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Bioinformatician

Employer
KINGS COLLEGE LONDON
Location
London (Greater)
Salary
£38,826 - £44,427 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance
Closing date
2 Dec 2021

Job Details

Job description
In collaboration with a major pharmaceutical partner, King’s College London is launching a substantial programme of basic and translational research into understanding the early molecular and immunological events that lead to the establishment Clonal Haemopoiesis and early stages of Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). Comparison of these early events with subsequent molecular phenotypes of MDS and Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) should help to identify targets for therapeutic intervention. It is anticipated we will recruit over 6,000 patients undergoing hip replacements as a healthy ageing cohort for the study to follow for at least 5 years; continuing to observe changes to health and haematology profiles. The programme aims to build one of the largest Biobanks to interrogate associations between immune and genetic changes in the blood and diseases that increase in prevalence with age and to enable future translational research endeavours. There is therefore an urgent need to develop reliable tools for patient stratification in order to ensure that only those likely to benefit are given a specific treatment.   
 
The post holder will contribute expertise in applying technologies of all types associated with the stratification of patients for immune-oncology treatments. As part of this job, the post holder will contribute in designing a major database, developing pipelines to analyse and integrate multiple biological research and clinical data streams, and generating insights that drive the elucidation of key disease mechanisms. The project involves (and not limited to) multi-omic (Genomics, single-cell RNAseq, ChIP- seq, Methyl-seq, metabolomics, and microbiomics) and mass-cytometry (CyTOF) data analysis of blood samples. 
 
This post will be offered on a fixed-term contract for 2 years with the possibility of an extension 
This is a full-time post - 100% full time equivalent

Key responsibilities

  • To process, organize, interpret, and disseminate genomics and immunological data coming from KCL/Celgene research project   
  • To perform omics analysis that drives better understanding of disease etiology and biomarker discovery and treatment response 
  • To create, implement and use analytical and bioinformatics pipelines to analyse and interpret multidimensional data. 
  • To work on agreed aspects of specialized bioinformatic analyses in accordance with project workstream requirements and deliverables.  
  • To work on data flow, storage, dissemination, including cloud datahub development.  
  • To develop advanced data manipulation and analysis capabilities using R/Bioconductor, Matlab, Python, and open-source bioinformatic tools and database structures to analyse complex data from EHRs, omics, and functional measures.   
  • To support grant writing, for maintaining the continual research in this domain. 
  • To communicate bioinformatics analysis to postgraduates, research scientists and principal investigators. 
  • To ensure the validity and reliability of data and methods at all times. 
  • To maintain accurate and complete records of analysis projects. 
  • To identify and develop suitable techniques for the analysis and visualisation of data, and to build and maintain the associated computational resources (software packages, databases, or web-based analysis and visualisation tools). 
  • To maintain all code and programs used for analysis and tool development with suitable source control. 
  • To identify and implement present and upcoming infrastructure requirements for the Bioinformatics team. 
  • To assist in and develop bioinformatics training for postgraduate research students and research assistants. 
  • To comply with the College, Division, and Unit safety practices and to attend courses on safety when appropriate. 

 
The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.  
 

Skills, knowledge, and experience 
 
Essential criteria  

 
1.       MSc or PhD awarded in Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Computer Science, Biotechnology or relevant discipline  
2.       Knowledge of relevant platforms and techniques 
3.       Knowledge of computational biology 
4.       Advanced skills in the analysis of Genomics data (like whole-exome and targeted-exome sequencing data) involving (but not limited to) variant calling, annotation, functional characterization and assessment of association with disease 
5.       Past peer-reviewed publication(s) that involves the analysis of genomics NGS data, bulk/single-cell transcriptomics data, CyTOF data, and/or web programming and database development.   
6.       Proficiency in at least one general programming language (R, Python, Java or C++ are preferred) 
7.       Skills in statistical analysis of data/modelling in R or similar 
8.       Experience in bioinformatics techniques and tools in the analysis of high dimensional biological data 
9.       Experience in pipeline scripting, automation and management in HPC clusters 
10.   An independent thinker 
11.   Ability to work within a team 
 
Desirable criteria
 
1.       Advanced skills in processing bulk and single-cell transcriptomics data 
2.       Ability to analyse CyTOF data with existing publicly available and commercial software solutions (e.g. R/Bioconductor, UMAP, viSNE, SPADE, FlowJo, CytoBank suite) 
3.       Ability/skills in developing and managing web applications and databases. Proficiency in at least one web programming technologies (like Ruby on Rails, Django, Javascript or similar) 
4.       Skills to develop novel tools using statistics, mathematics and/or machine learning approaches for the analysis of high dimensional data 
5.       Experience in database development and management 
 
 
Further information
 
The selection committee consists of Celgene PIs having a combination of biology and bioinformatic knowledge. The candidate will be evaluated for the scripting skill as well as biology knowledge required for this post.

Company

King's College London is one of the top 20 universities in the world and among the oldest in England. King's has more than 27,600 students (of whom nearly 10,500 are graduate students) from some 150 countries worldwide, and some 6,800 staff.

King's has an outstanding reputation for world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) King’s was ranked 6th nationally in the ‘power’ ranking, which takes into account both the quality and quantity of research activity, and 7th for quality according to Times Higher Education rankings. Eighty-four per cent of research at King’s was deemed ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’ (3* and 4*). The university is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of more than £684 million.

King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine, nursing and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar.

King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King's Health Partners. King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world's leading research-led universities and three of London's most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit: www.kingshealthpartners.org.

King’s £600 million campaign, World questions|KING’s answers, has delivered huge global impact in areas where King’s has particular expertise. Philanthropic support has funded new research to save young lives at Evelina London Children’s Hospital; established the King’s Dickson Poon School of Law as a worldwide leader in transnational law; built a new Cancer Centre at Guy’s Hospital; allowed unique collaboration between leading neuroscientists to fast-track new treatments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease, depression and schizophrenia at the new Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute; created the Cicely Saunders Institute: the first academic institution in the world dedicated to palliative care, and supported the King’s Sierra Leone Partnership in the Ebola crisis. Donations provide over 300 of the most promising students with scholarships and bursaries each year. More information about the campaign is available at www.kcl.ac.uk/kingsanswers.

Company info
Mini-site
KINGS COLLEGE LONDON
Telephone
+(44)02078365454
Location
STRAND
LONDON
WC2R 2LS
United Kingdom

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