Bioinformatician (Research Fellow) UCL

Vacancy Reference Number

B02-06467

Closing Date

22 Feb 2024

Salary

£42,099–£50,585

Address

UK DRI at UCL, Queen Square On site (> 80% of working time)

Duration

The post is available immediately and funded by UK DRI until 31 March 2028 in the first instance. This role is eligible for hybrid working with a minimum of 20% of time on site.

About the job

Dementia is the greatest health challenge of our century.

To date there is no way to prevent it or even slow its progression, and there is an urgent need to fill the knowledge gap in our basic understanding of the diseases that cause it.

The UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) is the biggest UK initiative supporting research to fill the major knowledge gap in our basic understanding of the diseases that cause dementia.

Research from UK DRI at UCL covers the journey from the patient to the laboratory and back to the patient with improved diagnosis, biomarkers and candidate therapies put to the test. Led by Professor Karen Duff, UK DRI Centre Director, the team addresses the key unanswered mechanistic questions that link genetic and lifecourse factors to dysfunction in molecular pathways, in cells and in neural systems during the progression of the dementias. This work will be enhanced by clinical resource to link lab work to the clinic.

UK DRI core data science team

Neurodegenerative research spans various scales, from molecular to population levels and it benefits immensely from the rapidly evolving innovations in informatics and data science and the growing collation of omics and population level life-course data. The UK DRI holds the lead in identifying novel questions that can only be addressed with the inclusion of such innovations. The UK DRI data science team will serve as the core for the UK DRI national informatics programme over the next four years. The team will enhance data access, training, partnerships, and technical capacity for researchers, fostering data sharing and boosting data science capabilities. The team is currently based at UCL and interacts closely with the UK DRI UCL centre staff.

About the role

UK DRI researchers are currently generating a large amount of data ranging from omics data, including spatial transcriptomics, and imaging, to video recordings. The growth of the data necessitates standardised processes for systemic data integration while ensuring data quality is not compromised.

We have an exciting opportunity to join our newly founded informatics team as a bioinformatician. You will be committed to tackling dementia through collaborative efforts across an organisation that is committed to advancing dementia research.

As a bioinformatician, you will develop, maintain, and run data analysis pipeline infrastructure established by the data science team. You will also participate in several stages of data lifecycle management such as data processing, curation, management, and submission of the large and diverse amounts of data generated by UK DRI research teams.

You will interrogate and resolve potential issues associated with the data sets. As an active member in the research projects that you will engage with, you will take part in developing approaches for safeguarding high data quality and ensuring that key people are kept informed of the progress. You will work together with other UK DRI software developers and bioinformaticians to standardise and troubleshoot reporting and processes.

Essential Criteria

You will be interested in the research and mission of the UK DRI, enthusiastic about joining our newly established data science team, and passionate about working effectively and collaboratively with researchers at all levels across the Institute.

You will hold a PhD or equivalent in a relevant scientific discipline or have equivalent practical experience working in the biomedical or health informatics domain. You will have experience in informatics techniques, data management, and data curation, as well as a good understanding of workflow management tools like Nextflow and Snakemake. In addition, you will have experience in programming (R, Python, etc.) and in agile software development processes and management using GitHub.

This role meets the eligibility requirements for a skilled worker certificate of sponsorship or a global talent visa under UK Visas and Immigration legislation. Therefore, UCL welcomes applications from international applicants who require a visa.

Contact Information

To apply visit here.

Informal enquiries regarding the role can be addressed to Amonida Zadissa, Associate Director of Informatics amonida.zadissa@ukdri.ac.uk .