Data Engineer/Bioinformatician– Systems Chemical Biology
This is a full time, fixed term contract position on Crick terms and conditions of employment for 4 years.
The successful candidate will be part of a dynamic, multi-disciplinary team working to develop a Systems Chemical Biology approach to biomedical research through combination of high-content screening screening, next generation chemistry and cutting-edge genomics in disease relevant biological systems. Resulting full matrix datasets will be interrogated using bioinformatics and machine learning technologies to accelerate the selection of new drug targets. The candidate will be supported in order to lead their own projects. This is a multi-faceted project with a strongly interdisciplinary focus. The project will be co-supervised by Crick and GSK scientists and has considerable scope to evolve with collaborators e.g. Simon Boulton, Katrin Rittinger, Caroline Hill
Summary
This is an exciting opportunity to join one of the world’s leading research institutes as part of the Crick-GSK LinkLabs collaboration at a crucial time in its evolution and play a definitive role in shaping it for the future. We seek a talented, highly motivated candidate with experience analysing high-content imaging ‘omics data sets with a strong knowledge of programming language(s).
The role will reside within the ITO-Scientific Computing division within the Francis Crick Institute and will work closely with the Crick-GSK LinkLabs team, including high-content imaging and ‘omics scientists, database administrators as well as machine learning engineers. The successful candidate will be responsible for bioinformatics analyses of large high-content data sets to probe molecule, protein and phenotype associations in disease relevant biological systems and generate insights into disease biology to identify targets, pathways and compounds offering therapeutic potential.
Key responsibilities
These include but are not limited to:
Perform bioinformatics analyses of large high-content data sets to probe the relationship between molecule, protein, gene and phenotype to interrogate biological systems in the context of disease biology.
Drive the implementation of state-of-the-art bioinformatics techniques to interrogate emerging data sets, add biological context and integrate data from multiple platforms.
Contribute to the overall data science strategy for the Systems Chemical Biology Platform being developed within the GSK-Crick LinkLab partnership, extracting data insights from the primary data and developing integration with external datasets.
Work closely with Crick and GSK researchers (e.g. Proteomics, High Content Screening, Chemistry, Data and Machine Learning) to guide experimental design and drive the interpretation of outcomes.
Analyse, assimilate, and communicate complex scientific data clearly and concisely to members of the team and the broader scientific community.
Key qualifications, experience and competencies
The post holder should embody and demonstrate our core Crick values: bold, imaginative, open, dynamic and collegial, in addition to the following:
Essential
PhD in bioinformatics, computational biology, cheminformatics, ‘omics, computer science, or a related field; or MSc and 3 years of work experience in the fields above.
Demonstrable experience with large biological datasets and data integration from multiple bioinformatics sources.
Experience of analysing large scale data to support biomedical sciences with a focus on ‘omics (proteomics, genomics, metabolomics) and/or other high-content screening platforms e.g., cell painting.
Knowledge of and experience with common bioinformatics databases, resources and tools, including pathway and network methods.
Experience in using a programming language (such as R, Python and/or SQL) for complex data analysis.
Skills to collect, integrate, mine and analyze complex biological data and translate them into testable hypotheses.
Experience of creating data models and using Relational and/or NoSQL database technologies e.g. PostgreSQL, MongoDB Experience of version control software e.g. GitHub, and project task management environment e.g. JIRA. Able to work effectively without close supervision, working successfully and collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to build effective relationships at all levels and to communicate technical concepts to a non-technical audience Highly motivated, self-starter and committed to their learning and personal improvement
Desirable
Experience of knowledge in any of the following areas would be beneficial:
Qualifications, experience and competencies:
Experience building and/or working with data visualisation tools
Chemistry awareness/familiarity with the following concepts: SMILES, InChI Keys, Tanimoto similarity, etc.
Exposure to Machine Learning.
Scientific Computing and Crick-GSK LinkLabs
This Crick–GSK LinkLabs collaboration is aimed at developing a Systems Chemical Biology platform to enable simultaneous identification of disease-associated proteins and functional chemical probes. The project is funded by an EPSRC Prosperity Partnership award that brings together multiple research groups at the Crick and GSK to pioneer reactive fragments and high-content screening technologies in cells (https://www.crick.ac.uk/news/2021-04-02_francis-crick-institute-and-gsk-to-pioneer-reactive-fragment-screening-in-drug-discovery and https://www.crick.ac.uk/news/2019-02-08_benefits-of-moving-in-together ).
