PhD Research Fellow in Bioinformatics – Discovering Rare Proteins Across the smORF Landscape

PhD Research Fellow in Bioinformatics – Discovering Rare Proteins Across the smORF Landscape

About the position

Would you like to use large-scale data analysis and machine learning to uncover proteins that conventional approaches overlook?

The University of Oslo is recruiting a PhD Research Fellow in bioinformatics/computational biology for ORFeus, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network funded by Horizon Europe.

The PhD project DC3: Discovering rare proteins across the smORF landscape will analyse more than 15,000 public ribosome-profiling datasets to identify and characterise rare and non-canonical translation events. The work will combine large-scale genomics, data aggregation, machine learning and visualisation and will contribute to the ORFeus network's research on the dark proteome and its relevance to human disease.

The successful candidate will be employed by the University of Oslo and enrolled in its PhD programme. You will join Professor Eivind Valen's research group and work with an international supervisory team and academic and industry partners across Europe. The position includes a secondment of approximately three months at EIRNA Bio in Cork, Ireland, as well as network-wide training, workshops and conferences.

We are looking for a candidate with a master's degree, or equivalent, in bioinformatics, computational biology, computer science, data science, or a related quantitative or life-science discipline. Strong programming skills and experience with large-scale sequencing, genomics or comparable biological datasets are required. Experience with ribosome profiling, machine learning or large-scale data curation will be an advantage.

Applicants must meet the admission requirements for the PhD programme at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. This includes an average grade of C or better in the bachelor's degree, an average grade of B or better in the master's degree, and a grade of B or better on the master's thesis, according to the Norwegian grading scale.

No one can be appointed for more than one PhD Research Fellowship period at the University of Oslo.

Employment conditions

This is a full-time, 36-month position as a PhD Research Fellow. The indicative gross annual salary is NOK 550,800–595,000, depending on qualifications and experience, including the applicable MSCA living and mobility allowances. An MSCA family allowance will be added for eligible candidates.

The planned start date is 1 March 2027, with 1 May 2027 as the latest possible start date.

The MSCA Doctoral Network eligibility rules apply. In particular, applicants must not hold a doctoral degree and must not have lived or carried out their main activity in Norway for more than 12 months during the 36 months immediately preceding recruitment.

How to apply

Applications must be submitted through the central ORFeus recruitment portal.

Read the full vacancy announcement and apply here: https://orfeusresearch.teamtailor.com/jobs/8441707-project-3-discovering-rare-proteins-across-the-smorf-landscape-eivind-valen

Application deadline: 22 October 2026, 23:59 CET.

For academic questions about the project, please contact Professor Eivind Valen eivind.valen@ibv.uio.no.

About the University of Oslo