PhD student

The PET Imaging Center at University Hospital North Norway (UNN) has a vacant full-time PhD position for the research project “Virtual Biopsy of Prostate Cancer using PET Imaging and Artificial Intelligence”. The PhD position is for a fixed term of three years. Admission to the PhD program at UiT The Arctic University of Norway is a prerequisite for employment.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most frequent cancer diagnosed in males in Norway with more than 5000 new cases annually. In clinical practice, prostate-specific antigen blood test (PSA) and MRI followed by ultra-sound-guided biopsies, are used for detection, grading, and treatment decision of PCa. This project aims to replace invasive biopsies in PCa diagnostics, by a non-invasive ”virtual biopsy”. The virtual biopsy model will be based on deep learning and trained with prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET/MRI data and histopathological results. The benefits of a virtual biopsy model for PCa patients include: elimination of invasive biopsies, full 3D coverage of prostate (opposed to the discrete points of the invasive) and shortened waiting time.

The project is a collaboration between PET Imaging Center at UNN, the Norwegian Centre for Clinical Artificial Intelligence (SPKI) at UNN, the Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Biology reserach group at UiT,  and the SFI Visual Intelligence and Machine Learning Group at UiT. 

Arbeidsoppgaver

• The PhD candidate is expected to work independently but with close support of supervisors and in collaboration with other project members. The PhD candidate will finalize recruitment paths for patients and practical aspects of data collection and set up scan protocols. In addition, the candidate will work with data quality and processing as well as setting up deep learning models and using the data to train and evaluate them. The candidate will also write up and publish findings. This project is a continuation of a two-year innovation project that finished in 2022. This means that some work has already been performed.

Kvalifikasjoner

• You must hold an academic degree (Master of Science, MD or equivalent) in computer science, bioinformatics, medicine, physics, or related disciplines
• The Master must correspond to a five-year Norwegian degree program, with 120 credits at the master's level
• You must have a strong academic background from your previous studies with a grade average from the master's degree program or equivalent equal to C or better on the grading scale used by UiT The Arctic University of Norway. If you do not have letter grades from previous studies, you must have an equally good academic basis
• You must have very good oral and written English skills
• You must have very good oral and written Skandinavian skills (Norwegian, Danish or Swedish)
• Knowledge of machine learning  is an advantage
• Knowledgen og medicine is an advantage
• Knowledge of medical imaging, preferably MRI and PET is an advantage

Personlige egenskaper

• We seek a highly motivated, dynamic and committed candidate. The candidate must have excellent communication and willingness to work with a multidisciplinary, multi-personlity team, but must also be able to work independently.

Vi tilbyr

We can offer an interesting and innovative research project in the rapidly growing field of artificial intelligence in medical imaging. The candidate will have the opportunity to work in a positive and multidisciplinary research environment. Salary will be based on individual qualifications.