Staff Scientist - Computational

Karlstad University; Hinxton, Saffron Walden; On-site; GBP 44,000 - 52,000; Full time

Job description

Do you want to help us improve human health and understand life on Earth? Make your mark by shaping the future to enable or deliver life-changing science to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges.

This position will lead the development of innovative computational workflows for multi-omics analysis of the human gut microbiota. You will collaborate with experimental and computational scientists, contributing to biological data interpretation, pipeline development, and high-impact microbiome research.

This is an exciting opportunity to work at the cutting edge of microbiome science, using advanced computational methods to uncover novel microbial functions with translational potential.

You will be responsible for:

• Developing and maintaining computational pipelines for processing and analysing microbiome multi-omics data.
• Collaborating with wet-lab team members to facilitate data interpretation and integrate findings into biological experiments.
• Supervising and training scientists and trainees in bioinformatics and microbiome analysis.
• Leading or contributing to the writing of research manuscripts for peer-reviewed publications.
• Supporting the development of grant proposals for internal and external funding.
• Building and maintaining collaborations with external stakeholders, contributing to joint research projects.
• Driving scientific outputs, including contributions to the group’s research strategy.

About You:
We are looking for a highly motivated computational scientist with expertise in microbial genomics and bioinformatics. You should be passionate about microbiome data analysis, have experience working with large-scale datasets, and be comfortable in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment.

Essential Technical Skills:

• PhD in microbial genomics, bioinformatics, or a related field, or equivalent working experience in a related discipline.
• Skills and experience in processing and analysing large omics datasets, including at least two or three of the following: metagenomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics, spatial imaging, or long-read sequencing data.
• Expertise in bacterial and microbiome functional analysis, including integrative analyses with multi-omics data.
• Proficiency in Python and/or R for scripting and pipeline development, ensuring reproducible data analysis.
• Ability to develop, implement and run computational pipelines on high-performance computing clusters.

Essential Competencies and Behaviours:

• Proven ability to develop and maintain effective working relationships with internal and external stakeholders of differing background, abilities and knowledge.
• Ability to communicate effectively with scientists from multiple disciplines, including experimental, computational and clinical.
• Attention to detail and ability to work to tight timelines.
• Ability to innovate and work independently.
• Experience in teaching and training bioinformatics and analytics skills.
• Willingness to share data, resources and code in an open and reproducible manner.
• Proven ability to deliver research projects to completion.
• Strong publication record with a demonstrated ability to draft scientific papers.

About Us:

This position is based in Dr Trevor Lawley’s team at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, a world-leading research group investigating the human gut microbiota. Our team applies cutting-edge computational and experimental approaches to understand microbial functions, host-microbe interactions, and translational applications. We collaborate with international research groups, combining metagenomics, functional genomics, and synthetic biology to advance microbiome-based therapeutics.

This role provides an exciting opportunity to work in a world-class genomics institute, engaging in high-impact microbiome research that contributes to human health and disease prevention.

Application Process:

Please apply with your CV and a cover letter explaining your motivation for applying and how your skills and experience meet the application criteria.

Salary per annum: £44,890 to £52,000 dependent upon skills and experience.

Recruitment Process: Shortlisting w/c 28th April, Interviews w/c 6th May.

Contract Type: 3 years Core Funding.