Post-Doctoral Researcher for Developmental GTEx

The Institute

The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) is an international biomedical research institute of excellence, based in Barcelona, Spain, with more than 400 scientists from 44 countries. The CRG is composed by an interdisciplinary, motivated and creative scientific team which is supported both by a flexible and efficient administration and by high-end and innovative technologies.

In April 2021, the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) received the renewal of the 'HR Excellence in Research' Award from the European Commission. This is a recognition of the Institute's commitment to developing an HR Strategy for Researchers, designed to bring the practices and procedures in line with the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers (Charter and Code).

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The role

The Developmental Gene-Tissue Expression Project, dGTEx, aims to uncover molecular processes in postnatal development as well as genetic and non-genetic sources of inter-individual molecular variation, with the ultimate goal of better understanding human biology and disease. We will achieve these goals by developing novel and innovative analysis methods and approaches applied to multimodal Developmental GTEx data types from both bulk and single-cell tissue analyses. We have chosen to focus on the human dGTEx data, but a selected subset of the approaches proposed here will be applied to non-human primates as well.

We are searching for a talented post-doctoral researcher with a strong background in Computational Biology and a very good understanding of biological concepts to join the group. In particular, the researcher will contribute to the accurate annotation of the genomes of different primate species and will also participate in the implementation of computational methods to assess the causal relationship between transcriptomic and phenotypic traits.

About Guigo’s lab

The overarching theme of the research in our lab is the understanding of the information encoded in genomic sequences, and how this information is processed in the pathway leading from DNA to protein sequences. More specifically, we are interested in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression and RNA processing, the relationship between molecular phenotypes and higher order endophenotypes and organismal phenotypes, and the identification of functional regions on the genome of all living beings. Our group is mostly computational, and we do both large-scale data analysis and development of methods, but it has also an important experimental component. We participate in many large scale international functional genomics projects, such as ENCODE, GTEx, BluePrint and others.

Whom would we like to hire?

Must Have:

Strong background in Computational Biology
Very good understanding of biological concepts
Experience in the analysis of large-scale omics data, specifically (single cell/bulk) RNAseq. Experience with QTL analysis and quality control would be a plus
Experience in the development and/or implementation of algorithms and/or computational pipelines
Background/experience in building statistical and/or machine learning methods, in particular for data integration tasks, would be a plus
Previous experience in building and interacting with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL) and APIs would be a plus

Education and training

PhD in Bioinformatics or in Biology, Machine Learning, Statistics, Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry or related areas

Languages:

Highly proficient in both spoken and written English

Technical skills:

Strong programming skills in R or Python. Additional experience in, for example, C, C++, MATLAB, or Julia would be a plus
Data visualisation
Bash scripting in a Linux environment, ideally tailored to an HPC infrastructure
Multivariate statistics
Containerized workflows and DSLs, e.g.: Nextflow, SnakeMake,
Familiarity with deep learning libraries like TensorFlow and Pytorch would be a plus
Collaborative tools

Competences

Project management
Interdisciplinary research
Capacity to work independently, but also ability to interact with others, both with colleagues within the group and from the project consortium
Good (academic) writing and presentation skills
Imagination, Motivation, Curiosity, Pro-activity, Independence, Critical thinking

The Offer – Working Conditions

Contract duration: Technical and scientific activities contract linked to the project (estimated 20 months)
Estimated annual gross salary: Salary is commensurate with qualifications and consistent with our pay scales
Target start date: As soon as possible

We provide a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructures, and unique professional career development opportunities. To check out our training and development portfolio, please visit our website in the training section.

We offer and promote a diverse and inclusive environment and welcomes applicants regardless of age, disability, gender, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.

The CRG is committed to reconcile a work and family life of its employees and are offering extended vacation period and the possibility to benefit from flexible working hours.