Job title: Senior Bioinformatician
Reports to: Bioinformatics Team Leader
Location: Manchester (hybrid role) - 3 days in the Manchester office / 2 days working from home
Contract Type: Full-time, Permanent
Salary & Benefits: Competitive Salary + Benefits Package
About Yourgene Health:
Yourgene Health is a leading integrated technologies and services business, enabling the delivery of genomic medicine. The group works in partnership with global leaders in DNA technology to advance diagnostic science.
Yourgene primarily develops, manufactures, and commercialises simple and accurate molecular diagnostic solutions, for reproductive health, precision medicine and infectious diseases. The Group's flagship in vitro diagnostic products include non-invasive prenatal tests (NIPT) for Down's Syndrome and other genetic disorders, Cystic Fibrosis screening tests, invasive rapid aneuploidy tests and DPYD genotyping.
Description of role:
We have an opportunity for a Senior Bioinformatician to join our Bioinformatics and Software Development team to participate in the design, development and maintenance of the company's assays and bioinformatics pipelines. As a Senior Bioinformatician, you will carry out a range of activities including analysing large data sets, writing standalone bioinformatics pipelines for non-bioinformaticians to analyse data, and developing pipelines integrated into assays and tests across our full portfolio of reproductive health, precision medicine and infectious disease products. You will be responsible for the surveillance of our infectious disease assays against the latest genetic databases ensuring that our products continue to detect all emerging variants as they arise.
Key areas of responsibility:
1. The bioinformatics design of PCR assays using a range of PCR chemistries including ARMS PCR, QF PCR, Taqman, HyBeacon, High resolution melt.
2. Design NGS assays using amplicon and hybrid capture technologies.
3. Lead surveillance of infectious disease assays, curating sequence data and mining public databases.
4. Use bioinformatics tools to assess the performance of assays and analyse large datasets.
5. Write new bioinformatics pipelines and data analysis algorithms for use internally by our product development and genomic services teams, and externally by our customers.
6. Keep up to date with new technologies to improve the design process and enable new product development.
7. Work closely with internal and external collaborators to define the bioinformatics requirements for assays, set timelines and lead design reviews.
8. Lead multiple work packages, providing regular progress reports and delivering timely results.
9. Lead the analysis of large data sets and document development studies, ensuring compliance with all applicable regulatory standards.
10. Provide expert technical support for customers when required.
11. Ensure the completion of research-related documentation (including technical summaries) in line with our ISO15189, ISO13485 and ISO9001 quality management systems.
12. Supervise and mentor junior team members.
Qualifications, Skills and Abilities:
Essential
1. MSc in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics or Biological Science with 5+ years of direct bioinformatics experience.
2. Experience with Linux/Unix environments and proficiency in multiple programming and/or scripting languages (Python and BASH strongly preferred, with R, Perl, Java and C++ all beneficial).
3. Experience in setting up and maintaining bioinformatics pipelines in cloud and server environments (Nextflow, GATK, Picard preferred).
4. Experience in using public databases for the analysis of genomic sequences.
5. Experience in applying diverse bioinformatics tools to either human or microbial genomes.
6. Must have experience in and understanding of design principles for a range of PCR and QPCR assays.
7. Must have knowledge of Next Generation Sequencing technologies and associated bioinformatic analytical approaches.
8. Experience of developing, modifying and debugging code used for data analysis, preferably python.
9. Problem solving skills and ability to respond to sudden unexpected demands.
10. Must be able to use initiative to identify and implement tested solutions to improve processes and services.
11. Must have ability to anticipate and resolve problems before they arise.
12. The ability to work well within a team and have strong written and verbal communication skills is critical.
13. Excellent organizational skills and outstanding attention to detail are required for this role.
Desirable
1. Expertise in sequence analysis tools for mapping and comparative genomics.
2. Experience of working in industry, developing bioinformatics pipelines to analyse genomic data.
3. Direct experience in writing bioinformatics pipelines for NGS data analysis and experience in analysing large datasets.
4. Experience of working within a quality system in a regulated industry is highly advantageous, particularly ISO13485, ISO9001 and/or ISO15189.
5. Experience in statistical analysis of data and a range of statistical packages.
6. Demonstrated experience to lead and deliver complex projects on time.
Closing Date:
Sunday 16th February, 2025
Yourgene Health is committed to encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion among our workforce. The aim is for our workforce to be truly representative of all sections of society and for each employee to feel respected and able to give their best. #J-18808-Ljbffr