Research Postdoctoral Fellow

The Brain Tumor Institute (BTI) Bioinformatics Core at Children's National Hospital is seeking a highly skilled Postdoctoral Fellow to join our team. The candidate will play a prominent role within an international research program that drives life-saving discoveries for children who have been diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis Type 1-Associated Gliomas. The ideal candidate will be passionate about applying scientific knowledge in pursuit of a pediatric brain cancer cure, eagerly learn new skills, and have excellent time and project management skills.

The role involves close collaboration with researchers and clinicians within both Children's National as well as external partners. The postdoctoral fellow will report to Dr. Jo Lynne Rokita, Director of the BTI Bioinformatics Core, and will lead project-specific bioinformatics analyses, participate in collaborative activities in the BTI such as code review and/or workshop training, and lead/contribute to scientific manuscripts.

This position is expected to play a prominent role within the research program of a brand-new, one-of-a-kind research and innovation hub that drives life-saving discoveries for children who have been diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis Type 1-Associated Gliomas. The ideal candidate is seeking a long-term career within a growing lab, is passionate about applying scientific knowledge in pursuit of a pediatric brain cancer cure, eagerly learns new skills, welcomes new responsibilities, and has excellent time management and project management skills. The candidate will be responsible for providing broad bioinformatics skills and support for cancer genetics projects, manipulating and representing large-scale phenotypic and genotypic data to support the analysis and presentation of results. The candidate will have the opportunity to work closely with clinical research coordinators, research technicians, post-doctoral fellows and other research staff, including principal investigators. He or She will have the opportunity be co-authors on papers commensurate with their contributions. Read more about our research and innovation campus here https://childrensnational.org/research/research-and-innovation-campus

Application Process:

This position will be in-person or hybrid. Candidates should be prepared to share their GitHub handle and present a recent project as part of the interview process.

Qualifications*

PhD degree in Bioinformatics/Computational biology/quantitative biology, Computer Science, or Math/Statistics.* Solid programming skills, strong publication record and the ability to work independently.*

At least 2 year of relevant laboratory experience in bioinformatics. Preference will be given to those with cancer biology/genetics bioinformatics expertise. * Experience in developing R packages or python scripts.* Ability to communicate and collaborate with other team members.

* Ph.D. in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Quantitative Biology, Cancer Genetics, or related field.

* Expertise in Bash and either R or Python.

* Proficiency with cloud-based or high-performance computing environments for bioinformatics workflows.

* Proven experience with multiple genomic data types such as single nucleotide variants (SNVs), copy number variants, fusions, RNA expression, methylation, proteomics, and splicing data.

* Commitment to open science practices, including sharing and collaborating on code, data, and documentation.

* Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate with other team members

Required Skills/Knowledge*

Familiarity with genomic technologies and their applications, including experimental designs. *

Familiarity with NGS and data analytics*

Familiarity with a wide range of biological database and resources, including but not limited to GenBank, Ensembl, the UCSC genome browser, GEO, ENA, KEGG, Reactome, TCGA, cBioPortal, and other similar resources*

Familiarity with machine learning technologies*

Familiarity with Linux environment and HPC* Excellent programming skills in Perl/python/java/C /R*

Team oriented with excellent written and verbal communication skills and demonstrated ability to self-education in current bioinformatics techniques and resources.*

Strong mathematical and statistical skills and an inquiring attitude.

Responsibilities*

* Perform high-quality bioinformatics analyses on pediatric oncology datasets, including genomic, transcriptomic, and epigenomic data.

* Design and implement downstream analytical workflows for high-throughput data using our GitHub, Docker, and AWS infrastructure, focusing on reproducibility, code efficiency, and scalability.

* Utilize cloud-computing environments (e.g., AWS EC2) and/or high-performance computing (HPC) to support large-scale or memory-intensive analyses.

* Actively and positively participate in sprints and code reviews, ensuring high standards for reproducibility and documentation.

* Engage with multidisciplinary teams, providing bioinformatics expertise to support collaborative research initiatives.

* Perform high-quality bioinformatics analyses on pediatric oncology datasets, including genomic, transcriptomic, and epigenomic data.

* Design and implement downstream analytical workflows for high-throughput data using our GitHub, Docker, and AWS infrastructure, focusing on reproducibility, code efficiency, and scalability.

* Utilize cloud-computing environments (e.g., AWS EC2) and/or high-performance computing (HPC) to support large-scale or memory-intensive analyses.

* Actively and positively participate in sprints and code reviews, ensuring high standards for reproducibility and documentation.

* Engage with multidisciplinary teams, providing bioinformatics expertise to support collaborative research initiatives.

Interprets complex biological information and meets with scientists to provide bioinformatics consultation in the analysis of experimental data*

Communicates with research scientists to understand and obtain data analysis specifications* Design data analysis projects plans and timelines and maintains the appropriate documentation*

Meets timelines and quality expectations on data analysis related deliverables for multiple projects*

Works independently and as a team member to analyze data*

Meets with investigators at all stages of a project to ensure study design, data analysis, and data provenance are all being addressed and are processing*

Collaborate with web labs to understand tumorigenesis in pediatric brain tumors Database Maintenance*

Organizes NGS data and developing new data types into databases, displays, or graphic presentations for publications and web presentations. *

Assists in designing and developing new database to store gene expression, fusion gene and other genomics data files. *

Maintains and improves existing databases*

Configures and maintains systems that track progress of clinical samples through wet-bench and computational protocols working with wet ab and research teams

Preferred Skills:

* Preference will be given to those with cancer biology/genetics bioinformatics experience.

* Experience with tools and best practices for reproducibility such as Git and Docker.