Job opportunity: Bioinformatician
Closing date: 11 November 2013
Enquiries to: Dr Tobias Ost R&D Manager (toby@cegx.co.uk)
If you think there is more to life than four bases, a career at Cambridge Epigenetix could be just what you’re looking for.
The Company:
Cambridge Epigenetix (CEGX), founded in 2012 by Prof Balasubramanian (inventor of Solexa sequencing, the chemistry underpinning the Illumina NGS platforms), is a spinout biosciences company from the University of Cambridge developing new, innovative tools for the DNA modification and epigenetics market. We have recently launched our first product, TrueMethyl, a kit that allows the quantitative identification of modified cytosine bases 5-methylcytosine and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine at single base resolution, and are looking to expand this offering with future products, fuelled by our strong and expanding R&D portfolio. CEGX has recently relocated to Babraham Research Campus – an epigenetics centre of excellence and we have strong links with leading sequencing and epigenetics groups in the Cambridge area. Syncona Partners and Cambridge Enterprise fund CEGX.
The Role:
We are seeking an experienced Bioinformatician to strengthen our R&D group and play an integral role in the development and support of our growing Epigenetics tools product portfolio. This is a rapidly expanding area of research and as such we are looking for talented individuals who are motivated by the prospect of a new and exciting challenge and who can deliver the effective knowhow and assurance necessary to guide our development. The successful candidate should be skilled in the analysis of complex genomic datasets and data mining to improve our understanding of our processes and products. The ability to develop in silico models that simulate the performance of our technology is also an aspect of the role we would like to exploit and take advantage of. A desire to support the internal R&D team as well as the technical demands of our customer base would be imperative. Experience in high-throughput sequencing and array platforms and familiarity with the field of epigenetics and DNA modifications would be essential. This post will be based at the Babraham Research Campus and work closely with the Babraham Bioinformatics group led by Dr Simon Andrews (developer of Bismark).
Job Requirements:
- PhD in Bioinformatics, computer engineering or equivalent experience.
- Experience working with next-generation sequencing data, familiarity with analysing bisulfite data and using the Bismark algorithm would be desirable but is not essential.
- Experience with one or more of Java, Python and Perl programming languages.
- Experience with common databases and genome browsers (e.g. NCBI Genbank, IGV etc.).
- Ability to perform complex analyses in a time sensitive fashion.
- Ability to design and code new algorithms for analysis of NGS data sets.
- Strong background in statistical analysis of (epi)genomic data.
- Knowledge and appreciation for next generation sequencing and its myriad applications.
- Knowledge of R or other data analysis software a plus.
- Strong organisational and communication skills.
- Demonstrated capability of high quality work and keen attention to detail.
- Ability to work independently or as a member of a fast-paced multifunctional development team.
- Experience of product development and reducing concepts to practice would be attractive.
Responsibilities would include:
- Work collaboratively to analyse and data mine R&D datasets for process development improvement purposes.
- Adapt and tailor existing informatics workflows to suit the expanding CEGX product portfolio.
- Develop in silico models that can be used to simulate appropriate performance criteria.
- Define standard experimental design and analysis workflows that will enable our user base and simplify the adoption of our technology.
- Troubleshoot aspects of existing products to fix problems and develop innovative solutions.
- Work proactively to support our customer base triaging and troubleshooting questions.
- Ad hoc participation in a variety of other company-critical activities.
