Bioinformatics Scientist

Position Objective: Provide services as a Bioinformatics Scientist in support of the overall functions of the National Institute on Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The position will independently provide bioinformatics and genomics project support to the Molecular Pathology Group within the Comparative and Molecular Pathogenesis Branch, Division of Translational Toxicology, the National Institute on Environmental Health Sciences.

Statement of Work Details

1. Coordinate the progress on multiple bioinformatics projects in various stages of completion while taking principal responsibility on projects as needed.
2. Collaborate with and support scientists to design experiments, analyze and interpret high throughput biological data.
3. Write relevant sections of manuscripts, prepare publication quality figures.
4. Establish reproducible data analysis pipelines and standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Generate and optimize programs and scripts for the analysis of data; create programs and algorithms and develop computational infrastructure resources for organizing and parsing data from large and complex data.
• Serve as bioinformatics expert and coordinate with teams of biologists to conduct experimental queries and/or perform portions of studies using complex procedures and techniques common to modern bioinformatics.
• Coordinate building bioinformatics infrastructure to ensure easy and meaningful scientific analysis and interpretation of data.
• Provide broad-based programming and analytic support for a wide variety of bioinformatic and research projects.
• Install, troubleshoot and run open-source and commercial scientific software on platforms.
• Perform computational analysis of, and interpret results.
• Provide reports based on analysis of scientific data.
• Perform sequencing and alignment of raw data, and interpret new data using larger public access datasets.
• Provide interpretive analyses of data derived from different experimental platforms to generate biological meaning.
• Write custom programs and algorithms to support data analyses and discovery.
• Collaborate with scientists to design, analyze, manage and interpret all types of data.
• Design and execute computational experiments.
• Work with staff on planning of experiments, and data analysis for internal and collaborative projects; use bioinformatics expertise to advise and help bench scientists on experimental design and trouble-shooting.
• Work with staff to develop specifications for new analysis; design, test and implement solutions.
• Make recommendations to investigators about the correct computational tools for testing scientific hypotheses and reaching valid conclusions.
• Maintain proper and detailed documentation of the analysis performed and report results at lab meetings.
• Attend scientific and programming meetings; take and compile comprehensive notes; organize and edit content of meeting reports.
• Prepare scientific reports and progress reports; assemble data to prepare tables, graphs and slides; conduct scientific and program related information searches and report results.
• Organize daily laboratory notebook on experiments; prepare weekly updates on on-going experiments and tasks; provide monthly progress notes on assigned projects; submit final progress reports and future directions on projects.
• Organize laboratory notebook or computer database to record results of calculations. Share results at lab meetings.
• Devise novel methods of statistical analysis for collected data.
• Utilize and adapt existing bioinformatics techniques to check for trends and patterns in the data.
• Write complex queries to multiple databases.
• Perform data processing and data analysis with existing computational and statistical methods.
• Assist in evaluating and interpreting results for validity and scientific meaning.
• Create novel programs and algorithms that facilitate discovery of knowledge in investigating large and complex data.
• Develop and optimize programs and scripts that facilitate organization, integration and data-mining of large data sets; integrate these models into a framework of best practices.
• Participate in the design of new protocols involving computational methods.
• Work with staff on the development and maintenance of bioinformatics tools, scripts and pipe-lines for data.
• Participate in research design with investigators for determining best practices pertaining to the bioinformatics analysis in new and ongoing projects.
• Research and review literature to retrieve targeted clinical or scientific information, including novel statistical methods, from publicly available resources. 1
• Collaborate with staff to review current and historical procedures for the acquisition, quality control and management of data. 2
• Analyze and evaluate data cleaning and harmonization needs in the using a variety of descriptive statistics and analytic methods. 3
• Identify new tools and resources for reaching biologically meaningful conclusions. 5
• Collaborate with experimentalists and computational biologists to develop new computational tools to answer research questions of interest. 4
• Provide training in and technical support (including product updates and version control) for programs, algorithms, archives, and pipelines generated during the course of this work.
• Instruct staff in computational analysis of data.
• Provide ad hoc trainings and hands-on workshops on the use of bioinformatics tools.
• Provide training of students, new investigators, and other laboratory personnel in the use of techniques, procedures and equipment to complete the objectives of the laboratory.
• Onboard and train staff involved in new clinical trials, including the import of a wide variety of legacy data set; provide rigorous quality control of these data.
• Work products and documents related to applying computational data analysis approaches to make biological discoveries; identify and solve scientific or technical problems; analyze and interpret high throughput biological data; prepare and present the results to scientific peers at internal meetings as well as scientific meetings - Ad-Hoc
• Work products and documents related to developing analytical approaches to integrate data generated internally; write data analysis and discussion sections of manuscripts, prepare publication quality figures; assist on additional sections of manuscripts as needed; deposit data to external or DTT-designated repositories. - Ad-Hoc
• Work products and documents related to developing and maintaining custom software and pipelines; evaluate and utilize commercial and open-source software; support the design and development efforts; establish reproducible data analysis pipelines, SOPs; provide detailed documentations for methodologies. – Weekly
• Meet with lab members to present updates - Weekly

Basic Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Genetics, Molecular Biology, Computer Programming and Data Processing, Statistics and Decision Science, or a related discipline.
• Experience with Next gen sequencing data analysis: Bulk RNA-Sequencing.
• Experience with clinical and/or translational research, working with large data sets, microarray data analysis, and whole genome sequencing.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) Certification.
• Skilled in SQL, R, PERL, Python, and Linux.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Ability to multi-task and pay close attention to detail.
• Excellent analytical, organizational and time management skills.
• Strong communication skills, both oral and written.