Bioinformatician

The post-holder will work under the direction of the Precision Medicine Centre of Excellence's (PMC) Bioinformatics lead and collaborate closely with the Scientific and Clinical leads. The primary responsibilities will be to develop, validate and maintain data analysis pipelines and algorithms that enable the comprehensive analysis of genomic information derived from cancer specimens, within the context of clinical studies.

The PMC is an ISO 15189:2012 accredited medical laboratory (Ref 2), providing an integrated cancer diagnostic and clinical research service that combines high throughput genomics and digital pathology (www.qub.ac.uk/research-centres/PMC).

Major duties:

• To develop and maintain pipelines for the processing and analysis of data generated from next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms, calling of clinically relevant genomic alterations.
• To implement, validate and integrate software tools as part of an analysis pipeline.
• To perform routine quality control tasks (quality check of data, code review, software validation), data checking/cleaning and taking remedial action when required.
• To support end-users on technical issues relating to in-house analysis workflows and analytical procedures.
• To provide analytical expertise for genomic data analyses.

About the person:

The successful candidate must have, and your application should clearly demonstrate that you meet the following criteria:

• Hold or be about to obtain* a PhD in Computational biology, Bioinformatics, computing science or related subjects. (*must be obtained within 3 months of the closing date for the post) or MSc equivalent with at least 3 years’ work experience in a relevant role.
• Significant relevant research experience in genomics or work experience in a relevant technical/scientific role.
• Significant experience in managing and analysing NGS data and other big data.
• Experience in developing and maintaining analysis pipelines.
• Experience working with Linux/UNIX environments.
• Proficiency with python, bash, R and/or equivalent languages.

To be successful at shortlisting stage, please ensure you clearly evidence in your application how you meet the essential and, where applicable, desirable criteria listed in the Candidate Information.

Fixed term contract posts are available for the stated period in the first instance but in particular circumstances may be renewed or made permanent subject to availability of funding.

To view more information and to make an application, please visit our website.