Position title: Bioinformatics Research Assistant
Employer: Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Closing date: 6/9/23
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.
The Swarbrick lab are global leaders in the application of cellular genomics to human cancer, to find new diagnostics and treatments for society’s most challenging cancers. We are a diverse multidisciplinary team of scientists and clinicians with a vision to change cancer medicine. More information can be found at https://www.swarbricklab.com/
THE OPPORTUNITY
The Research Assistant is accountable for assisting with bioinformatic analysis of experiments conducted within the Swarbrick Laboratory, with strategic guidance and training from postdoctoral bioinformaticians in the Swarbrick Laboratory.
Major projects include generation of an international, large-scale, multi-omic breast cancer atlas and understanding the cellular mediators of response to cancer immunotherapy in breast cancer and melanoma. The Laboratory is generating substantial single-cell sequencing (scRNA-Seq), spatial transcriptomics and other genomic and proteomic datasets from clinical samples and preclinical models.
This role will suit a computational science/bioinformatics graduate with training and experience in advanced computational techniques and with an interest in cancer biology, spatial biology or cellular genomics.
Salary: $79,500 + 14% super + salary packaging
Employment Type: 2 year term contract
SNAPSHOT OF BENEFITS
Generous salary packaging to save you income tax on your wages thereby boosting your monthly take home pay (max. $15,900 general expenses + $2,650 meals/accom)
Ample opportunities for on-going training and development
Stimulating, diverse and highly international research environment
Flexible work arrangements e.g. start / finish times etc
18 weeks paid parental leave for both parents including paid superannuation
A range of additional leave types to meet your personal needs including cultural leave, conference leave, community service and study leave
Discounted Health Insurance
Lifestyle discounts with our community partners
WHAT YOU WILL DO
Key responsibilities include:
Developing, maintaining and executing bioinformatic pipelines/workflows, particularly in relation to scRNA-seq and spatial transcriptomic data
Contribute to the existing codebase in collaboration with other team members, including debugging, refactoring and enhancing legacy code
Document new code, and make improvements to existing documentation
Track, archive and actively manage raw and processed data in accordance with established procedures and policies
Analyse clinical and experimental data, with an emphasis on relevance to clinical translation
Assist other team members with their analyses
Adopt, test and benchmark analytical packages for incorporation into analyses and standardised pipelines
Present results internally and externally
ABOUT YOU
The position would suit a graduate from a quantitative discipline (bioinformatics, statistics, mathematics, physics, software engineering, information technology, computer science or a related field)
Experience with version control systems, particularly git
Experience with R and/or Python
Experience with workflow control frameworks, such as Snakemake and/or Nextflow
Familiarity with the Unix command line and high-performance computing environments and/or cloud computing
Knowledge of the fundamentals of molecular biology: DNA transcription and translation
Skills in analysis of large molecular datasets, such as WGS, RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, etc. Experience with scRNA-seq and spatial technologies such as Visium or Xenium would be particularly beneficial
Strong commitment to data organisation and implementation of quality controls
Excellent communication skills for written reports and oral presentations
Desire to work co-operatively with other team members
ABOUT GARVAN
The Garvan Institute of Medical Research is an independent Medical Research Institute (MRI) in Sydney, delivering scientific and clinical impact on a global basis and in partnership with organisations that share our vision. We are proud to be one of Australia’s largest and most highly regarded MRI’s.
Our vision is global leadership in discoveries to impact and our enduring purpose is to impact human health, by harnessing information encoded in our genome.
We seek to see our world-class discovery research achieve life-changing impacts, not only for individual patients with rare diseases, but for the many thousands affected by complex, common disease.
Garvan promotes a diverse workplace and is committed to the principles of equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. We are always looking for culture ‘add’, not culture ‘fit’ and are building diverse teams with great sets of complementary styles and skills to help deliver our important work effectively.
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. Only applicants with full working rights in Australia are eligible to apply for this role.
If you have issues opening the link, please email the talent team at Garvan: talent@garvan.org.au
Contact name: Iana Ramos
Contact email: i.ramos@garvan.org.au