Training and Careers

Prospective Students

If you are a prospective MD, PhD or MD/PhD student, the Multiscale Institute provides a cutting-edge research environment, strong mentorship and comprehensive training in computational biology. Please check out the various degree programs within the Icahn School of Medicine, and for PhD students, the Genetics and Genomics Training area in particular, for more information. Alternatively, contact us directly at multiscale.biology@mssm.edu for information.

The Multiscale Institute faculty have backgrounds in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Biostatistics, Mathematics, Physics, Genetics, Molecular Biology, and related disciplines, and are looking for students from all of those fields. The essential requirement is an interest in and capability of thinking about real-world problems in quantitative terms. Additional desired (but not essential) characteristics will be (1) a background in biology, acquired through courses and/or research work and/or (2) experience with data-intensive real-world problems (from any domain) and/or (3) programming experience.

If you are not yet applying to graduate school, we recommend that you check out SURP, the Summer Undergraduate Research Program at Mount Sinai.

Prospective Postdoctoral Fellows

The multidisciplinary Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine is tackling important and highly visible problems in computational and systems biology. Postdoctoral fellows at the Institute will develop novel experimental and computational techniques to generate and mine massive datasets. It is expected that promising techniques will be applied to novel therapeutic discovery, disease prevention, and biomarker development at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and elsewhere.

The Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology has a highly integrated faculty trained in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Biostatistics, Mathematics, Physics, Genetics, Molecular Biology, and related disciplines. Faculty, fellows and staff at the Institute are pursuing research in many areas, including novel algorithm development (e.g., developing methods for pathogen profiling, network and phylogeny comparison, and deciphering genomic architecture), systems biology (e.g., reconstructing predictive network models of disease) and translational informatics (e.g., mining repositories of molecular data and accompanying electronic medical records and developing new decision support systems). Postdoctoral fellows will develop and lead projects in these and related areas.

Candidates applying for this position should have a recent PhD in a science, technology, engineering or medical field and/or an MD. Strong candidates will have experience with data-intensive real-world problems (from any domain) and the discipline and motivation to pursue independent research in computational and systems biology. Applicants are expected to have a solid background in programming and computational techniques, with a working knowledge of molecular biology and genetics being highly desirable. To apply, send a CV, a research statement and contact information for three referees to multiscale.biology@mssm.edu. For more information about the institute, visit the Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology site, and for more information about postdoctoral training at Mt. Sinai, visit the Postdoctoral Education site.

Technical Staff

We are looking for engineers and scientists to help Institute researchers extract clinical insight from petabyte-scale data sets. You will work with world-class scientists and engineers at a major academic medical center tackling important and highly visible problems in computational biology. The ideal candidate will be comfortable in an academic environment, and will bring energy and creativity to the Institute’s work. In particular, the applicant is expected to have a bachelors or advanced degree in engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics or similar field, strong software engineering skills and substantial experience in one or more of the following specific areas:

Performing statistical analysis of large datasets with one or more of R, C/C++, Java, Python, etc.
Web application development with Ruby (and specifically Rails) including front-end development with HTML/CSS/Javascript
Visualization for the web and print. Previous work with d3.js, or other similar libraries, is highly desirable.
Design, management, query and ETL techniques for RDBMs and or distributed data stores such as HDFS, HBase, etc. Specific experience working with Oracle data warehouses and PL/SQL is highly desirable.
Data mining from mixes of structured and unstructured data, with a particular emphasis on electronic medical records.
Use of Amazon AWS or other similar cloud providers, including dev/ops with Chef/Puppet, integrating multiple cloud services, and optimizing software for cloud environments.

Biological experience is desirable, but not required; we are primarily looking for individuals with strong data analysis and software engineering skills. To apply, send your resume and a cover letter to multiscale.biology@mssm.edu. When appropriate please include pointer to your Github/Bitbucket/etc. account or your other open source projects.

Staff Scientists

The candidate will work in a multi-disciplinary team and contribute significantly to our efforts to systematically study complex human diseases through the integration of genetics, genomics, gene expression, transcription factor binding arrays, RNAi, clinical end-points, protein-protein interaction, literature data, electronic medical records, etc. The goal of this research is to model mechanisms underlying human diseases and represent them in probabilistic graphical models. Such models will be used to guide drug target discovery and prioritization, to develop combination therapies, to reposition existing drugs, to match individual patients to the best therapies, and more. The person in this position will be responsible for developing novel methods for integrating diverse data sources, and/or mining existing network models for disease specific features.

The ideal candidate for this position will have a PhD degree in physics, mathematics, statistics, computer science, electronic engineering, bioinformatics, biological sciences or equivalent in relevant areas, good programming skills, or a Masters degree in a related field and 3 years or more experience in analyzing large data sets. To apply, send a CV and a brief cover letter to multiscale.biology@mssm.edu with subject line as “Application for staff scientist position”.