The postdoctoral researcher will:
- Develop a total prenatal exposure transmission score based on DNA methylation at birth.
- Examine whether the transmission load score is stable over time and predicts the development of psychiatric problems.
- Test for sex-differences, especially resulting from X-chromosome inactivation.
The project is part of a large European-funded consortium (FAMILY, https://family-project.eu/), involving multiple national and international institutions and the analysis of data from a range of general and high-risk human cohorts. The postdoctoral researcher will have the unique opportunity to access data from the largest neonatal epigenetic cohorts in the world encompassing circa 10,000 participants with epigenetic profiles.
The multi-center design, large sample size and wealth of exposure and outcome data will allow the postdoctoral researcher great power and flexibility to construct and test transmission load scores. The intention is to employ traditional statistical approaches, as well as innovative machine-learning and genetic trio design methods. The postdoctoral researcher will be responsible for data cleaning and analysis, write-up and publication of results.
The postdoctoral researcher will primarily be embedded within GenR, a unique Rotterdam-based birth cohort that started in 2002 and has been following the lives of nearly 10,000 children across development.
The researcher will be supervised by Dr. Alexander Neumann, senior researcher in GenR, Dr. Charlotte Cecil, Director of the inDEPTH Lab and Team Leader of the Biological Psychopathology research line in Generation R, and Prof.dr. Neeltje van Haren, Professor of Brain Development and Psychopathology as well as Coordinator of FAMILY.