Senior Bioinformatician

Duration of post: Fixed term until 31 March 2027

About the role:

The CRUK National Biomarker Centre (NBC) has an international reputation for liquid biomarkers, with the aim to develop, validate and implement biomarkers that facilitate cancer precision medicine through improved cancer detection, prognosis prediction, and prediction and monitoring of patient response to therapy.  Our research integrates clinical, molecular and computational science into a highly convergent programme, with advanced computational biology playing a critical role in our biomarker agenda.

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Bioinformatician to join the Bioinformatics and Biostatistics (BBS) Team within NBC. The successful applicant will work alongside a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, biologists, statisticians, bioinformaticians and computational scientists to analyse genomic, epigenomic and transcriptomic data arising from patient blood samples, including cfDNA, cfRNA and circulating tumour cells. The primary focus will be to develop and apply a wide range of computational tools/pipelines to sequencing data arising from liquid or tissue biopsies, for the development and validation of novel biomarkers that help better characterise patient tumours.

About you:

You will have a degree in computational biology/bioinformatics, or related discipline (or equivalent relevant experience) plus significant data analysis and/or bioinformatics pipeline experience. Alternatively, you will have a postgraduate degree related to cancer biology with demonstrable data analysis and/or bioinformatics pipeline experience.

You will have relevant experience in data analysis (preferably with R/Bioconductor or Python) and/or have experience working with bioinformatics pipelines (e.g., Nextflow), be able to work comfortably on the Linux command line. Having a grasp of the statistical approaches used to analyse genome-wide datasets would be an advantage. An understanding of liquid biopsies, cancer genomics, and/or cancer biology are also desirable. You will have strong communication skills and a desire to work collaboratively with scientists from other disciplines along with the ability to work well within a multidisciplinary team.

This role would be suitable for a specialist in data analysis and/or bioinformatics pipelines wishing to expand upon their cancer related knowledge, or a cancer bench scientist transitioning into a career in computational analysis.

Why choose Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre?

The Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre is a leading and highly specialised translational research centre within The University of Manchester (www.manchester.ac.uk), core funded by Cancer Research UK (www.cancerresearchuk.org), the largest independent cancer research organisation in the world.

Our Centre discovers, develops, validates and qualifies biomarkers in clinical studies and trials that detect cancer earlier and predict and monitor therapy responses to support optimised treatment of patients with cancer. Our advanced research programmes, agnostic to cancer type, develop biomarkers in tissue and less invasive clinical samples such as blood (liquid biopsy) with sophisticated bioinformatic and artificial intelligence solutions for multi-modal laboratory and clinical biomarker data analysis and interpretation. Our preclinical programmes focus on development of pharmacodynamic biomarker and evaluation the efficacy of novel therapeutics in patient derived models. As a bridge between discovery science and clinical research, we are highly collaborative across Manchester, nationally and internationally.

How to apply?

To apply for this position please visit our website: https://www.cruk.manchester.ac.uk/recruitment/candidate/searchvacancies

For any informal enquiries about this post, please contact Dr Dominic Rothwell: dominic.rothwell@cruk.manchester.ac.uk

The deadline for receipt of applications is 5 May 2024.

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