Postdoc Position Bioinformatics at University of Cambridge

We wish to appoint a Bioinformatician within the Autism Research Centre (ARC) at the University of Cambridge. Specifically, the post-holder will work on the “Investigating autism using genetics and epigenetics” (IMAGE) study. This is funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. and the Autism Research Trust, with the aim of investigating the genetics and epigenetics of autism and related traits. The project is in its final year, hence this being a one year contract. This is an exciting opportunity because all of the data are already collected and are ready for analysis towards publication.

The Bioinformatician will work with the Director, Research Associate, and other members of the Autism Research Centre (ARC). The post-holder will be responsible for (a) implementing existing bioinformatics tools and pipelines from scientific literature for variant calling and quality control of human genome and epigenome sequence data, and (b) analysis of data related to the IMAGE project. The post-holder may work in collaboration with other labs and service providers including the Gurdon Institute and the High Performance Computing Service (HPCS), and will also provide support to related projects in the ARC in terms of experimental design, statistics, bioinformatics data visualisation, and analysis.

Applicants should have a PhD in a relevant discipline (e.g. bioinformatics, genetics, computer science or big data analysis). Applicants must have advanced knowledge and experience in and previous experience in the following areas: 1. Working with whole genome sequencing (WGS) data and knowledge of the relevant command line tools in a Linux environment; 2. Scripting and statistical languages including but not limited to R and Python.

Knowledge of genetics and psychiatric genetics and statistical methods in human genetic data is an advantage but not essential.

The applicant should be able to work independently, as well as have good communication skills as they will need to work well in a team and collaborate with other researchers and students.

Informal enquiries may be directed to Paula Smith (pls28@medschl.cam.ac.uk).

Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available until 14 December 2019 in the first instance.

The closing date is 13 January 2019, with interviews to be held mid-January.

Please ensure that you upload a covering letter and CV in the Upload section of the online application. If you upload any additional documents which have not been requested, we will not be able to consider these as part of your application.

Please include details of your referees, including email address and phone number, one of which must be your most recent line manager.