Bioinformatician II presso Tanaq Management Services LLC

Description

Overview

Tanaq Management Services (TMS) delivers professional, scientific, and technical services and information technology (IT) solutions to federal agencies in the health, agriculture, technology, and other government services. TMS is a subsidiary of the St. George Tanaq Corporation, an Alaskan Native Corporation (ANC) committed to serving Federal customers while also giving back to the Tanaq native community and shareholders.

About the Role

We are seeking a highly motivated Bioinformatician II to support ongoing projects within public health and the federal government. The ideal candidate will have experience analyzing biological data in the areas of phylogenetics, molecular evolution, recombination analysis, and whole genome analysis. This position will involve supporting various laboratory projects, including the development of new vaccines, the study of infectious diseases, molecular epidemiology, and surveillance. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to collaborate with various agencies and contribute to important research making a difference in the fight against disease.

The Bioinformatician II is responsible for R-programming and experience in Matlab applications. This role will collaborate with scientists across various disciplines to extract meaningful insights from complex datasets and contribute to ongoing research projects.

 This is a fully onsite position at our customer's location in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Responsibilities

• Support the development of novel and standardized bioinformatics analysis workflows (e.g., Nextflow, Snakemake, custom scripts/pipelines) for viral vaccine preventable diseases generated from next-generation sequencing platforms (e.g. Illumina, Element, Oxford Nanopore).
• Support modification and enhancement of processes and tools of existing bioinformatic workflows to accommodate whole genome data.
• Provide technical assistance to integrate bioinformatics workflows with existing platforms in customer’s programs.
• Develop and/or use innovative methodologies and techniques; search, synthesize, and interpret information relevant to public health.
• Review and analyze studies and projects assessing major and/or sensitive public health issues in order to make recommendations for processes, procedures and/or policies related to public health programs, practices and research.
• Support in collecting and organizing information to help shape the strategic direction necessary for the customer to achieve its mission goals and objectives.
• Provide support with pertinent quality-related duties, including drafting and revision of standardized operating procedures, drafting and completion of method verifications and validations for next-generation sequencing methods and analysis pipelines.
• Assist in and lead projects in bioinformatics and computational biology.
• Provide data analysis support for sequencing requests through the Genome Sequence Lab.
• Conduct Bioinformatics Activities in support of several projects being undertaken in support of Global Polio Eradication Program.
• Perform assembly & Mapping activities, including genome assembly services for all sequencing platforms in the GSL (Sanger, Roche454, Illumina, Ion Torrent, MinION, and PacBio).
• Provide single platform assembly using software packages to include CLCbio, Celera Assembler, MIRA, velvet, and BWA.
• Conduct Genomics analysis such as SNP/indel detection, gene structure comparisons, gene absence/presence determination, and protein sequence comparisons utilizing software packages such as kSNP, BLAST, and custom software.
• Perform variant detection techniques, including Amplicon or Deep Sequencing, to determine consensus sequences.
• Conduct Metagenomics techniques to identify species of microorganisms from an uncultured DNA sample utilizing BLAST/Megan, metagenefinder, QIIME, MG-RAST, and 16S databases utilizing RDP and Greengenes software packages.
• Provides legacy sequencing data retrieval.
• Analyze genetic sequencing data utilizing new methodologies or existing techniques that have been revised
• Collaborate on genetic analysis projects and studies with internal and external partners.
• Assist laboratory scientists (with varying levels of computational expertise) in the design and implementation of bioinformatics tools that support the automation of data analysis, especially for next-generation sequencing data and large data sets.
• Advise senior scientists on applying a variety of bioinformatics analysis tools used to compare and categorize polio and picornavirus isolates and virus populations.
• Request NGS Sequencing for Illumina MiSeq and NovaSeq; PacBio RSII and Sequel; Oxford Nanopore MiniON.

Requirements

Required Experience and Skills

• Minimum 4 years of experience in the capacity of a bioinformatician.
• Experience with automation support; QMS & CLIA support; ELIMS integrations; Testing and curating new technologies, e.g., Nanopore; website development; communications and user experience preferred.
• Proficiency in R programming for statistical analysis preferred.
• Experience in Matlab applications preferred.
• Strong experience using applications such as BLAST/Megan, metagenefinder, QIIME, MG-RAST, and 16S databases such RDP and Greengenes preferred.
• Experience with de novo assembly and reference mapping preferred.
• Experience with RocheAVA, CLCbio, VIP, and VarScan software packages preferred.
• Ability to develop and implement bioinformatic pipelines to automate data analysis workflows preferred.
• Advanced experience with comparative genomics methods, including SNP/indel detection, gene structure comparisons, gene absence/presence determination, and protein sequence comparisons preferred.
• Previous experience in public health and molecular epidemiologic research, preferred.
• Experience working for the federal government or in a public health setting preferred.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team in a fast-paced setting.
• Ability to work with a diverse interdisciplinary team.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Effective organization skills.
• Ability to obtain government clearance.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or at any time in the future.

Education and Training

• Master’s of Science degree in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology or related field with 4+ years of related experience required. PhD in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology or related field preferred.

Physical Requirements

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer. May need to lift up to 25 pounds occasionally.

Who We Are

Tanaq Management Services (TMS) is a public health contractor, certified 8(a) business, owned by St. George Tanaq Corporation, an Alaska Native Corporation. (ANC). We listen to our stakeholders and leverage our science, technology, communication, and program expertise to understand and provide feedback as we develop solutions.

Our Commitment to Non-Discrimination

Tanaq is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. Tanaq complies with the Drug-free Workplace Act of 1988 and E-Verify.

If you are an individual with a disability and need assistance completing any part of the application process, please email [email protected] to request a reasonable accommodation. This email is for accommodation requests only and cannot be used to inquire about the status of applications.

Notice on Candidate AI Usage

Tanaq is committed to ensuring a fair and competitive interview process for all candidates based on their experience, skills and education. To ensure the integrity of the interview process, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to generate or assist with responses during phone, in person and virtual interviews is not allowed. However, candidates who require a reasonable accommodation that may involve AI are required to contact us prior to their interview at [email protected].

To apply for this and other positions with our company, visit:

https://recruiting.paylocity.com/Recruiting/Jobs/Details/3587843