PhD Project: Whole genome sequencing of circulating tumour DNA as a diagnostic method to help resolve challenging cancer diagnoses @ VIC

Position title: PhD Project: Whole genome sequencing of circulating tumour DNA as a diagnostic method to help resolve challenging cancer diagnoses

Employer: University of Melbourne

Closing date: 15th January 2022

Brief position description: Defined by the absence of a confirmed cancer type diagnosis, cancer of unknown primary (CUP) is a devastating disease with an exceptionally poor outcome. The Rare Disease Oncogenomics Laboratory at the University of Melbourne Centre for Cancer Research is seeking a PhD student to undertake an exciting project involving development and application of bioinformatic methods for whole genome sequencing analysis of circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) from the blood of cancer patients. This project will involve expert supervision both within and outside our laboratory as well as leveraging significant resources of the SUPER-NEXT study that is currently deploying clinical whole genome sequencing to CUP patients recruited from 16 sites across Australia. The PhD project will have a strong computational focus involving methods for mutation signature detection and ctDNA fragment analysis. The project is highly translational with the goal to develop a ctDNA diagnostic method ready for deployment to CUP patients in the short to medium term. The candidate will require prior experience with unix-like operating systems, R and/or python programming languages
and working in a high-performance computing environment. A strong background in mathematics or statistics is also highly desirable. The candidate will also require a strong academic record and be competitive for internal or external PhD scholarships.

Job website:

Contact name: Richard Tothill

Contact email: rtothill@unimelb.edu.au

Bioinformatics Application Specialist - ABLeS Program, Australian BioCommons @ VIC

Position title: Bioinformatics Application Specialist - ABLeS Program, Australian BioCommons

Employer: The University of Melbourne

Closing date: 05 December 2021

Brief position description: The Australian BioCommons Leadership Share (ABLeS) at The University of Melbourne is an Australian BioCommons program aiming to grow and accelerate the ability to construct, maintain and gain insights from community developed life sciences data assets.

To achieve this outcome, ABLeS is providing communities with access to cloud and high-performance computing infrastructure (HPC), as well as the necessary expertise to use that infrastructure effectively.

The communities engaged will be diverse and represent life scientists researching native flora and fauna, threatened species, microbiomes, agriculture, and others. The infrastructures engaged will be similarly diverse, including Australia’s national supercomputing centres at NCI (Canberra) and Pawsey (Perth), as well as commercial cloud computing platforms.

Fundamental to the success of ABLeS are the software tools and methods various researchers and communities will use to generate and analyse data assets.

This new position will be directly involved in coordinating and supporting high profile research collaborations across Australia that will need to utilise various bioinformatics analyses and infrastructures to produce valuable data assets.

This role will report to the Associate Director of Cyberinfrastructure within the Australian BioCommons at the University of Melbourne. It will also work closely with Bioplatforms Australia, and other community leaders.

This is an excellent opportunity for the incumbent to broaden their experience and build new collaborations in this role of national breadth. The incumbent will have the opportunity to work across significant research communities and major national infrastructure facilities in the first-of-its-kind ABLeS initiative.

Job website: http://jobs.unimelb.edu.au/caw/en/job/907049/bioinformatics-application-specialist-ables-program-australian-biocommons

Contact name: Fiona Kerr

Contact email: fiona.kerr@unimelb.edu.au

Postdoctoral bioinformatic researcher in systems immunology of infectious diseases @ QLD

Position title: Postdoctoral bioinformatic researcher in systems immunology of infectious diseases

Employer: James Cook University

Closing date: 12 December 2021

Brief position description: The Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University is seeking an inspired and talented researcher to join the team. This position is based at the JCU Nguma-bada campus in Cairns, the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest.
With a PhD or equivalent in the field of computational science (such as bioinformatics or computational biology) or biomedical science (such as immunology or cell biology), you will have expertise in bioinformatic analysis using R and other specialist software is required. A background in systems immunology, molecular immunology, single cell analyses, or infectious diseases is advantageous. Excellent computer, communication, and organisational skills are essential. Forward thinking, innovation and creativity are highly encouraged.Vacancy Reference 17691 https://www.aithm.jcu.edu.au/careers/job-opportunities/

Job website: http://www.jcu.edu.au/careers-at-jcu/vacancies

Contact name: Professor Denise Doolan

Contact email: denise.doolan@jcu.edu.au

Senior Scientist - Next Generation Sequencing @ NSW

Position title: Senior Scientist - Next Generation Sequencing

Employer: Garvan Institute of Medical Research

Closing date: 12/12/2021

Brief position description: The Garvan Institute of Medical Research (Garvan/Institute) is one of Australia’s leading medical research institutes, with over 700 scientists, students and support staff. Its mission is to make significant contributions to medical research that will change the directions of science and medicine and have major impacts on human health. Garvan’s research encompasses bone biology, cancer, diabetes and metabolism, genomics and epigenetics, immunology, and neuroscience. These research activities are organised within four encompassing Research Themes: Cancer, Genomics & Epigenetics, Healthy Ageing, Immunity & Inflammation, and three major Centres: the Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics, the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics, and the Centre for Population Genomics.

KCCG Sequencing Laboratory (KCCGSL) assists realising this mission by providing accredited molecular genetics and genomic sequencing services to medical researchers utilising state-of-the-art sequencing & bioinformatics technologies, supported by industry-leading laboratory automation and high performance computing infrastructure.

The Opportunity
The KCCGSL senior scientist (NGS) will lead the continuous improvement of the laboratory through process review, improvement identification, stakeholder engagement as well as project design, planning and implementation. We are seeking an experienced NGS scientist that is a creative and proactive problem solver with excellent communication and project management skills. The successful candidate is expected to take on a leadership role within the laboratory, utilising their experience and expertise across multiple functions to enable the laboratory to meet its strategic goals.

This is a 2 year fixed-term fulltime position with a base salary between $93,298 and $105,578 (depending on experience) plus 10% superannuation, salary packaging benefits and flexible working arrangements.

Culture
The more these values sound like you, and describe the people you want to work with, the more likely you will thrive as a Garvanite:
• Innovative - We are curious, deep thinkers who challenge established ideas and prevailing assumptions – unafraid to do things differently.
• Inspire Excellence - We have the very highest standards – relentlessly pursuing excellence through continuous improvement
• Be Collaborative - We seek out diversity of thought in pursuit of the best possible outcome – valuing insights from across Garvan and beyond
• Act with Integrity - We do the right thing – acting ethically and respectfully, communicating openly, valuing diversity and embracing all perspectives.
• Be Brave - We take calculated risks and pursue brave choices – doing the hard things every day, to achieve the extraordinary

Key Responsibilities
The position will be responsible for the following activities:
• Work closely with the Laboratory Manager, Principal Scientist, Head of Research & Development, Project Manager and other team members to ensure timely and effective prioritisation of sequencing projects.
• Lead continuous improvement projects in the lab including but not limited to development of new QC procedures, introduction of new equipment or methods and LIMS workflow management.
• Participate and co-ordinate investigations to troubleshoot existing methods and processes as required within the sequencing lab and work cross functionally with the bioinformatics team to achieve a resolution.
• Design and manage experiments, independently interpret and report results.
• Manage and co-ordinate technical enquiries including project scoping for internal and external researchers.
• Actively participate in the training and mentorship of junior staff.
• Other duties as delegated

Snap shot of benefits
• Generous salary packaging ($15,900 for general household expenses and $2,650 for meal/entertainment allowance on top of base salary)
• On going training and development
• Flexible work arrangements
• 18 weeks paid parental leave
• Additional day’s leave as Garvan Day
• Discounted Health Insurance
• Lifestyle discounts with our community partners

About You
The key skills and experience include:
• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology, Biotechnology or Genetics
• 3+ years of experience in utilising Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies. Familiarity with illumina technology will be highly regarded.
• 2+ years of leadership experience preferred
• Experience in the maintenance of quality management systems in a regulated (ISO) environment
• Demonstrated experience in the implementation of new workflow processes such as laboratory information management systems (LIMS), automated liquid handling procedures and new equipment
• Demonstrated experience in project management and coordinating a team
• Proven ability to independently troubleshoot and resolve complex issues
• Proven ability to handle a range of technical enquiries from diverse applications
• Ability to assess and organise resources, and to plan and progress work activities to strict deadlines.
• Excellent written and verbal literacy skills to prepare and present various reports

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: https://garvan.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/garvan_institute/job/Sydney/Senior-Applications-Scientist_PRF6084-1

Contact name: Talent Team

Contact email: talent@garvan.org.au

Computational Biologist / Bioinformatics Data Scientist @ QLD

Position title: Computational Biologist / Bioinformatics Data Scientist

Employer: James Cook University

Closing date: 02/12/21

Brief position description: We offer an exciting opportunity for a Computational Biologist / Bioinformatics Data Scientist (salary $68,350 - $113,201) to join our world-leading institution at James Cook University (JCU). A full time, fixed term appointment to 31 December 2024, this position is based at JCU Bebegu-Yumba campus in Townsville.

What you can accomplish in the Role:
James Cook University (JCU) is a world leader in specific areas of the molecular life sciences, and tropical/infectious diseases. Building on our recent discoveries, we are now seeking an innovative and enthusiastic early career researcher to work in the areas of bioinformatics software development, multi-omics data analysis, RNA biology and cancer. Collaborating with a strong group of professionals, you will have the opportunity to develop and conduct teaching and research activities in bioinformatics/computational biology in relation to basic molecular biology and in non-communicable diseases such as cancer.

What you will bring to the Role:
You will have recently completed, or about to be awarded, your PhD, on the relevant areas of bioinformatics, computational biology, software engineering, biostatistics or related disciplines and have experience in next generation sequencing data analysis (genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics) and machine learning. You will demonstrate enthusiasm and capacity for teaching bioinformatics/computational biology and will contribute to research activities, including sourcing and applying for new funding, and will actively publish in internationally peer reviewed literature.

Why JCU:
JCU offers a culturally diverse working environment with opportunities for professional and personal growth as well as diverse career opportunities. JCU prides itself on being dedicated to teaching, learning and research that is not only of high quality, but also delivers practical benefits to the peoples and industries of the region.

We support our people through the provision of:
• generous superannuation scheme with 17% employer contributions
• ongoing professional and career development
• attractive options for salary packaging

How to Apply
Visit the Careers at JCU website - vacancy reference 17672

Job website: http://myhronline.jcu.edu.au/ords/hrprodords/WK8227$VDC1.Startup?P_VACANCY_REF_NO=17672

Contact name: Ulf Schmitz

Contact email: ulf.schmitz@jcu.edu.au

Technology Manager - Bioinformatics @ NSW

Position title: Technology Manager - Bioinformatics

Employer: Australian Proteome Analysis Facility - Macquarie University

Closing date: 10 November 2021

Brief position description: This role will lead the Bioinformatics team at the Australian Proteome Analysis Facility (APAF) at Macquarie University. Reporting to the APAF Manager you will contribute to the development and delivery of APAF's strategy, taking a lead role within the specialist stream of Bioinformatics. This role will involve working with clients and APAF staff to develop and implement optimal Bioinformatics solutions and analysis ensuring that they operate in a robust, accurate, cost effective and timely manner. You will manage and contribute expert advice for the day to day operations, projects, initiatives and resourcing for Bioinformatics, ensuring a highly professional and effective service is provided to clients, team members, users and stakeholders. And establish, implement, document and test informatics methods, tools and capabilities,and carry out validation and verification of tools and analyses to be used in NATA-accredited testing.

Job website: http://mq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/CareersatMQ/job/North-Ryde-Campus/Technology-Manager---Bioinformatics_R000003636-1

Contact name: Belinda Schiller

Contact email: belinda.schiller@mq.edu.au

Bioinformatician – Human Gut Microbiome Metabolism

Position title: Bioinformatician – Human Gut Microbiome Metabolism

Employer: Microba Life Sciences

Closing date: Open until filled

Brief position description: We are seeking an enthusiastic, talented and experienced computational biologist / bioinformatician of gut microbiome metabolism. Microba currently has a globally unique data set consisting of over 10,000 proprietary metagenomes, over 1 million high quality microbial genome sequences, and a large biobank of microbial isolates. In this role, you will build world-class bioinformatic applications and methodologies that describe the natural metabolic functions of these organisms and gut microbial ecology at scale. You will also assist in the interpretation of these results for internal and external stakeholders and in primary research activities to determine how interventional modulation of the microbiome can improve metabolic function of the gut microbiome. This is a senior role and would suit a biologist with applied bioinformatics skills or an experienced bioinformatician with a demonstrated track record in metabolism related research and tool development.

There are opportunities for publications, conference attendance and the production of white papers. This is a rare opportunity to apply your scientific expertise and skills to an innovative platform making a real impact on health and well being.

Key activities/duties

- Build annotation pipelines using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and other appropriate methods to functionally annotate gene sequences
- Determine through direct interrogation and/or validated imputation the core and secondary metabolic functions of genomes and species by reconstructing annotated pathways in-silico
- Quantification of community gene and pathway encoded potential in-vivo through development and application of appropriate bioinformatics and statistical methods
- Validate methods with targeted in-silico and in-vitro experiments.
- Interpret functional data for meaningful knowledge acquisition
- Assist internal teams for Research, Platform and Consumer products in communication of metabolic and functional information to clients
- Communicate results to external research and corporate clients as required
- Assist the Science Team to author in depth reports for corporate clients about functional outputs and experiment relevant functional signals

Job website: http://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/2722248452/

Contact name: David Wood

Contact email: david.wood@microba.com

Bioinformatics postdoc @ VIC

Position title: Bioinformatics postdoc

Employer: St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research

Closing date: October 15th 2021

Brief position description: The DNA Repair and Recombination Laboratory is an established research group at SVI, focused on understanding the genetic control of DNA repair and recombination and the role that these processes play in inheritance and oncofertility. We are seeking a bioinformatician who loves what they do and who wants to work closely with wetlab researchers. You will be a key member of the team for all experimental stages from planning through to data analysis. You will be a self-motivated researcher with a PhD, first author publications and trained in bioinformatics and genomics, statistics, computation and reproducible analyses. The role will be a mixture of semi-autonomous research and providing support as required to the wetlab part of the team. You will have the opportunity to develop your own research projects by negotiation.

To address our biological questions, we use a number of tools that produce large datasets which includes: bulk high-throughput sequencing of genomic DNA, single-cell sequencing of genomic DNA, immunofluorescence microscopy, whole animal phenotyping from pedigrees, and other cell-based phenotypic datasets. The team is specifically interested in performing discovery research and identifying and characterising phenotypes which in turn improves our understanding of our biological interests.

Having a diverse workforce that represents the global and Australian community is very important to our team and we actively encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, people with disabilities, from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, LGBTQIA+ people, and all genders.

Please apply using the specific instructions on the Seek job ad.

Job website: http://www.seek.com.au/job/54189979?type=promoted#searchRequestToken=c6d6e91f-7ecf-4c20-b1c6-d0b371ae097e

Contact name: Wayne Crismani

Contact email: wcrismani@svi.edu.au

Research Assistant @ QLD

Position title: Research Assistant

Employer: The University of Queensland

Closing date: 8 October 2021

Brief position description: About This Opportunity
The Mowry Lab seeks an experienced Research Assistant with a background in Bioinformatics, Statistical Genetics, or a related field. The individual will be responsible for conducting sample and genetic variant quality control in genotyping and sequencing studies, developing and executing bioinformatics pipelines using high-performance computing clusters, and developing, deploying and managing research software for the proposed lab’s web portal.

Our Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate will demonstrate computer programming experience and experience using Bioinformatics applications. They will also possess a Bachelors or Masters in Bioinformatics or related fields such as Computer Science, Mathematics or Statistics. Other desirable experience and skills include the following:

Experience in Machine/Deep learning
Experience in Statistical/population genetics
Experience in Next-generation sequence analysis
Experience in using Linux operating systems and cluster computing for analysing scientific data
Experience in programming using shell scripts, R, Python or JAVA
Experience in releasing opensource software (R or python packages for genomic data analysis)
Knowledge of Systems Biology

For application queries, please contact recruitment@uq.edu.au stating the job number in the subject line.
Please apply online via the job website.

Job website: http://search.careers.uq.edu.au/caw/en/job/516231/research-assistant

Contact name: Sathish Periyasamy

Contact email: s.periyasamy@uq.edu.au

Bioinformatics Research Officer: Large-scale cancer omics and methods development @ VIC

Position title: Bioinformatics Research Officer: Large-scale cancer omics and methods development

Employer: Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

Closing date: 18 October 2021

Brief position description: Job Description
An exciting new opportunity exists for a talented and motivated bioinformatics researcher to join our research team to develop bioinformatics methods and apply them to large-scale cancer genomics and other omics data from rare cancer, prostate cancer and melanoma.

About the position
The position will involve developing novel analytical methods for sequence data, including new technologies like long reads, and using these data to contribute to new insights into mutational processes in cancer.

The successful candidate(s) will join a dynamic team of computational scientists in a supportive and flexible working environment. They will be encouraged to develop new research directions that complement existing themes within the lab and have the opportunity to establish and contribute to collaborative research projects and to gain supervision experience.

Selection Criteria
The successful candidate(s) will have a PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Bioinformatics or Computational Biology, strong computational and programming skills, experience developing new algorithms, some familiarity with machine learning, and a keen interest in cancer.

Job website: https://wehi.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/WEHI/job/Parkville-Victoria-Australia/Bioinformatics-Research-Officer--Large-scale-cancer-omics-and-methods-development_JR0000229-1

Contact name: Tony Papenfuss

Contact email: papenfuss@wehi.edu.au