Lead Genomic Data Scientist - Diversity

Company Description

Genomics England partners with the NHS to provide whole genome sequencing diagnostics. We also equip researchers to find the causes of disease and develop new treatments – with patients and participants at the heart of it all.

Our mission is to continue refining, scaling, and evolving our ability to enable others to deliver genomic healthcare and conduct genomic research.

We are accelerating our impact and working with patients, doctors, scientists, government and industry to improve genomic testing, and help researchers access the health data and technology they need to make new medical discoveries and create more effective, targeted medicines for everybody.

Job Description

We are looking for a Lead Genomic Data Scientist for an exciting new programme to tackle the lack of Diversity in genomic datasets. Many personalised medicine findings only apply to European ancestry groups because those are the genomic datasets that have been used for research.

Our goal is to make the National Genomic Research Library as diverse as the UK population, or more so where we need to over-index to get to powered cohorts.

You will have a key role in leading, developing and delivering the analytics arm of this programme , collaborate with our experienced genomics data scientists and other teams in Genomics England, as well as internal and external stakeholders.

Everyday responsibilities include:

• Create tools, including developing, prototyping, and validating new features for genome analysis to enable better diagnostics, clinical management and research in underrepresented populations,
• Develop bioinformatics datasets and resources to enable downstream analyses,
• Communicate with stakeholders, in particular the research and clinical community, to ensure relevance
• Ensure high relevance and excellent standards of genomic analysis,

Skills and Experience for Success:

We anticipate the ideal candidate will have:

• We are looking for natural leader who can inspire, nurture, support, motivate other members of the team that can deliver to strict deadlines with the focus on delivery-oriented data-supported strategic decisions.
• Excellent knowledge and a passion for human population genetics or genetic epidemiology, ideally with a focus on diverse populations (e.g. ancestry inference, genetic mapping in stratified populations, polygenic risk scores in diverse populations, etc)
• Background in statistical genetics, statistical bioinformatics, biostatistics, or a related strongly quantitative discipline, with postdoctoral experience in fields related to statistical genetics or genomics
• Strong programming skills (e.g. Python, R) and experience with cloud-scale data processing and high-performance computing

Qualifications

PhD and  postdoctoral experience, or equivalent experience, in at least one of the following: Genetics/Genomic with a strong computational component, Statistical genetics, Genetic epidemiology, Bioinformatics with the focus on human genomics.

Additional Information

Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we’re continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including: 

• 30 days’ holiday (plus bank holidays), with additional days for long service awards
• A generous pension scheme of up to 15% combined contribution
• Individual learning budgets for every colleague, a Blinkist account and a wide variety of courses on our portal
• A wide variety of wellness benefits including Gympass, a Headspace account, free weekly Yoga classes
• Enhanced maternity & paternity benefits
• Blended working arrangements

Talk to our Talent Team and find out how a career with Genomics England will benefit you.

#LI-Hybrid

As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.  We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare. 

Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility. We expect most people to come into the office 2 times each month as a minimum. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. For some people this is 1 day a quarter, for others it is several days a week. There is no expectation that staff will return to the office full time unless they want to. The exception would be some of our roles that would require you to be on site full time e.g., lab teams, reception team. 

Our teams and squads have, and will continue to, reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum. Our office locations at the moment are Cambridge and Farringdon (London) and in Winter 2022 we are relocating our London office location to Canary Wharf. We will also be expanding our regional offices.   

Looking ahead to our move to Canary Wharf, we will be designing our new space with blended working in mind, and with the flexibility to adapt to changing work patterns. During the pandemic we will be following government advice on working from home guidance. 

#LI-Hybrid