Bioinformatics Analyst

Oxford Nanopore Technologies is headquartered at the Oxford Science Park outside Oxford, UK, with satellite offices and commercial presence in many global locations across the US, APAC and Europe. Oxford Nanopore employs from multiple subject areas including nanopore science, molecular biology and applications, informatics, engineering, electronics, manufacturing and commercialisation. The management team, led by CEO Dr Gordon Sanghera, has a track record of delivering disruptive technologies to the market.

Oxford Nanopore's sequencing platform is the only technology that offers real-time analysis (for rapid insights), in fully scalable formats from pocket to population scale, that can analyse native DNA or RNA and sequence any length of fragment to achieve short to ultra-long read lengths.

This is an exciting new role in the Customer Workflows team to help us support the work in organisation to help bring end-to-end products to market.
The Bioinformatics analyst will work within both the Customer Analysis Workflows and Applied Development groups. These groups specialise in developing clinical and regulated products. The Bioinformatics Analyst will provide day to day analysis support of sequencing data during development these products. The analyst will collaborate with workflow developers and laboratory scientists to ensure a robust and coherent set of analysis software tools for end users of the ONT/OND sequencing platform. There will be a particular focus on testing and validation of bioinformatics analysis workflows for clinical and regulated applications that meet ISO standards.

Key Responsibilities

The role requires an individual to leverage computational and analytical techniques to extract meaningful insights from biological data. To this end, the individual will be responsible for developing a high level of familiarity and proficiency in executing EPI2ME workflows, coupled with a requisite knowledge base encompassing rare diseases, cancer, and infectious diseases, as appropriate. They will work closely with workflow developers in the team to continually test and validate EPI2ME workflows, employing state-of-the-art tools to generate validation and verification reports. They will work with laboratory scientists during assay development to feedback key performance metrics. They will ensure the use of an appropriate structured framework to document the outcomes of the evaluation process, which will then be used by developers to improve and refine workflow software. They will also assist with producing documentation and troubleshooting.

Duties

• Run EPI2ME workflows to perform data analysis of complex datasets, across a number of applications within rare disease, cancer, and infectious disease
• Carry out validation and verification and generate metrics to monitor the performance of EPI2ME workflows and associated tools, including sensitivity and specificity calculations
• Carry out validation and verification and generate metrics to monitor the performance of laboratory workflows, including sensitivity and specificity calculations
• Interpret the results of genomics data analysis using statistical techniques, and provide ongoing reports to monitor sequencing performance over time
• Work with data science colleagues in the Product Performance group to establish in-field monitoring of products
• Maintain knowledge of external advances in the field of long-read data analysis
• Maintain knowledge of relevant bioinformatics tools and software
• Develop and implement databases, data collection systems, data analytics and other strategies that optimise efficiency and quality of analyses performed
• Locate and define new process improvement opportunities
• Work collaboratively with laboratory scientist, workflow developers and other data analysts to refine analysis code and improve workflow performance

What we expect you to have...

An MSc (or equivalent experience) involving a substantial amount of bioinformatics and/or data analysis

Practical experience with the processing and analysis of large genomic datasets, and their associated metadata

Practical experience handling sequencing data with exposure to the commonly used software tools (samtools, bcftools), algorithms (alignment, assembly), and file formats (FASTQ, BAM, VCF)

Familiarity with long-read sequencing data analysis
Strong analytical skills with the ability to collect, organise, analyse, and disseminate significant amounts of information with attention to detail and accuracy

Knowledge of statistics and experience using statistical packages for analysing large-scale genomics datasets
Along with these skills we expect you to be a self-starter who can learn independently. You should have good communication and interpersonal skills. You should be willing to adapt and listen to the feedback from your peers.
We offer outstanding benefits to include an attractive bonus, generous pension contributions, private healthcare and an excellent starting salary. Based within beautiful, landscaped surroundings with tree-lined walks, water features and a lake, all of which make for a wonderful working environment.

Looking to utilise your skills to really make a difference to humankind? Then consider joining our team and apply today!

Please note that no terminology in this advert is intended to discriminate on the grounds of a person's gender, marital status, race, religion, colour, age, disability or sexual orientation. Every candidate will be assessed only in accordance with their merits, qualifications and abilities to perform the duties of the job.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

#LI-JC1