Postdoctoral Researcher - Bioinformatics

Postdoctoral Researcher - Bioinformatics

JIC - John Innes Centre

Norwich, United Kingdom

GBP 37,500 - 42,000 per year

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.

The role:

The successful candidate will work with genome sequence and RNAseq datasets to study the notorious wheat rust pathogens, which have been associated with crop failures and famine throughout history.

The appointee will lead the development of all bioinformatic elements for two projects:

• Further developing and supporting the award-winning MARPLE diagnostics system, and using this system to study wheat rust population dynamics at an international scale. The MARPLE system uses MinION sequencing to rapidly diagnose individual wheat rust strains and has been deployed across East Africa and South Asia.
• Analysing wheat rust infection RNAseq datasets. This will include further developing existing approaches in the lab that have proved extremely fruitful in using these datasets to identify new sources of wheat rust resistance. This will provide the candidate the opportunity to contribute directly to strengthening wheat resilience to rust infection.

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.