Senior Bioinformatician - Gencode

Fixed-term until March 2017

This role may be extended if funding becomes available.

Are you ready to take the next step in your Bioinformatics career? Do you want to join a leading Institute in the GENCODE consortium associated to the NIH funded ENCODE project?

We are looking for an enthusiastic, highly motivated Bioinformatician who will develop their career by contributing to the maintenance of high quality standard annotation in GENCODE. Working primarily on the integration of next generation sequencing transcriptomics and proteomics data to improve genome annotation, this is a unique opportunity for a talented Bioinformatician to be involved in many aspects of genome analysis.

This position will involve benchmarking different transcriptomics predictions using long next generation sequence data, such as PacBio data obtained from Capture arrays or RACEseq analysis. Other activities will include producing bespoke genomic data analyses to support manual annotation, and maintaining and optimizing the GENCODE release pipeline and the gencodegenes.org website. The successful applicant will collaborate closely with HAVANA, Ensembl and other members of the GENCODE consortium. This post is ideal for an individual who can work independently, carrying out computational scientific analysis of data related to human, mouse and zebrafish genome annotation projects.

The Vertebrate Annotation (HAVANA) group at the Sanger Institute leads the world in the definition of gene sets. The GENCODE gene sets are used by the entire ENCODE consortium and by many other projects (eg. 1000 Genomes, TCGA) as reference gene sets. The HAVANA group constantly incorporates datasets such as RNA-seq derived gene predictions, gene expression, transcript start signals, coding potential and regulatory data into the genome annotation.

Essential Skills

- PhD / MSc degree which include a substantial component in bioinformatics or computer science (or equivalent experience)
- Practical experience querying relational databases using SQL
- Proven record of writing analysis programs and scripts to rapidly investigate scientific questions
- Ability to work independently to carry out data analysis
- Excellent attention to detail and good communication skills
- Proficient in a programming/scripting language, preferably Perl, in a Unix/Linux environment

Ideal Skills

- Substantial experience in the analysis and manipulation of large genomic datasets, including accessing databases via MySQL and/or commonly used bioinformatics APIs, such as the Ensembl Perl API
- Experience in comparative genome, transcriptomics and/or proteomics analyses would be an asset
- Familiarity with statistical analysis of large data sets using R

Other information

Our Benefits include: Defined Benefit Pension Scheme, Group Income Protection, Healthcare scheme, Childcare Vouchers, Nursery and 25 days Annual Leave plus Bank Holidays. We also have a gym, two cafes, a nursery, dining facilities, and a free campus Bus service. Our thriving Sports and Social Club provides many opportunities to meet with people working across the campus.

Please include a covering letter and CV with your application.

Applications will be considered on an ongoing basis.

To apply for this role please click the APPLY button.