Bioinformatics Scientists

Description

Job Description:

Leidos Public Health Division is seeking several Bioinformatics Scientists, contingent upon contract award, to support public health projects.

The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) data analysis including development and application of quality control, assembly, functional annotation, sequence alignment, variant detection, and phylogenetic analyses of viral, bacterial, fungal, protist, eukaryotic genomes, vector species, complex transcriptomes and metagenomes. Position will primarily telecommute.

Responsibilities

Collaborate and provide bioinformatics support to researchers in the identification and implementation of new techniques and technologies for advanced analysis of complex molecular biology data.

Adapt bioinformatics algorithms and workflows in high-performance computing environments; including cloud and hybrid-cloud execution environments including: scaling tasks from desktop to high-performance computing environments, moving applications to cloud and hybrid-cloud, leveraging NoSQL/Hadoop-based database structures and highly parallelized or hardware-accelerated architectures and approaches.

Competency writing customs scripts and software to perform bioinformatics analysis using Python, Perl, R and/or Java.

Perform bioinformatics analysis using open-source bioinformatics tools as well as licensed proprietary software such as CLC Genomics Workbench, BioNumerics and Geneious Prime. Support modeling and simulation of evolutionary and population biological process using Bayesian inference and/or genetic algorithms.

Develop and implement highly-parallelized and/or GPU-accelerated sequence similarity search tools for high-throughput sequencing data, using approaches including BLAST and kmer-based searches.

Assist with planning, development and implementation of HDFS and other parallelized methods for the rapid analysis of large sequence data sets.

Use statistical analysis tools, interpret and communicate results.

Use tools for visualizing complex biological datasets and able to interpret and communicate results as well as uncertainty to a diverse group of customers.

Assist in development and maintenance of highly curated genomic sequence databases, inclusion or exclusion of specific species genomes, signature databases for virulence and AMR markers, strain type and pathogen type markers. Design and implement terabyte-scale sequence databases and include real-time linkages to external specialized databases.

Develop and maintain, in cooperation with OAMD and program staff, data exchange

pipelines for the automated submission of assembled genomes to the relevant database for that assembly type. Examples of relevant databases include, but are not limited to: NCBI Nucleotide, NCBI Pathogen Detection, DDBJ, ENA, GISAID, ViPR, etc.

Provide guidance and support in scaled data analysis and management of next generation metagenomic sequencing data.

Assist with developing standard operating procedures for bioinformatics analyses.

Support and maintain relational databases (MySQL/PostgreSQL) as well as NoSQL databases (MongoDB).

Supports researchers in creating and submitting publication and poster presentations.

Communicate progress orally and in writing with our scientific community stakeholders

Assist with preparation of reports, presentations and papers for publication in scientific journals, conferences and meetings

Provide leadership and mentorship to the bioinformatics and data science team as well as our scientific community and interns.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• Master's degree or PhD in bioinformatics, genomics, molecular biology, genetics or related field;
• 3+ years of bioinformatics experience
• Experience with processing of high-throughput data and possessing strong data management and analysis skills.
• Experience working in Linux environments and broad experience with open source bioinformatics tools
• Proficient coding/scripting in Python, R, Perl
• Experience working in a high-performance computing and/or cloud computing environment
• Strong communication skills
• Ability to obtain NACI clearance

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Strongly preferred experience in operating and developing components for workflow management systems such as Nextflow, Snakemake, and/or Workflow Description Language (WDL).

• Experience in designing and conducting training workshops to the bioinformatics community on latest bioinformatics methods and concepts.
• Experience with Tableau, Cloudera (Hadoop), JavaScript
• Experience with machine learning approaches
• Experience in one or more of the following phylogenetic analysis and visualization tools is highly desirable: BEAST, FastTree, RaxML, TreeTime, NextStrain, Microreact

Preferred candidate within driving distance to Atlanta to facilitate incidental in person meeting with government researchers and scientists.

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Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.

#Remote

Covid Guidance for the US

In order to enter Leidos facilities in the U.S. and to attend Leidos events outside our facilities, employees are required to be vaccinated for COVID-19 or maintain proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 96 hours of entry. In addition, we are receiving guidance from certain customers that onsite contractor personnel will need to be fully vaccinated to access customer facilities. If you are not vaccinated, please consider getting your COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible. If you have any questions, please contact your Talent Acquisition POC. 

About Leidos

Leidos is a Fortune 500® technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world’s toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, civil, and health markets. The company’s 44,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $13.7 billion for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

Pay and Benefits

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. That's why we craft compensation packages that reflect the importance of the work we do for our customers. Employment benefits include competitive compensation, Health and Wellness programs, Income Protection, Paid Leave and Retirement. More details are available here.

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Commitment to Diversity

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.