Job Description

A Bioinformatics Analyst position is available immeidately in the laboratory of Dr. Kyle Eagen in the Center for Precision Environmental Health and Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine. The individual will identify and implement computational solutions to research problems related to DNA folding in both health and disease. S/he will be responsible for taking on highly interdisciplinary projects and key functions in this endeavor, including applying state-of-the-art open source software for basic and advanced analysis of next-generation sequencing Hi-C data. S/he will work closely with Dr. Eagen to develop cutting-edge computational tools and pipelines as the lab expands into new research areas.

The ideal candidate should be highly motivated, well organized, manage time effectively, and have the ability to work independently as well as part of a team. S/he will have a background in bioinformatics, computational biology, and/or biostatistics and have experience developing scripts in languages such as Java, Python, Perl, and/or R.  The candidate must be comfortable working in a Linux/Unix environment and with high performance computing (HPC) workload managers and job schedulers.  The most common datasets s/he will encounter are extremely large and complex chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) datasets, but will likely also include ChIP-seq, CUT&RUN, total RNA-seq, and nascent transcription (SLAM-seq & TT-seq) data.

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Manages and plans for data/analysis requests and projects, building collaborative pipelines as needed
• Consults with lab members on appropriate data management, methodological issues and statistical analysis
• Communicates with lab members and technical staff to monitor/shape the growth and maintenance of computational resource

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES

• Strategic Planning and Development
  • Maintain and expand upon existing computational pipelines for Hi-C, ChIP-seq, CUT&RUN, and RNA-seq
  • Interpret results by applying and/or developing appropriate statistical and machine learning analysis for __ Hi-C, ChIP-seq, CUT&RUN, and RNA-seq
  • Collaborate with lab members to interpret and refine Hi-C, ChIP-seq, CUT&RUN, and RNA-seq analysis
  • Develop novel computational and visualization tools as well as other resources to further the analysis and interpretation of Hi-C data
  • Collaborate with local IT to implement new technologies
• Administrative
  • Prepare reports, charts, and graphs for presentations and publications ensuring high quality and accuracy
  • Develops and maintains documentation of computational processes for quality assurance and reporting
  • Manage next-generation DNA sequencing data
  • Search and evaluate scientific literature in support of research projects
  • Write portions of grant applications, manuscripts, and publications
  • Co-author scientific papers
• Effectively interact with team members to make important contributions on big problems while ensuring a high standard of scientific rigor

      Completes other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor's degree in Genetics, Biology, Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Computational Biology, Computer Science, or a related field.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Master’s degree in a related field or Ph.D.
• Experience and proficiency in the following:
  • Infrastructure: Linux Operating System and PBS or SLURM cluster-based computing
  • Programming Languages: Java, Python, Perl, Shell Scripting, R
  • Analytical: critical thinking, data mining, data modeling, judgement, metadata creation and management, problem solving, troubleshooting
• Experience in bioinformatics analysis of RNA-Seq, ChIP-Seq and/or Hi-C data
• Background in statistics
• Demonstrated ability to learn about new technologies
• Demonstrated ability working with open-source bioinformatics software and publicly available databases
• Ability to solve complex bioinformatics problems
• Familiarity with software versioning tools (e.g. GitHub)
• Familiarity with machine learning
• Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills and the ability to work independently and in a team environment
• Willingness and capability to share knowledge with other members of the team
• A record of taking initiative to solve problems and working to high-quality standards
• Attention to detail and accurate record keeping
• Ability to multitask, work and learn independently, and be self-motivated

Additional Information

Baylor College of Medicine has made it a top priority to reward employees for their hard work and dedication. As part of this commitment, Baylor offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits package to meet the needs of a diverse workforce, while providing meaningful choices to meet individual and family needs. Additional benefits details are available at https://www.bcm.edu/careers/benefits.

For more information about the Eagen Lab and Baylor College of Medicine please visit www.eagenlab.org and https://www.bcm.edu/careers. 

Baylor College of Medicine requires employees to be fully vaccinated – subject to approved exemptions – against vaccine-preventable diseases including, but not limited to, COVID-19 and influenza.

Baylor College of Medicine is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action/Equal Access Employer.