Bioinformatician in Infectious Diseases
Job summary
We are seeking a talented bioinformatician to manage the development and optimisation of bioinformatic solutions for the national NHS Respiratory Metagenomics Programme and related projects. The role offers a unique opportunity to work within an NHS team to support transformative innovation in the diagnosis of infectious disease across the UK and internationally through the integration of long read metagenomic sequencing into routine clinical service. The role will manage pipeline deployment and centralised support across 30+ NHS and international sites, as well as continuous improvements to the pipeline, curated database and analytic tools. The successful candidate will work closely with colleagues across the NHS, UKHSA, ONT and academia to support mutual success across clinical diagnostics and biosurveillance aims. In addition to a very active development programme, the candidate will work with colleagues in Synnovis to support existing diagnostic services across GSTT and KCH, and provide remote support for services at network sites.
The ideal candidate will possess strong technical skills and experience in pathogen sequencing or NGS pipeline development, excellent relationship management, communication and training skills in supporting non-specialist users, and an ability to work collaboratively across organisational boundaries.
Main duties of the job
Hosted by CIDR in the Department of Infection at St Thomas' Hospital, the post will provide bioinformatics support within a multi-disciplinary team to translate nanopore long-read sequencing-based technologies into routine metagenomic diagnostic service to support rapid patient testing and surveillance aims. Their role will include:
- Supporting NHS network sites in the use of the pipeline, including installation, training, troubleshooting
- Providing continuous quality monitoring, including identifying and resolving common pipeline issues across sites as part of a planned programme of improvements
- Acting as part of a multi-disciplinary team to manage a series of improvement projects to develop, validate, maintain and optimise existing and new metagenomics pipelines for clinical use across the NHS.
- Working closely with the Senior Bioinformatician and bioinformaticians across the NHS, UKHSA, academic and industry partners across an ambitious change programme to support the delivery of pipelines for clinical service and other common objectives, including supporting the digital genomic bridge with UKHSA.
- Providing support across a variety of other development projects in the laboratory to enable the translation of novel NGS diagnostics into new service models.
About us
The NHS Respiratory Metagenomics Programme has been commissioned by the government's Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, in collaboration with NHS England, to revolutionise the diagnosis and surveillance of infectious disease in the UK through cutting edge genomic technology. The programme is a partnership between the NHS, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), and Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) to embed pathogen agnostic metagenomic testing in NHS microbiology labs and ICUs by 2029, providing same day clinical detection and real-time data signals to UKHSA's proof of concept national surveillance platform. Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust is leading this national programme on behalf of the NHS, implementing the initial use case in respiratory infection and leading on translational research efforts with the potential to scale across multiple clinical settings. The programme will serve as a test bed for the accelerated adoption of innovation in healthcare and a proof of concept in the use of a clinical diagnostic backbone in an 'always on', real-time UK pathogen surveillance system. At GSTT, the programme is being delivered by an expert clinical, scientific and bioinformatic team within the Center for Clinical Infection and Diagnostics Research, with additional expertise from our pathology provider, Synnovis, and with programme management support from the South East Genomic Medicine Service.
Job description
Job responsibilities
- Support the bioinformatics for translation of nanopore metagenomics assays into pilot clinical services. This includes sequencing of bacteria, fungi and viruses and a particularly focus on respiratory infections including SARS-CoV-2, other coronaviruses and influenza
- To provide bioinformatics support for developmental projects evaluating high throughput real time targeted sequencing of respiratory viruses of public health and infection control significance
- Support the development and maintenance of analysis pipelines currently implemented in clinical service delivery across the NHS network, including deployinga strategy for updating methods ofpipeline delivery, with particular reference to ensuring service continuity and improvement
Please see the supporting documentation for a full Job Description and Person Specification.
Person Specification
Qualifications
- University degree and higher degree in bioinformatics /computer science or life sciences
- Educated to MSc, or equivalent in genome biology or bioinformatics
- PhD or equivalent in genome biology or bioinformatics
Skills/Knowledge/Ability
- Proven skills in scripted programming languages and database design
- Next Generation Sequence analysis
Previous Experience
- Software/bioinformatic project management skills in complex settings, including multi-disciplinary or clinical environments
- Experience in diagnostic laboratory
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants.
Employer details
Employer name
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Address
St Thomas' Hospital
Westminster Bridge Rd
London
SE1 7EH
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/careers/careers.aspx