JOB DESCRIPTION
- General Information
JOB TITLE: Senior Bioinformatician
GRADE:Band 7
DEPARTMENT:Biomedical Research Centre
HOURS:37.5
RESPONSIBLE TO:Head of Translational Bioinformatics Core
ACCOUNTABLE TO:Head of Translational Bioinformatics Core
Guy’s & St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust
Guy’s and St Thomas’ is one of the largest hospital trusts in the country, with a staff of almost 15,000, a turnover of over £1.3 billion and 2.3 million patient contacts a year.
The Trust comprises two of London’s oldest and best known teaching hospitals. The hospitals have a long history, dating back almost 900 years, and have been at the forefront of medical progress and innovation since they were founded. Both hospitals have built on these traditions and continue to have a reputation for excellence and innovation.
We are part of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC), a pioneering collaboration between one of the world’s leading research-led universities and three of London’s most successful NHS Foundation Trusts. Our AHSC is one of only five in the UK. It consists of King’s College London, and Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts. King’s Health Partners includes seven hospitals and over 150 community based services, is responsible for seeing 4.2 million patients each year, has 36,000 employees and 25,000 students, and a £3.1 billion annual turnover. Itbrings togetherthe best of basic and translational research, clinical excellence and world-class teaching to deliver groundbreaking advances in physical and mental healthcare. See
From 1 April 2011, the management of community health services in Lambeth and Southwark transferred from the local Primary Care Trusts to Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, marking a new era for community services locally.
The integration of community services into GSTT provides an opportunity for staff to help shape services so they better suit patient needs, balance demands across the whole system and create a seamless care pathway for patients.
Research & Development Department Information
The R&D Department at Guy’s & St Thomas’NHS Foundation Trust (GSTFT) is one of the focal points for innovative research in London through its nationally recognised research portfolio and research infrastructure. The broad ranging portfolio includes one of only five National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) comprehensive Biomedical Research Centres awarded in 2007-2012 in partnership with our academic partner King’s College London, one of only eleven NIHR Biomedical Research Centres receiving funding from 2012-2017 and one of twenty NIHR Biomedical Research Centres recently awarded funding from 2017-2022 (£64.4m). The portfolio also includes numerousNIHR Programme Grants for Applied Health, Research for Patient Benefit Project Grants, and a wide range of externally funded Research Grants. In addition, the Trust is a stakeholder in theaccredited Academic Health Sciences Centre, King’s Health Partners and the King’s Health Partners’ Clinical Trials Office. The R&D Department also supports the Clinical Research Facilities (CRF) at St Thomas’ Hospital, Evelina London Children’s Hospital and Guy’s Hospital based within the recently opened Experimental Medicine Hub. The NIHR CRF award from 2012-2017 has also recently been renewed for 2017-2022 (£7.25m). As well as hosting the South London Local Clinical Research Network (LCRN), the Trust is a major player in the South London network both in relation to the NIHR research study portfolio and accruals into studies, being the highest recruiting Trust in England for both 2014/15 and 2015/16. The Trust, in partnership with the University of Leeds, has also recently been awarded the contract from the Department of Health to provide the NIHR Clinical Research Network Coordinating Centre (NIHR CRNCC), totalling £90m over 5 years from April 2015. This Consortium of the Trust and University of Leeds also draws in expertise from the University of Liverpool, Newcastle, Imperial and King’s College London in an alliance to deliver the NIHR CRNCC. This contract allows the Trust to influence research activity at a national level.
The NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at GSTFT and KCL
The NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at GSTFT and KCL has recently been awarded a further £64.4m over the period 2017-2022 as part of the Department of Health’s strategy for Research & Development to deliver world class translational research to benefit the health and wealth of the nation. The first BRC award from April 2007-2012 allowed us to establish state of the art research infrastructure including the development of an Experimental Medicine Hub at Guy’s Hospital. The BRC’s research is strategically integrated and managed by five Research Clusters: Advanced Therapeutics and Experimental Medicine; Precision Medicine; Data Analytics; the School of Translational and Experimental Medicine (STEM) and the Infrastructure Cluster. Research within these Clusters from 2017 will be based around nine outstanding research themes encompassing Cardiovascular Disease; Cutaneous Medicine; Genomic Medicine; Imaging Sciences; Infection & Immunity; Transplantation; Oral Health; Regenerative Medicine and Cellular Therapy; and Women’s & Children’s Health.
The Experimental Medicine Hub houses state of the art facilities for the delivery of translational research and includes the BRC/R&D Department Management offices, Clinical Research Network for South London, and King’s Health Partners’ Clinical Trials Office, and the Translational Bioinformatics Research Platform creating a one stop shop for researchers, as well as the CRF at Guy’s, the Immune Monitoring Research Platform, Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Cell Therapy Suite and Genomics Research Platform, as well as the GMP Pharmacy, the Assisted Conception Unit with a GMP stem cell suite, and BRC Imaging Core.
Organisational Values:
Our values help us to define and develop our culture, what we do and how we do it. It is important that you understand andreflect these values throughout your employment with the Trust.
The post holder will:
- Put patients first
- Take pride in what they do
- Respect others
- Strive to be the best
- Act with integrity
Our values and behaviours framework|describes what it means for every one of us in the Trust to put our values into action.The framework can be found on our Trust careers pages and GTIntranet .
Job Summary
The post holder will be part of the BRC Translational Bioinformatics Platform:
The Platform is composed of a team of bioinformaticians, data analysts and computer scientists and is responsible for the provision scientific support in the areas of bioinformatics and data analysis.
The post holder will provide bioinformatics analysis of complex and integrated data sets, encompassing genomics and clinical and pathological information, and spanning different therapeutic areas. They are expected to take a leading role on assigned scientific projects on different therapeutic areas, in collaboration with a range of academic and clinical researchers.
- Key Relationships:
Head of Translational BRC Bioinformatics Platform, BioinformaticsPlatform staff, Cluster Manager,R&D Department, King’s Health Partners Clinical Trials Office, Consultants and Junior Medical Staff, administrative and Clerical Support Staff, Professional and Technical staff. Staff within the Medical School and other relevant hospitals and Trusts, non commercial bodies and Pharmaceutical companies and/or sponsors
Professional Responsibilities
a)Provide data analysis and high quality scientific input for the academic and clinical researchers
b)Responsible for development of novel analytical strategies to deal with all aspects of the data required
c)Will act as lead in developing bioinformatics solutions and analysis
d)Work alongside experimental scientists to design experiments, to analyse the experimental data, and to present analysis results
e)Communicate highly complex type of work to a wide spectrum of researchers, clinicians and other users who are not trained and experienced in the bioinformatics field.
f)Respond and address various users and groups needs appropriately
g)Provide a link between the wider bioinformatics community by interacting with bioinformaticians across the partner organisations to bring expertise to and share expertise from the bioinformatics programs to ensure a state-of-the-art facility.
h)Keep up-to-date with new bioinformatics software tools, especially regarding the analysis of next-generation sequence data
i)Ensure that the workload is distributed in a manner that is consistent with the Trust objectives for enabling a good working environment.
j)Identify the project benefits to the BRC and ensure that appropriate criteria of success are identified, measured, evaluated and reported upon. This will involve developing and implementing new protocols of data analysis and software use and collaboration with end users to publish and disseminate in other ways the findings from this research and development.
k)Co-operate with all others in the BRC teams to ensure that it is an efficient, highly motivated and capable workforce
Management and Leadership
a)Operate as the bioinformatics lead for assigned projects
b)Manage the end-to-end process (from feasibility to handover) for new projects and software solution
c)Provide assistance, guidance and supervision to junior members of the team
Financial Management
a)Responsible for keeping track of user time and resources and costing during the course of the projects.
Information management
a)Evaluate and implement policies for data analysis in collaboration with the end users and expected to respond to needs and new innovations and plans.
Human Resources Management
a)Ensure that the workload is distributed in a manner that is consistent with the Trust objectives for enabling a good working environment.
b)To be responsible for developing and sustaining own knowledge, skillsand professional awareness.
Education and Professional Development
a)To attend courses as deemed relevant, including mandatory training, and to attend meetings and conferences as appropriate
b)To train staff as appropriate in the analytical skills and software solutions.
c)To prepare and deliver lectures, workshops and other teaching forms, in bioinformatics and computational biology.
The above duties will be subject to review from time to time, in discussion with the post holder, to ascertain whether they meet the requirements of the department.
General
The post holder is required to follow Trust policies and procedures which are regularly updated including:
Confidentiality / Data Protection / Freedom of Information
Post holders must maintain the confidentiality of information about patients, staff and other health service business in accordance with the Data Protection Act of 1998. Post holders must not, without prior permission, disclose any information regarding patients or staff. If any member of staff has communicated any such information to an unauthorised person those staff will be liable to dismissal. Moreover, the Data Protection Act 1998 also renders an individual liable for prosecution in the event of unauthorised disclosure of information.
Following the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) 2005, post holders must apply the Trust’s FOI procedure if they receive a written request for information.
Equal Opportunities
Post holders must at all times fulfil their responsibilities with regard to the Trust’s Equal Opportunities Policy and equality laws.
Health and Safety
All post holders have a responsibility, under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and subsequently published regulations, to ensure that the Trust’s health and safety policies and procedures are complied with to maintain a safe working environment for patients, visitors and employees.
Infection Control
All post holders have a personal obligation to act to reduce healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). They must attend mandatory training in Infection Control and be compliant with all measures required by the Trust to reduce HCAIs.All post holders must comply with Trust infection screening and immunisation policies as well as be familiar with the Trust’s Infection Control Policies, including those that apply to their duties, such as Hand Decontamination Policy, Personal Protective Equipment Policy, safe procedures for using aseptic techniques and safe disposal of sharps.
Risk Management
All post holders have a responsibility to report risks such as clinical and non-clinical accidents or incidents promptly. They are expected to be familiar with the Trust’s use of risk assessments to predict and control risk, as well as the incident reporting system for learning from mistakes and near misses in order to improve services. Post holders must also attend training identified by their manager, or stated by the Trust to be mandatory.
Flexible Working
As an organisation we are committed to developing our services in ways that best suit the needs of our patients. This means that some staff groups will increasingly be asked to work a more flexible shift pattern so that we can offer services in the evenings or at weekends.
Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults
Post holders have a general responsibility for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults in the course of their daily duties and for ensuring that they are aware of the specific duties relating to their role.
Smoking Policy
It is the Trust’s policy to promote health. Smoking, therefore, is actively discouraged. It is illegal within Trust buildings and vehicles.
Review of this Job Description
This job description is intended as an outline of the general areas of activity and will be amended in the light of the changing needs of the organisation. To be reviewed in conjunction with the post holder.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Bioinformatician
Band 7
Requirements
ESSENTIAL / A/I/T* / DESIRABLE / A/I/T*Qualifications/ Education / Educated to PhD level or equivalent in an appropriate discipline (e.g., computer science, bioinformatics, mathematics, etc.) / A
Previous experience / Post-doctoral or equivalent experience of bioinformatic analysis of complex and multiple -omics data sets (e.g. NGS, microarrays, metabonomics, metagenomics, CyTOF, MS)
Experience in the application of machine learning techniques to the analysis large data volumes
Experience on the preparation of scientific reports for publication
Experience in MatLab or R programming / A/I
A/I
A/I
A/I
A/I / Previous Experience in a translational research setting / A/I
Skills/Knowledge/ Ability / Computer programming in R, MatLab, Perl, Python or another functional programming language
Ability and experience in the analyse of large -omics datasets (microarray, NGS, proteomics, FACS, CyTOF) with appropriate mathematical/statistical methods
Good knowledge of genomics databases, public resources and bioinformatics tools for data interrogation and interpretation
Strong foundations and skills in biostatistics and analytical methods / A/I
A/I
A/I
A/I / Foundations of Molecular Biology and Immunology
Linux OS, shell scripting
Algorithm Development / A/I
A/I
A/I
Additional Information / GGood team member with the ability to engage with all grades of staff
A good communicator able to explain complex concepts effectively
Good communication, organisation, team coordination and conflict resolution / A/I
A/I
A/I / Enthusiasm with the ability to motivate a team in a rapidly changing environment / A/I
A=application
I=interview
T=Test/ assessment centre
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