Job description

The Faculty of Life Science and Medicine is seeking to recruit a talented and dynamic senior bioinformatician Research Fellow to work in the Applied Bioinformatics Hub at FoLSM. This is an interdisciplinary cross-cutting network that brings together academics, clinicians and staff with different expertise and requirements, to support and undertake ground-breaking research involving big data, and deliver high-level education programs.  

These core posts will provide bioinformatics expertise for specific research projects as well as supporting capacity building within the Faculty. Postholders will be expected to have proven track record in collaborative academic research relevant to health. It is expected that they will contribute to grants, publications and development of bioinformatic workshops that will enable sustainable revenue generation. Postholders need to demonstrate significant experience of transcriptomics (e.g. single cell/nuclear RNAseq) and/or proteomics, high throughput sequencing analyses (e.g. metagenomics, bulk and sc-RNAseq and EWAS), and/or data integration, machine learning/AI. Required coding skills include BASH, R and/or Python, GIT, Matlab, and proficiency in working on high-performance Linux clusters. The postholder will create a suite of digital resources (containarised pipelines, training material etc.) that will support skill acquisition and routine analyses and provide high quality teaching in data science/bioinformatics for our postgraduates and research staff. 

This post will report to Dr Alessandra Vigilante, Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics, with an informal reporting line to the Faculty’s Vice Dean for Research and Impact, Professor Rachel Tribe.  

About the Faculty: 

King’s College London Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine is one of the largest and most successful centres for research and education in the UK. It consists of over 2000 staff and 5000 students within seven Schools and two Schools of Education. 

The FoLSM Applied Bioinformatics Hub, home of a new and interdisciplinary network, is located on the Guy’s Campus in central London. It acts as a nucleus for vibrant research community spanning the entire Faculty with the goal of bringing together researchers involved in different research areas such as computational genomics, genetics, cancer genomics, immunology, reproductive biology and child health, cardiovascular research, neurobiology, evolutionary biology, pharmacology and others.  

This post will be offered initially as a fixed term contract for two years 

This is a full-time post

Key responsibilities

•        Providing bioinformatic support for Hub core activities (e.g. academic grant funded collaborations and consultancy service), including developing projects, conducting research activities, and communicating with and supporting colleagues around relevant process and procedures  

•        Capacity building (training of postgraduates and staff)  

•        Development of a suite of digital tools (pipeline building)  

•        Bioinformatics consultation for development of projects focusing on medical imaging data, machine learning/AI and multi-omics 

•        Academic input into publications  

•        Development of short courses and teaching resources 

•        Outreach and engagement, including contributing to relevant teaching and learning programmes and workshops 

•        Supervision of postgraduate research students 

•        Contributing to process of securing funding for relevant research 

•        Collaborate actively across the Faculty, developing productive working relationships and participating in relevant networks  

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.      PhD or equivalent experience in bioinformatics/computational biology, or a related field 

2.      Proven research experience in areas of biology relevant to the Faculty of Life Science and Medicine  

3.      Strong capability working with High Performance Computing (HPC) environments and experience with filesystems, data management, GIT, etc. 

4.      Demonstrable experience in relevant programming language using R/ Python, BASH, Matlab 

5.      Thorough knowledge and understanding of transcriptomics/proteomics and/or next generation sequencing approaches (Illumina and Nanopore) 

6.      Demonstrable expertise in big-data and data integration methods, including with biological data sets, and machine learning and statistical analysis.  

7.      Experience of teaching  

8.      Excellent communication (written and verbal), time management and organisational skills, with ability to work under pressure and to meet deadlines  

9.      Evidence of writing high quality papers for peer review publication or reports and presenting research at meetings or conferences

10.    Working within large research collaborative teams and/or experience of working on multiple projects  

Desirable criteria

11.   Experience in designing and developing research projects including contributing to the development and submission of grant applications and funding proposals

12.  Ability to design and implement novel training courses  

13.  Data Carpentry certified instructor  

14.  Experience with single cell transcriptomics, spatial transcriptomics and/or pipelining software (Nextflow / Snakemake) 

15.  Project supervisory experience (e.g. MSc/PhD) 

Further information

The selection process will include a presentation to demonstrate teaching and research skills, a panel interview and meeting of stakeholders.