Position title: Computational Biologist

Employer: Garvan Institute of Medical Research

Closing date: 30/06/2021

Brief position description: The Garvan Institute of Medical Research brings together world-leading clinicians and basic and translational researchers to break down barriers between traditional scientific disciplines and find solutions to disease. Founded in 1963, Garvan’s mission is to harness all the information encoded in our genome to better diagnose, treat, predict and prevent disease.

Our scientists work across four intersecting research themes: medical genomics, epigenetics, and cellular genomics; diseases of immunity and inflammation; cancer; and diseases of ageing affecting bone, brain and metabolism. In addition, Garvan has three major Centres: The Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics, the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics, and the Centre for Population Genomics.

This position is based in the Centre for Population Genomics (CPG), a joint initiative of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research (Garvan) in Sydney and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne.

CPG’s vision is a world in which genomic information enables comprehensive disease prediction, accurate diagnosis and effective therapeutics for all people. CPG’s purpose is: To establish respectful partnerships with diverse communities, collect and analyse genomic data at transformative scale and drive genomic discovery and equitable genomic medicine in Australia.

CPG is led by experts in community engagement, software development, genomic analysis and project management. Director Daniel MacArthur previously served as the co-director of Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he led the development of the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD), the largest and most widely used collection of human DNA sequencing data in the world.

The Opportunity

We are seeking a Computational Biologist to contribute to the development of novel analysis pipelines for large-scale genomic datasets, to apply these pipelines to increasingly large human genomic data sets, and to work closely with other Centre staff and external researchers to carry out and publish novel analyses of the data. The Computational Biologist will join a highly collaborative team including other analysis and methods development staff, software engineers, project managers, communities specialists, and trainees.

As part of the mission of the Centre for Population Genomics, this team will be responsible for handling data generated through new sequencing projects as well as the aggregation of public resources to create a new resource for human genetics that reflects the remarkable population diversity of Australia. The team will also manage genome, exome, RNA-seq and other genomic data sets from rare disease patients and their family members, with the goal of improving the diagnosis of severe genetic diseases. These analyses will be performed within a scalable cloud-based computational platform. The resulting data sets and software will be widely shared with the broader research community, maximising their impact on science and health outcomes.

While this position will involve direct exposure to cutting-edge genomic science, the measures of success and promotion will be on developing and deploying complex analysis methods at scale, and not on traditional academic metrics such as leading publications. These positions are centrally funded and are not dependent on fellowships or other fundraising. These roles will be best-suited to individuals with a strong track record of scientific output who are interested in continuing to contribute to impactful science but not in the traditional academic career track.

To adapt to the impact of COVID-19, we have launched the Centre under a completely remote model and are open to remote positions over the longer term.

This is a 3-year full-time position with an annual salary range between $92,000 - $120,000k taking into consideration skillset and experience, plus superannuation and salary packaging benefits and the possibility to extend.

Key Responsibilities

The Computational Biologist will be part of the Centre’s Analysis Team, which will be responsible for developing scalable pipelines for complex genomic analyses, for working closely with the Centre’s software development team to implement these at production scale across data from tens of thousands of individuals, and for performing quality control and analysis across the resulting data sets. This team will be composed of members with diverse skills across computational biology, statistical genetics, and population genetics, working collaboratively to create these pipelines, perform analyses, and contribute extensively to the publication of high-impact science.

The key responsibilities include:

Developing novel approaches, and rigorously benchmarking existing approaches, for the analysis of large-scale genome sequencing, RNA-seq, single-cell RNA-seq, and other genomic data types across tens of thousands of human samples

Developing prototype code for analysis approaches, and working closely with a software engineering team to ensure this code can be deployed at scale and shared as open-source software

Performing rigorous quality control and analysis of massive genomic data sets

Meeting regularly with Centre trainees and other scientific staff to identify major challenges in data handling and analysis, and work proactively with other team members to define solutions

Contributing actively to scientific discussions around the best approaches to make sense of the large data sets generated and handled by the Centre

Contributing actively to the development of programming and analysis best practices through regular code review meetings and other activities such as pair programming

About You

The key skills and experience include:

Either a masters or PhD in computational biology, functional genomics, machine learning, statistics, or a related field, or an equivalent total amount of direct work experience in these fields

Considerable experience with Python and R, or similar

Demonstrated experience working in high-performance or cloud computing environments

Demonstrated experience with version control and software repositories

Direct experience in performing quality control and analysis of genomic data sets or other complex data types

Highly autonomous and self-motivated: able to define and manage the execution of novel strategies for analysis across their domain of expertise

Good written communication skills: able to contribute effectively to papers and technical reports

A genuine passion for open-source software development, and contributing code to the wider computational biology ecosystem

Highly collaborative: more focused on solving important biological and medical problems by working with others than with securing individual credit and willing to engage with other team members from a diverse range of background to execute on complex scientific tasks

A problem-solving mentality: able to navigate a complex and dynamic series of technical obstacles, and to pivot rapidly when needed, to build a first-of-its-kind research project; someone who identifies problems even if they fall outside their immediate mandate, and works with other team members to solve them

DESIRABLE SKILLS

Direct experience with cloud computing, and the analysis of very large genomic data sets, would be beneficial

Direct experience in complex data visualization or machine learning approaches would also be a plus

How to Apply

To apply for this position, please submit your application with a CV and cover letter as one document, stating why you are interested in this role. We are reviewing applications as they are received. If you think you’re the right person for this role, we’d love to hear how your capabilities, achievements and experience set you apart. Only applicants with full working rights in Australia are eligible to apply for this role.

Job website: http://garvan.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/garvan_institute/job/Sydney/Computational-Biologist_PRF5972

Contact name: Michelle Earle

Contact email: talent@garvan.org.au