Doctoral scholarship holder in the project of reconstructing cancer treatment trajectories from routine clinical data University of Antwerp in Belgium

Doctoral scholarship opportunity at the University of Antwerp in the Department of Molecular Imaging – Pathology – Radiotherapy – Oncology, in collaboration with the Oncology Department at Antwerp University Hospital.

This PhD project focuses on reconstructing cancer treatment trajectories from routine clinical data, with a particular emphasis on immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. The research will address an important clinical and methodological challenge: understanding which patients can safely stop treatment early, which benefit from prolonged therapy, and how treatment decisions relate to toxicity, healthcare costs, and quality of life.

The project will develop methods to infer treatment exposure and lines of therapy, disease status (response, stable disease, progression), reasons for treatment change or discontinuation, and symptoms and adverse events from real-world oncology records. The work combines a curated longitudinal patient dataset from Antwerp University Hospital with structured hospital data and text mining of clinical notes using large language models.

The successful candidate will work at the intersection of oncology, epidemiology, medical informatics, and AI-assisted data curation. The project is designed to create reusable and validated methodology for real-world oncology research and to generate new evidence on treatment duration in immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.

The position is supervised by Dr Annelies Verbiest and Dr Laure-Anne Teuwen, in collaboration with experts in epidemiology, data science, and medical oncology. The role also offers the possibility to connect with the international OHDSI oncology evidence network, linking the candidate to a global open-science community focused on federated, standardized real-world cancer evidence.

Funding and duration: a doctoral scholarship is offered for one year initially, with the possibility of extension for three additional years after positive evaluation, for a total of four years. The scholarship includes standard doctoral funding and additional allowances such as ecocheques, an Internet-connectivity allowance, and either a bicycle allowance or reimbursement of public transport costs.

Eligibility highlights: applicants should hold a Master’s degree in medicine, biomedical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, data science, or epidemiology, with results equivalent to at least distinction under the Belgian grading system. Strong English skills are required; Dutch is an asset. Experience in statistical programming, epidemiological research, longitudinal healthcare data, or natural language processing is beneficial, but not mandatory.

Application window: applications are reviewed from 24 July 2026 onwards and the vacancy remains open until the position is filled. Selected candidates are expected to be interviewed in August 2026.