile CMSC-100105
§ Research Positions on Biomedical Information Management: Profile BIM-100107
§ Research Positions on Statistical Image Analysis: Profile SIA-100112
§ Junior Scientific Developers: Profile SSD-100109
§ Senior Scientific Developers: Profile SSD-100110
§ Research Positions on Musculoskeletal Computational Modelling: Profile IR-100114
How to apply
For more information or to apply, please email (quoting the Job Reference mentioned) a detailed CV with publication list and a concise description of research interests and future plans to a.frangi@sheffield.ac.uk. You should also apply through the web based system indicating the profile you fit to via the web linke http://www.jobs.ac.uk/enhanced/linki...kingpage3.html.
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Post-Doctoral Position Profile CMSA-100101
Tasks Description
Image-based biomedical simulation combines patient-specific modeling from medical images with Computational Electro-Mechanics and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to approximate the complex physical and physiological processes happening in healthy and diseased patients. Using these techniques, personalized biomedical models can be extracted and analyzed from a variety of image modalities under varying physiological conditions and in the presence of medical devices. At CISTIB, the current focus is on the development, validation and clinical evaluation of simulation technologies for the study of cardiovascular diseases.
The candidate will conduct research and development in computational methods applied to the problems described above. The aim of his/her research and development is to develop numerical software required for the approximation of these problems, adaptation and reuse of existing libraries and connection to existing commercial software.
This highly multidisciplinary research involves medical image processing, geometry modeling, meshing, computational fluid dynamics, computational mechanics, visualization and computer graphics, high performance computing as well as clinical investigation. This post is connected to our work in euHeart (www.euheart.eu), and MySpine (www.myspine.eu).
Profile
CISTIB seeks proactive and talented Post-Docs with proven track record in CFD and numerical software. Candidates must hold a PhD degree in scientific computing or related areas and have expertise in computational modeling and simulation, and in particular in mathematical modeling, numerical methods, finite element grid generation, computational mechanics and CFD simulation techniques. Specifically, the following skills will be expected:
• Proficiency in spoken and written English.
• Knowledge and experience with finite element modeling and computational methods for physiological flow modeling.
• Background or strong interest in Biomedical Engineering.
• Good knowledge of fluid dynamics phenomena in complex vascular geometries.
• Proficiency and programming skills in C++/Fortran will be highly valued.
• Experience with grid generation, computational mechanics and CFD simulation packages will be highly valued.
Candidates should be creative, have the ability to carry out independent research and interact within an international research team. We are interested in individuals with excellent communication and leadership skills, able to work in a multidisciplinary team and contribute to the visibility of the centre in the international scientific community. The ability to interact with other disciplines is essential. The candidate will cooperate with members of the lab working on related topics as well as with our collaborators at several academic institutions in UK and across Europe.
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Post-Doctoral Position Profile CMSC-100105
Tasks Description
Cardiac computational physiology is becoming an essential for a better understanding of heart function and associated pathologies such as arrhythmias or dyssynchrony, as well as for improving and predicting the outcome of some cardiac therapies.
The candidate will conduct research in electrophysiological modeling applied to the optimization of cardiac therapies such as Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) and Radio-Frequency Ablation (RFA). This work will need to be coordinated with current efforts in the lab on the mechanics and personalization of computational models. The candidate will also be required to lead the development of some parts of an electromechanical solver that the CISTIB is cross-developing with other international research groups within an open-source project. This post is connected to our work in euHeart (www.euheart.eu).
Profile
CISTIB seeks proactive and talented post-doctoral researchers with proven track record of publications in leading international journals and conferences. Candidates must hold a PhD degree and have expertise in computational vascular modeling, mechanics and image processing, and in particular in mathematical modeling, numerical methods, and image registration techniques. Specifically, the following skills will be expected:
• Knowledge and experience on medical image processing and finite element analysis
• Background or strong interest in Biomedical Engineering
• Good knowledge of electrophysiological models
• Programming skills in C++
• Proficiency in spoken and written English
Candidates should be creative, have the ability to carry out independent research and interact within an international research team. We are interested in individuals with excellent communication and leadership skills, able to work in a multidisciplinary team and contribute to the visibility of the centre in the international scientific community. The candidate will cooperate with members of the lab working on related topics as well as with our clinical collaborators at several academic hospitals in UK and across Europe.
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Post-Doctoral Position Profile BIM-100107
Tasks Description
The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) is a EU-funded initiative, mirrored also worldwide, which aims creating a computation model of the human body as a single complex system, which is expected to pave the way towards a future in which the practice of clinical medicine will be personalize, quantitative, predictive, and evidence-based. VPH data and models (VPHDMs) vary in type and complexity, and are distributed globally across a number of resource centers. They are created and maintained locally by individual groups dedicated to the focused study of a well-defined domain of human biology. VPHDMs range from gene expression data to pathway models of cell signaling, histological image repositories to statistical models of radiology, and body fluid electrolyte datasets to mathematical models of blood pressure regulation or pharmacokinetic drug distribution. The candidate will conduct research on answering the following central question: how these different VPHDMs interoperate feasibly, demonstrably and effectively with one another? Specifically, this will require contributions in the following terms: (1) standardization and harmonization of names and symbols of biological objects; (2) use of controlled vocabularies and ontologies to describe (VPHDM) repository content; (3) provision of standardized programmatic access to connect distributed repositories with tools; and (4) standardization of the minimal information content for different (VPHDM) resource categories as a guide to deposition and information extraction.
The candidate will also be required to lead the development of some parts of a generic infrastructure that CISTIB is developing in order to efficiently manage all information captured, used or generated in the course of several biomedical research projects, from a wide diversity of clinical specialties. This post is connected to our work in VPH-share (www.vph-share.eu).
Profile
The CISTIB seeks proactive and talented post-doctoral researchers with proven track record of publications in leading international journals and conferences. Candidates must hold a PhD degree and have expertise in advanced information management and database topics, such as heterogeneous information integration, semantic integration, and ontological description of data sources. Specifically, the following skills will be expected:
• Background or strong interest in data management
• Previous experience on medical informatics, bioinformatics or biomedical informatics will be valued but not necessary
• Proficiency in spoken and written English
Candidates should be creative, have the ability to carry out independent research and interact within an international research team. We are interested in individuals with excellent communication and leadership skills, able to work in a multidisciplinary team and contribute to the visibility of the centre in the international scientific community. The candidate will cooperate with members of the lab working on related topics as well as with our clinical collaborators at several academic hospitals in UK and across Europe.
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Junior Scientific Developer Profile SSD-100109
Tasks Description
CISTIB Software Components and Systems program develops suites prototypes for research and clinical evaluation to favor the transfer of technology from research environments to the industry. The development and integration of scientific algorithms into applications workflows that builds a suite is perform using GIMIAS prototype development framework. GIMIAS is an open source tool developed at CISTIB that facilitates the development of prototypes by providing common components of scientific visualization, data access and data processing, allowing the user to focus on the development of the final application. The Scientific Developer will be part of the software development team that extend functionalities of specific prototypes and also contributes to the development of GIMIAS.
This work will be part of national and international projects with strong collaboration with industrial and clinical partners and other international scientific partners. This post is connected to our work in euHeart (www.euheart.eu), VPH-share (www.vph-share.eu) and MySpine (www.myspine.eu).
Profile
CISTIB seeks proactive and talented junior scientific developers with a background in computer science, having excellent computer programming skills and preferably with previous experience in software development for multiplatform environments. Specifically, the following skills will be expected:
• 1 year of experience in C++ and Object Oriented Programming
• Experience with common libraries for image processing like VTK and ITK
• Strong interest in Biomedical Engineering
• Proficiency in spoken and written English
Candidates should be creative, have the ability to create standardized processes to design, code, test, and support high-quality production software for implementing scientific algorithms. We are interested in individuals with excellent communication and leadership skills, able to work in a multidisciplinary team and contribute to the visibility of the centre in the international scientific community. The ability to interact with other disciplines is essential. The candidate will cooperate with members of the lab working on related topics as well as with our collaborators at several institutions in UK and across Europe.
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Senior Scientific Developer Profile SSD-100110
Tasks Description
CISTIB Software Components and Systems program develops suites prototypes for research and clinical evaluation to favor the transfer of technology from research environments to the industry. The development and integration of scientific algorithms into applications workflows that builds a suite is perform using GIMIAS prototype development framework. GIMIAS is an open source tool developed at CISTIB that facilitates the development of prototypes by providing common components of scientific visualization, data access and data processing, allowing the user to focus on the development of the final application. The Scientific Developer will be part of the software development team that extend functionalities of specific prototypes and also contributes to the development of GIMIAS.
This work will be part of national and international projects with strong collaboration with industrial and clinical partners and other international scientific partners. This post is connected to our work in euHeart (www.euheart.eu) and MySpine (www.myspine.eu).
Profile
CISTIB seeks proactive and talented senior scientific developers with a background in computer science, having excellent computer programming skills and preferably with experience in biomedical engineering. Specifically, the following skills will be expected:
• At least five years of experience in C++ and Object Oriented Programming
• Previous experience in software development for multiplatform environments
• Previous experience with common libraries for image processing like VTK and ITK
• Proficiency in spoken and written English
Candidates should be creative, have the ability to promote efficient work methods in the scientific development team and processes to design, code, test, and support high-quality production software for implementing scientific algorithms. We are interested in individuals with excellent communication and leadership skills, able to work in a multidisciplinary team and contribute to the visibility of the centre in the international scientific community. The ability to interact with other disciplines is essential. The candidate will cooperate with members of the lab working on related topics as well as with our collaborators at several institutions in UK and across Europe.
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Post-Doctoral Position Profile SIA-100112
Tasks Description
The tasks of our team are focused on the statistical modelling of shape and appearance, with special emphasis in extensive evaluation and development of new extensions to the basic techniques. The main goals of the team are usually application-driven (in accordance with the requirements of other teams or projects of the Lab), trying to address them from a generic point of view which enables to research on algorithmic extensions with a broader application field.
This work will be part of national and international projects on cardio-vascular remodeling, with strong collaboration with industrial and clinical partners and other international scientific partners. This post is connected to our work in euHeart (www.euheart.eu) and MySpine (www.myspine.eu).
Profile
CISTIB seeks proactive and talented post-doctoral researchers with a background in engineering, physics or computer science, having excellent computer programming skills and preferably experienced in statistics and/or image processing. Specifically, the following skills will be expected:
• Knowledge and experience on statistics and image processing
• Background or strong interest in Biomedical Engineering
• Programming skills in C++ and Matlab
• Proficiency in spoken and written English
Candidates should be creative, have the ability to carry out independent research and interact within an international research team. We are interested in individuals with excellent communication and leadership skills, able to work in a multidisciplinary team and contribute to the visibility of the centre in the international scientific community. The ability to interact with other disciplines is essential. The candidate will cooperate with members of the lab working on related topics as well as with our collaborators at several academic institutions in UK and across Europe.
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Post-Doctoral Position Profile CIMA-100113
Tasks Description
The tasks of our team are focused on computational processing of medical image data sets, and specifically the processing of angiographic images, resembling vascular structures, mainly in the brain and in the heart. The specific tasks to be developed by the candidate will be related to the quantification and characterization of coronary vascular tree, although the work carried out can be also valid for other vascular structures. Issues such as fast segmentation, fusion between different modalities, construction of statistical atlases for vascular structures and 3D+t visualization will be addressed in detail.
These tasks will be part of national and international projects on cardio-vascular remodeling, with strong collaboration with industrial and clinical partners and other international scientific. This post is connected to our work in euHeart (www.euheart.eu).
Profile
CISTIB seeks proactive and talented post-doctoral researchers with a background in engineering, physics or computer science, having excellent computer programming skills and preferably experienced in statistics and/or image processing. Specifically, the following skills will be expected:
• Knowledge and experience on statistics and image processing
• Background or strong interest in Biomedical Engineering
• Programming skills in C++ and Matlab
• Proficiency in spoken and written English
Candidates should be creative, have the ability to carry out independent research and interact within an international research team. We are interested in individuals with excellent communication and leadership skills, able to work in a multidisciplinary team and contribute to the visibility of the centre in the international scientific community. The ability to interact with other disciplines is essential. The candidate will cooperate with members of the lab working on related topics as well as with our collaborators at several academic institutions in UK and across Europe.
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Post-Doctoral Position Profile IR-100114
Tasks Description
The tasks to be performed are focused on the development of image registration and fusion algorithms, with special emphasis in shape reconstruction, quantification of motion and deformation as well as disease evolution after treatment in cardiovascular and orthopedic clinical applications.
This work will be focused on statistical bone modeling for osteoporosis diagnosis and prevention and is aligned with the MySpine project (www.myspine.eu).
Profile
CISTIB seeks proactive and talented PhD students holding an MSc degree with a background in engineering, physics or computer science, having excellent computer programming skills and preferably experienced in statistics and/or image processing. Specifically, the following skills will be expected:
• Knowledge and experience on statistics and image processing
• Background or strong interest in Biomedical Engineering
• Programming skills in C++ and Matlab
• Proficiency in spoken and written English
Candidates should be creative, have the ability to carry out independent research and interact within an international research team. We are interested in individuals with excellent communication and leadership skills, able to work in a multidisciplinary team and contribute to the visibility of the centre in the international scientific community. The ability to interact with other disciplines is essential. The candidate will cooperate with members of the lab working on related topics as well as with our collaborators at several academic institutions in UK and across Europe.