Postdoc position in Pharmacoepidemiology

Are you interested in drug outcome research, and to find novel pharmacotherapies that prevent stroke? Then this position might be a great match for you!

Your job
We offer a postdoctoral position for a new project, Treat-PRYSM, in a joint collaboration with the Neurology Department of UMCU, and funded by the European Research Council (ERC). It aims to first confirm the signals previously found to potentially decrease the risk of aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage in larger cohort studies, before validating those and their possible mechanistic pathways, by employing the principle of drug repurposing and triangulation of evidence, with the ultimate goal of selecting a candidate drug that can inhibit growth of intracranial aneurysms.

This includes the following tasks:

• conducting literature reviews;
• conducting three pharmacoepidemiologic studies as a part of the project, including writing the protocol, data analysis, programming, visualisation, interpretation of findings and writing of the results;
• assisting in writing and reviewing project deliverables (i.e., study reports and manuscripts).

You are specialised in pharmacoepidemiology and real-world-data studies and have a learning and exploring attitude. You are keen to develop yourself personally and professionally. You have good collaboration and communication skills. Specifically, you have:

• a PhD degree in (pharmaco-)epidemiology, or a closely related field in biomedical sciences (or are close to completing);
• a very good knowledge of pharmacoepidemiologic methods, including the active-comparator new-user design in cohort studies, and propensity score analysis.
• experience in working with big data in healthcare, such as electronic medical records, claims, or registry data;
• knowledge and skills of programming in a common platform (such as SAS, or R);
• excellent command of English (verbal, written);
• good scientific writing and presenting skills;
• basic project management skills.

• A position for 12 months;
• a working week of 28-32 hours and a gross monthly salary between €3,378 and €5,331 in the case of full-time employment (salary scale 10 under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday bonus and 8.3% end-of-year bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave, and flexible terms of employment based on the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities.

In addition to the terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University has a number of schemes and facilities of its own for employees. This includes schemes facilitating professional development, leave schemes and schemes for sports and cultural activities, as well as discounts on software and other IT products. We also offer access to additional employee benefits through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage our employees to continue to invest in their growth. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major strategic themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Pathways to Sustainability. Sharing science, shaping tomorrow.

Working at the Faculty of Science means bringing together inspiring people across disciplines and with a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. The Faculty has six departments: Biology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Information & Computing Sciences, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Together, we work on excellent research and inspiring education. We do so, driven by curiosity and supported by outstanding infrastructure. Visit us on LinkedIn and discover how you can become part of our community.

The Division of Pharmacoepidemiology & Clinical Pharmacology consists of a multidisciplinary team of young and internationally oriented researchers. The research programme is directed at several epidemiological, therapeutic, and policy aspects of chronic drug use with a focus on advanced affordable biomolecular and cellular therapies.

The Centre for Pharmacoepidemiology is embedded in the division. The centre aims to apply, develop, improve, and evaluate innovative observational pharmacoepidemiologic methods to obtain reliable information on benefits and harms of medicines after marketing in real life. Methodological innovations are inspired by relevant research questions in clinical practice, pharmaceutical policy, and regulation. Important themes are methods to measure impact of interventions, to prevent and/or control for confounding, analysis of effect modification (precision medicine), multi-database analysis, and innovative approaches for increasing validity and richness of data. The Centre for Pharmacoepidemiology has established the EU PE&PV (Pharmacoepidemiology & Pharmacovigilance) Research Network, and has developed novel methodologies for the conduct of multi-country, multi-database studies on variability of medicines’ use and patient outcomes.

For more information, please contact Shahab Abtahi at s.abtahi@uu.nl.

Do you have a question about the application procedure? Please send an email to science.recruitment@uu.nl.

As Utrecht University, we want to be a home for everyone. We value staff with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and identities, including cultural, religious or ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age. We strive to create a safe and inclusive environment in which everyone can flourish and contribute.

To apply, please send the following documents via the ‘apply now’ button.

• your one-page motivation letter;
• your curriculum vitae of maximum 2 pages;
• the names, telephone numbers, and email addresses of at least two referees;
• a copy of your PhD degree, or a letter from your university stating when your defence will take place.

If this specific opportunity isn’t for you, but you know someone else who may be interested, please forward this vacancy to them.