At TAmiRNA (a startup previously located at BOKU) we are looking for people passionate about science and who are willing to contribute to a society that is healthier and more stable. We continually seek for best-qualified candidates who want to become part in our collaborative and committed team.„Development of AI-based strategies to incorporate information on microRNA isoforms in microRNA biomarker discovery “Project descriptionmiRNAs are a class of non-coding RNAs that play a critical role in regulation of gene expression. These ~22 nucleotide long RNAs down-regulate mRNAs by complementary binding and inducing either degradation of the mRNA or blocking the translation machinery. But even at the short length of just 22 nt, miRNAs are processed during and after their transcription. This leads to small variations in the length and sequence of the mature miRNAs transcribed from one precursor. Those isoforms (“isomiRs“) have different affinities to their mRNA targets and it was shown that the composition and frequency of isomiRs correlates with various cellular states.Next-generation sequencing allows a detailed analysis of miRNA sequence composition including isomiRs. Still, the majority of miRNA profiling studies only consider the total read counts of one miRNA and don’t take advantage of variability in isomiR composition.• Telonis, A. G. et al. (2017). Knowledge about the presence or absence of miRNA isoforms (isomiRs) can successfully discriminate amongst 32 TCGA cancer types. Nucleic Acids Research, 45(6), 2973–2985. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkx082The scope of this thesis will be the development of a method for classification and profiling of isomiRs as biomarkers from NGS small RNAseq data. We will test multiple ways of using isomiR profiles as a tool in biomarker discovery.Your profileWe’re looking for a motivated student with education in bioinformatics, knowledge about next-generation sequencing data and basics in machine learning, R, python and Linux.Interested?Please send your application including your resume to: office@tamirna.com