Analysis of Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) lineages and vaccination strategies University of Brussels (ULB) in Belgium

[Job offer, a 4-year PhD student position at the University of Brussels — ULB] Please share - with Claire Guinat , we are looking for a highly motivated PhD student to work under our co-supervision within the VIVACE Doctoral Network, funded by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie action of the Horizon Europe programme (more information on VIVACE can be found here: https://lnkd.in/dHyAJNKM ). Université libre de Bruxelles , ULB - Faculté des Sciences , École de Bioingénierie de Bruxelles , INRAE , INRAE Occitanie-Toulouse , Mariette Ducatez , Timothée Vergne

To apply, please follow the procedure described here: https://lnkd.in/dv-dz8VN , or here: https://lnkd.in/d-_yd4d2

The overall objective of the PhD project will be to inform vaccination strategies by analysing the epidemiological and dispersal dynamics of circulating AIV lineages in countries associated with different vaccination settings and unravelling the environmental factors impacting their dispersal. We will focus on three distinct study areas: Morocco, Egypt where poultry vaccination against H5N8, H5N1 and H9N2 has been ongoing since 2006, and France which only recently initiated H5N8 vaccination in ducks in October 2023. These diverse settings provide a unique opportunity to assess how vaccination strategies might influence AIV evolution and spread. The specific aims of the PhD project will consist in (i) training ecological niche models predicting the risk of local circulation given local environmental conditions, (ii) estimating key epidemiological parameters using multi-type birth-death phylodynamic models, (iii) performing spatially explicit phylogeographic reconstructions of the dispersal history of AIV lineages using a relaxed random walk diffusion model, and (iv) investigating the impact of environmental and anthropogenic factors on the dispersal of AIV lineages using landscape phylogeographic methods.

The PhD project will be based at the University of Brussels (ULB, Belgium, “La Plaine” campus: https://lnkd.in/ddCA9Rab ), in the Spatial Epidemiology Lab (SpELL, https://spell.ulb.be/ ). The PhD student will also perform several long research stays in the research team of Claire Guinat at the Epidemiology lab (Epidesa, https://epidesa.weebly.com ) located on the INRAE-ENVT campus, Toulouse, France.

The candidate should hold a master degree in (bio)engineering, computational biology, epidemiology, or a scientific field such as biology/veterinary/medical sciences, ideally with analytical skills in modelling and spatial analyses, should have a strong interest in epidemiology. Additionally, good English writing skills and proficiency in computer-based work are required, as well as the willingness to present research work at international conferences. Knowledge and use of the programming language R is required.