Bioinformatician Intermediate / Associate

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How to Apply

A cover letter is required for consideration for this position and should be attached as the first page of your resume. The cover letter should address your specific interest in the position and outline skills and experience that directly relate to this position.

Summary

The Michigan Medicine Stanley and Judith Frankel Institute of Heart and Brain Health (Frankel IHBH) seeks to establish an integrated computational team focused on the interrelated domains of heart and brain health. The aim is to centralize data storage, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and advance research in these fields. Despite the recognized interconnectedness of these health areas, especially in relation to metabolic, neurodegenerative, neurological, and neurocognitive disorders, few, if any, platforms offer integrated research solutions in this space.

The institute is situated in the heart of Michigan Medicine at the North Campus Research Complex in a newly renovated laboratory building within steps of a multitude of research resources, easy access to collaborators, and research services. The institute aims to bring current and new U-M researchers together to unravel the biological mechanisms that the heart and brain have in common, as well as how these organs signal to each other and impact clinical outcomes.

This is a hybrid work arrangement.  

Mission Statement

Michigan Medicine improves the health of patients, populations and communities through excellence in education, patient care, community service, research and technology development, and through leadership activities in Michigan, nationally and internationally.  Our mission is guided by our Strategic Principles and has three critical components; patient care, education and research that together enhance our contribution to society.

Why Join Michigan Medicine?

Michigan Medicine is one of the largest health care complexes in the world and has been the site of many groundbreaking medical and technological advancements since the opening of the U-M Medical School in 1850. Michigan Medicine is comprised of over 30,000 employees and our vision is to attract, inspire, and develop outstanding people in medicine, sciences, and healthcare to become one of the world’s most distinguished academic health systems.  In some way, great or small, every person here helps to advance this world-class institution. Work at Michigan Medicine and become a victor for the greater good.

What Benefits can you Look Forward to?

• Excellent medical, dental and vision coverage effective on your very first day
• 2:1 Match on retirement savings

Responsibilities*

We are looking for a highly motivated and computationally skilled individual to join the team interested in harnessing, merging, and sharing data, algorithms, and computational resources to discover innovative insights, launch clinical and translational research studies, and evaluate treatments that arise from the interactions which can be revealed that relate heart and brain health and disease(s). The selected candidate will focus on methods for analyzing diverse data types and integrating 'omics expression data, imaging data, and wearable sensors data. The data types included will range from patient-specific to aggregated data, spanning the continuum of genetics, multi-omics, metabolomics, physiologic/wearable data, tissue, organ, imaging data, and patient-specific longitudinal electronic health record (EHR) data, including relevant Social Determinates of Health (SDOH) and geospatially encoded demographic and health outcomes data.

Required Qualifications*

Bioinfo-Comput Biologist Intermediate

• Master's or Bachelor's degree in computational Biology, Statistics, Computer Science or related field with at least 2 -3 years' experience
• Ability to select, adapt, and effectively use a variety of programming methods. Strong programming skills in Python and R are expected. Familiarity with C, C++, Java. and Perl are useful. Best practices in coding, including techniques of reproducible and transparent science (github, DockerHub, markdown documentation) will be required.

Bioinfo-Comput Biologist Associate

• Bachelor's degree in two domains characteristic of bioinformatics, including at least one biological/biomedical/clinical science and one quantitative/informatics/computing science, with aptitude for others.
• Programing proficiency with experience in data visualizations, statistical analyses, and models

Intermediate & Associate

• Capacity to learn and apply new tools with appropriate knowledge foundation.
• Ability to help maintain data storage and usage of high-performance computing resources provided at University of Michigan
• The successful candidate will have excellent organization and communication skills, collaborative spirit and strong personal motivation.
• Ability to work both independently and as part of a team, in hybrid settings.
• Skills using differential expression & gene set enrichment analyses
• Ability to define and solve logical problems for highly technical applications.

Desired Qualifications*

• Deep understanding of next generation sequencing data and bioinformatics algorithms.
• Provide best practices data analysis, including QC and visualization, employing common NGS pipelines such as RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, Methyl-seq, DNA-seq, and Microbiome Sequencing. Multi-omics analysis is often needed.
• Proven experience working in a Linux cluster environment. Experience in cloud environments is also a plus. 
• Familiarity with analysis of UK Biobank data, human microbiome sequence data (16S rRNA, metagenomics) and/or multi-omics data (e.g. transcriptomics or metabolomic).
• Strong background in one or more of the following: pedigree analysis, machine learning, statistical methods, variant annotation and interpretation, Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS), imaging analysis, and wearable sensor data analysis.
• Knowledge of general principles for regulatory compliance, including understanding of the NIH Security Best Practices for Controlled Access Data Subject to the NIH Genomic Data Sharing (GDS) Policy (aka dbGaP compliance).
• Experience with mentorship or project management.

Underfill Statement

This position may be underfilled at a lower classification depending on the qualifications of the selected candidate.

Background Screening

Michigan Medicine conducts background screening and pre-employment drug testing on job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent job offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background screenings.  Background screenings are performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Report Act. Pre-employment drug testing applies to all selected candidates, including new or additional faculty and staff appointments, as well as transfers from other U-M campuses.

Application Deadline

Job openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days.  The review and selection process may begin as early as the eighth day after posting. This opening may be removed from posting boards and filled anytime after the minimum posting period has ended.

U-M EEO/AA Statement

The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.