Data Analyst, Bioinformatician II Research Neurology

A computational scientist / data manager position is available to support the Khurana Lab and Division of Movement Disorders at Brigham and Woman's Hospital. We seek an applicant to i) perform analysis of high-throughput genomic and other omics data to enable novel discovery in Parkinson's disease and related degenerative movement disorders in collaboration with computer scientists in the laboratories of Shamil Sunyaev and Peter Park at Harvard Medical School, and ii) manage multi-omic and clinical data collected through the Harvard Biomarker Study, a longitudinal study of Parkinson's disease patients and healthy controls. We study the molecular basis of synucleinopathies such as, Parkinson's, multiple systems atrophy, progressive supranuclear palsy, etc with the goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets. We develop and utilize a range of multi-omic tools to analyze in vitro and in vivo experimental models as well as human genetic and single cell datasets. The Khurana Lab operates within a highly collaborative environment where both bench biologist and computer scientists work together with clinicians, clinician-scientists and genetics counselors. In this case, the applicant will work closely with the multidisciplinary team to facilitate understanding the genetic basis of these diseases with the goal of developing precision medicines and gene-targeted therapies. Beyond genomic and omics analyses, the candidate will work with genetic study coordinators to ensure secure storage, update, and maintenance of paired genetic and clinical data from HBS 2.0 and facilitate downstream discovery. Strong computational, organizational, and communication skills are desired for this position. More senior candidates will be considered for a Research Scientist or Senior Research Scientist positions with Research Associate appointments at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Job description:

Performing common/rare variant analyses including repeat and long-read sequencing analyses in collaboration with computer scientists in labs of Shamil Suyaev and Peter Park facilitating novel gene discovery.

• Managing HBS study database in collaboration with MassGeneral Brigham IT services and genetic study coordinators. This includes creating a relational database in SQL, regularly updating the data tables by pulling data from third-party software platforms, backing up the data at regular intervals, performing quality control, validation and error detection on each data point, and ensuring data security and integrity.

• Running standard omics analysis pipelines on datasets generated in-house as well by collaborators via in vitro and in vivo experimental models.

• Applying and adapting existing statistical and omics tools to achieve new biological insights from unique biological datasets.

• Working closely with bench scientists to understand and help accomplish their research goals.

Qualifications:

Bachelors required. MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics in a biological science or relevant field recommended.

Skills/ Abilities/ Competencies required/desired:

• Experience with existing bioinformatics tools or pipelines to perform standard next-generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis, incl. genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic, and others.

• Developing or adapting new algorithms and pipelines to support customized data analysis.

• Strong computational genomics experience in at least two or more of the following NGS techniques: Single-cell and bulk tissue RNA-Seq, spatial transcriptomics, small RNA-Seq, ATAC-Seq, ChIP-Seq, whole-genome sequencing (WGS), whole-exome sequencing (WES), Hi-C, etc.

• Experience in Programing with JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), R, Python that focus on computational biological applications.

• Experience in SQL database creation and management, writing stored procedures and queries for databases.

• Experience in writing programs using APIs to pull data from multiple third-party softwares

• Experience in Shell scripting

• Physical Server Administration

• Security Compliance: HIPAA

• Good organizational skills, detail oriented

• Experience with common bioinformatics and genomic browsers [NCBI, Genbank, UCSC]

• Understanding the user of bioinformatics tools including common NGS tools [BWA, samtools, GATK]

• Ability to work in a highly collaborative and intellectually challenging environment.

• Ability to demonstrate professionalism

• Ability to demonstrate critical thinking and creative problem-solving abilities

• Ability to prepare manuscripts for presentation and publication

• Must work independently

• Excellent oral and written communication skills.