Starting immediately or as per agreement
The Biozentrum of the University of Basel is one of the leading life sciences institutes in the world. It consists of 30 groups and 500 employees that research how molecules and cells create life, spanning the scale from atom to organism. Founded in 1971, the Biozentrum has been the birth place of many fundamental discoveries in biology and medicine, spawning several Nobel Laureates.
The research group of Richard Neher is looking for a bioinformatician or computational biologist. Our group is a (co-)developer of multiple scientific software packages used to track and visualize viral and bacterial evolution including nextstrain.org, TreeTime, and panX. These tools are extensively used around to world to analyze the spread and evolution of pathogens. Nextstrain is a corner stone of genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2.
Your position
Your core task would be to develop and maintain workflows to analyze the continuous stream of SARS-CoV-2, influenza virus, and other pathogen sequences. The rapidly increasing data volumes require new methodological approaches and robust hard- and software infrastructure. In addition, sequence data needs to be integrated with serological data, drug resistance data, epidemiological data or other information and turned into output that is actionable for public health. You would be working alongside a full time software engineer as well as PhD students and postdocs.
Your profile
The ideal candidate for this position has experience in sequence bioinformatics and phylogenetics with an interest in pathogen evolution and data visualization. Knowledge of Linux environments, Python, git version control, and best-practices for reproducible bioinformatic analysis are required. The candidate should have a Master degree or PhD in bioinformatics, computational biology or equivalent experience. Working language of the team is English. In addition to developing workflows and methods, communicating these results to public health professionals, documentation, and user training are part of this position.
If you are unsure whether your profile matches what we are looking for but feel you could bring a lot to this role, please get in touch with Richard Neher at richard.neher@unibas.ch.
We offer you
You would be embedded in an international group that does cutting-edge research in pathogen evolution and and that is tightly integrated in the global surveillance of pathogens and the response to the ongoing pandemic. The Biozentrum offers a cutting-edge research infrastructure, a highly international environment that provides numerous opportunities to learn more, and excellent working conditions. The position is initially for 2 years, with the possibility of further extension. Salary and benefits according to University of Basel standards.