Research Assistant/Associate in Genomic Microbiology at Imperial College London
This position has become available within the MRC Centre for Outbreak
Analysis and Modelling at Imperial College London. The MRC Centre has
built upon a world-leading research group in the Department of
Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London to
undertake applied collaborative work with national and international
agencies in support of policy planning for emerging and endemic
infectious diseases. The successful candidate will be a member of both
the Centre and the Department, and will be based at the St Mary’s
Campus, Paddington.
The purpose of this post is to develop statistical and computational
methods to perform genome-wide association mapping in bacteria.
Important biomedical properties often vary within a bacterial species,
for example antibiotic resistance, virulence, host-specificity or
tissue-specificity. The genetic basis for these variations is not
often fully understood by microbiologists, but this question can be
approached computationally by comparing the genome sequences of
bacteria with different properties. Working closely with Dr Xavier
Didelot, the post-holder will develop the methodology required to
perform such analysis and create a new software tool which will be
applicable by microbial researchers around the world. To be valid, the
new methods will need to account for the specificity of bacterial
evolutionary process, especially in terms of recombination, genetic
content and population structure. Thorough testing of the software
will be performed using simulated datasets, as well as real existing
collections of several hundreds of genomes of two major enteric
pathogens, Escherichia coli and Campylobacter jejuni.
The successful applicant must have an MSc (for appointment to Research
Assistant) or a PhD (for appointment to Research Associate) or
equivalent in one of the following areas: mathematics, statistics,
computer science, infectious disease epidemiology or population
biology. They will also have research experience of programming in at
least one high level language and experience of working with genetic
sequence data.
The post is full time for a fixed term from 1st September 2014 to 31st
August 2016.
For informal enquiries please contact Dr Xavier Didelot
([log in to unmask]).
For the full job description, person specification and application
process, see http://bit.ly/VHiR5k
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