진학프로석·박사 채용 접수 플랫폼

The French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) is a major player in research and innovation. It is a community of 12,000 people with 272 research, experimental research, and support units located in 18 regional centres throughout France. Internationally, INRAE is among the top research organisations in the agricultural and food sciences, plant and animal sciences, as well as in ecology and environmental science.

Project, missions, and work environment

Project Background

Microbial ecosystems are highly dynamic and shaped by ecological principles. Advances in high-throughput sequencing and omics technologies have significantly enhanced our ability to study microbial communities at multiple levels, including taxonomy, function, and metabolic activity. However, current computational methods often treat omics data as purely numerical, overlooking the ecological context that drives microbial community assembly and function. This project aims to develop innovative statistical approaches that integrate ecological principles into omics data analysis, improving our understanding of microbial interactions and microbial ecosystem functioning.

Mission and activities

The postdoctoral researcher will develop new statistical approaches for analyzing microbial omics data that incorporate ecological knowledge. The main objectives of the research will be:

• To evaluate and benchmark existing ecological distance metrics and multivariate statistical approaches for microbial omics data analysis (e.g., metagenomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics).
• To develop novel or refined methods that integrate ecological knowledge into omics data analysis, providing a new dissimilarity index for microbial omics data analysis, enhancing the biological interpretability of results.
• To implement, validate, and apply these methods to existing microbial (multi)-omics datasets.
• To contribute to scientific publications, and present research finding at international conferences.

Work environment: 

The postdoctoral researcher will join the PROSE research unit (Bioprocesses for the Environment) at INRAE, located in Antony (Paris region), France (PROSE website). PROSE is a research unit within INRAE and affiliated with the University Paris-Saclay. It includes approximately 30 staff members, and conducts research on environmental biotechnologies. Its work spans microbial communities to large-scale processes, addressing societal challenges such as sustainable development and the circular economy. The unit fosters a transdisciplinary approach, integrating microbial ecology, bioprocess engineering, and modeling to develop innovative solutions for environmental applications.