An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Postdoctoral Researcher in Bioinformatics to join the Saunders Group at the John Innes Centre, working on cutting-edge science in plant disease diagnostics.
About the John Innes Centre:
The John Innes Centre is an independent, international centre of excellence in plant and microbial sciences. We nurture a creative, curiosity-led approach to answering fundamental questions in bioscience, and translate that knowledge into societal benefits. Our strategic vision, Healthy Plants, Healthy People, Healthy Planet, sets out our ambitious long-term goals for the game changing impact of our science globally.
Our employees enjoy access to state-of-the-art technology and a diverse range of specialist training opportunities, including support for leadership and management. Click here to find out more about working at the John Innes Centre.
About the Saunders Group:
The Saunders group works on a variety of emerging and re-emerging plant pathogens using a broad array of techniques that includes molecular genetics, biochemistry, plant pathology, cell biology, genomics, transcriptomics, and data mining to improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms at the plant pathogen interface.
The role:
The successful candidate will work with genome sequencing datasets to study the notorious wheat stem rust pathogens, which have been associated with crop failures and famine throughout history.
The appointee will contribute to further development of the award-winning MARPLE diagnostics system (
https://marple-diagnostics.org), whilst also using this system to study wheat rust population dynamics at an international scale. This system uses MinION targeted re-sequencing to rapidly diagnose individual wheat rust strains and has been deployed across East Africa and South Asia. The post holder will work on expanding the computational aspects of the MARPLE diagnostics bioinformatics pipeline, this will include further improving existing software pipelines and developing new pipelines to expand the methodology to other areas of interest. Whilst also applying these new pipelines to study wheat rust population dynamics in East Africa and South Asia.
This is an opportunity for the candidate to join a multidisciplinary research group in the Crop Genetics department at the JIC and to work on a fascinating project in computer science with a direct and immediate benefit for better management of the deadly wheat rust pathogens.
The ideal candidate:
You will have excellent programme skills in Python, Bash and experience with software testing. You will have demonstrated ability to work independently, using initiative and in applying problem solving skills. A PhD (full award or expected within 6 months) in computer science, bioinformatics or a related field is also essential.
Additional information:
For further information and details of how to apply, please visit our website
http://jobs.jic.ac.uk or contact the Human Resources team on 01603 450814 or
[email protected] quoting reference 1004378.
We are an equal opportunities employer, actively supporting inclusivity and diversity. As a Disability Confident organisation, we guarantee to offer an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for this vacancy. We are proud to hold a prestigious Gold Athena SWAN award in recognition of our inclusive culture, commitment and good practices towards advancing of gender equality. We offer an exciting, stimulating, diverse research environment and actively promote a family friendly workplace. The Institute is also a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme.
The John Innes Centre is a registered charity (No. 223852) grant-aided by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
