Research Fellow in Bioinformatics

An exciting opportunity to join the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit (SCTU), within the University of Southampton, as an Early Career Bioinformatician.

The SCTU is a UKCRC registered CTU and is core-funded by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) together with funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). SCTU is a leading academic CTU with expertise in the design, conduct, and publication of clinical trials and other well-designed studies, managing a growing portfolio (75% cancer, 25% non-cancer) that covers the complete spectrum of clinical practice.

As part of our CRUK and NIHR infrastructure, we have close working relationships with our partners, including the Southampton Experimental Cancer Research Centre, NIHR BRC & RSS, University Hospital Southampton, the Centre for Cancer Immunology discovery community, and CRUK Centres and Institutes across the UK.

The Role

We are seeking a highly motivated and enthusiastic Early Career Bioinformatician to apply and develop their computational skills in a clinical research setting. This is a unique opportunity for a recent PhD graduate or early postdoctoral researcher to play a key role in developing and implementing bioinformatics workflows that support our cutting-edge clinical trials, with a focus on 'omics data analysis.

You will be responsible for providing bioinformatics support and expertise for clinical trials, including contributing to project designs and funding bids. You will collaborate closely with our clinical, statistical, and data management teams to ensure a seamless and effective workflow. Your work will involve developing and implementing bioinformatics pipelines from raw data, applying a range of advanced statistical, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to analyse 'omics and clinical data, and contributing to the development of biomarkers and predictive models. A critical part of your role will be to ensure all data and workflows are reproducible and shareable, aligning with our 'data lake to discovery' approach under FAIR principles.

This role also includes a focus on enterprise and knowledge exchange, where you will contribute to sharing knowledge with our partners in the CRUK network and engaging in potential collaborations with industry. You will be expected to continuously engage in professional development, exploring new tools and methods relevant to clinical trial applications.

About You

The successful candidate must have a PhD in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, or a closely related field (or be nearing completion of their qualification). You will have demonstrable experience in programming with R and a strong understanding of statistical analysis methods. We are looking for a highly collaborative and communicative individual with a proactive and positive attitude towards professional development.

Desirable Skills

While not essential, experience in setting up and running bioinformatics pipelines (e.g., using Snakemake or Nextflow), experience with HPC environments, knowledge of machine learning, and an interest in large language models (LLMs) would be highly advantageous.

Terms of Appointment

This position is full-time, fixed-term for a period of 2 years (in the first instance as CTU core funding is on a 5-year basis with a future application for renewal). The employing organisation is the University of Southampton, which offers a competitive salary, pension scheme, and generous holiday entitlement.

For informal queries, please contact Dr. Umar Niazi, Senior Bioinformatician, SCTU: u.niazi@soton.ac.uk

For a full list of accountabilities, responsibilities, and the complete person specification, please refer to the detailed Job Description.

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