Senior Bioinformatician : Boston, MA, United States


Harvard NeuroDiscovery serves neuroscientists from across the Harvard Medical School community and beyond, providing a range of core facilities, research platforms and funding opportunities to investigators that seek to understand the nervous system and to use that understanding to reduce disease burden. We embrace the broad spectrum of neurobiological investigation, from the most fundamental research, through applied translational research. We also promote a more collaborative biomedical neuroscience research community.  For more information, please visit www.neurodiscovery.harvard.edu.
As part of a new initiative, Harvard NeuroDiscovery is partnering with the Harvard School of Public Health’s Bioinformatics Core (HBC, http://compbio.sph.harvard.edu/chb)
to provide support in computational biology to our community.

About the position
We seek an experienced computational biologist to provide dedicated bioinformatics expertise to neurobiology investigators at Harvard Medical School, and throughout the Harvard and affiliated research hospital community. The initial focus is on next generation sequencing support including ChIP-Seq, RNA-Seq, exome-Seq and whole genome sequencing.
This is a rare opportunity to participate in world-class neurobiology research. You will be working directly with researchers on a range of projects, including molecular biology approaches to studying nervous system development, investigations into how neuronal activity controls gene expression, and transciptomic-, metabolomic- and proteomic-based biomarker discovery.
The successful candidate will join an established and growing bioinformatics team that provides a comprehensive portfolio of research computing, next generation sequencing and functional analysis support to the Harvard School of Public Health, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the MGH Center for Regenerative Medicine. As a senior member of this team you will act as the liaison between Harvard NeuroDiscovery’s neurobiology researcher community and HBC.
About you
You have a background in biomedical or quantitative science and a strong interest in working with researchers in neurobiology. You thrive on scientific challenges, enjoy collaborating with an interdisciplinary team and excel at communicating and coordinating between programmers and wet-lab scientists alike. Learning and applying new methods is natural for you, and you are motivated to continuously expand your skills. You have a good handle on your data and project management skills. Working on different projects and deadlines, frequently in collaboration with other Cores and research groups, doesn’t intimidate you.
The details
You will support a range of neurobiologists, providing data management, quality control, data analysis, and presentation of results expertise. Projects are usually a mix of short-term support tasks and long-term collaborations; most support tasks and methods should eventually transition into standardized workflows. You will need broad experience in several bioinformatics domains such as microarray analysis (mRNA, miRNA), sequencing (RNA-seq, ChIP-seq) or functional analysis. You will be the initial point of contact for neurobiology researchers. You will be expected to coordinate selected research or support projects in collaboration with CHB staff, and co-develop grants and other funding opportunities to develop future business opportunities for the group.
Requirements
  • PhD in a biomedical or quantitative science (or equivalent experience), 3+ years of work experience
  • Evidence of working directly with wet laboratories to perform analyses
  • Proven ability to interpret and analyze large data sets and present results synthetically
  • Familiarity with best practices in different sequencing workflows
  • Working knowledge of biology, genetics and cell biology
  • Excellent written English and a familiarity with presenting biological results
  • Strong interpersonal skills
  • Computational experience and scripting abilities (Perl, Python, etc.)
Optional
  • Experience with R/BioC
  • Competency in statistics
  • Demonstrated experience in project management and business development
Send your cover letter, CV and any questions via email to: ohofmann@hsph.harvard.edua