Bioinformatics Technician at the INB coordination node

Date limit
30-09-2020
Institution
Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)

 

About BSC

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is the leading supercomputing center in Spain. It houses MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, and is a hosting member of the PRACE European distributed supercomputing infrastructure. The mission of BSC is to research, develop and manage information technologies in order to facilitate scientific progress. BSC combines HPC service provision and R&D into both computer and computational science (life, earth and engineering sciences) under one roof, and currently has over 650 staff from 49 countries.

Context And Mission

ELIXIR (European Life Science Infrastructure for Biological Information) is a pan-European organization founded in 2014, which aims to integrate and harmonize European bioinformatics infrastructures. ELIXIR coordinates the participation of more than 20 countries, engages with other strategic European initiatives and projects e.g. ESFRI, Research Data Alliance, EUDat, EGI; promotes specific training activities and workshops on ELIXIR resources, partners with industry, and play a key role in shaping the bioinformatics landscape. Spain is a member of ELIXIR since 2015, with the Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB) as the Spanish national node. Within ELIXIR, the INB is responsible for the bioinformatics infrastructure offered by Spain, and therefore, should guarantee its alignment to the strategic areas put forward by ELIXIR.

Indeed, the INB has been recently renovated for the period 2018 – 2020 with two overarching objectives: increase the alignment of its activities with ELIXIR, and increase the translational impact of INB actions towards the Spanish National Health System (SNS). For the later objective, the INB has created and support TransBioNet (Translational Bioinformatics Network) which aims to structure, bring together and work with bioinformatics groups at healthcare settings with a special focus on the Health Research Institutes (IIS) recognized by the ISCIII.

VEIS project (expedient number 001-P-001647) has been co-financed in a 50% with 1.951.429,38€ by the European Union European Regional Development Fund within the Catalonian 2014-2020 Operative Programme FEDER, with the Generalitat de Catalunya Support. VEIS aims to consolidate the existing bioinformatics ecosystem around EGA (European Genome-phenome Archive) by bringing under the same umbrella a number of existing resources and platform in Barcelona, and then facilitate their interoperability - using preferably standards by ELIXIR and the GA4GH; their benchmark - when more than one resource is available for the same purpose; and their deployment among selected clinical partners.

Key Duties

  • Contribute to identify, annotate and benchmark the different component of the VEIS ecosystem.
  • Manage and support users of the INB computational resources, including computational equipment, databases, and software infrastructure.
  • Develop, document and maintain software for the integration and biological data, following the guidelines of ELIXIR.
  • Maintain communication with ELIXIR platforms, communities, and management, participate in their regular meetings and discussions.
  • Contribute to supervise junior members at the INB/ELIXIR-ES units.

Requirements

  • Education
    • BSc or MSc. in bioinformatics, computational biology or computer sciences with significant bioinformatics experience.
  • Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
    • At least 2 years of professional experience with a similar role
    • Experience in cloud computing
    • Experience in data management APIs and most common bioinformatics data sources and formats
    • Experience in database design and management (SQL and noSQL): MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite or similar; MongoDB, ElasticSearch, Cassandra or similar
    • Experience with advanced software packaging procedures
    • At least 2.5 years of professional experience on programming languages ecosystems such as C++, Perl, Python, PHP and/or Java
    • Vast experience working with Unix/Linux systems
  • Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
    • Experience on the development, generation and use of software containers e.g. Docker, Singularity and/or rkt, as well as their orchestration using docker compose, kubernetes, ansible and/or similar technologies
    • Experience on workflow managers such as Galaxy, Nextflow or similar
    • Experience on developing project technical specifications
  • Competences
    • Ability of understand scientific literature, and software documentation
    • Ability to communicate scientific results
    • Ability to work independently
    • Ability to represent the team in international project meetings
    • Used to work under pressure under strict deadlines

Conditions

  • The position will be located at BSC within the Life Sciences Department.
  • We offer a full-time contract, a good working environment, a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure, flexible working hours, extensive training plan, tickets restaurant, private health insurance, fully support to the relocation procedures
  • Duration: Temporary - 1 year renewable (up to 2 years in total) renewable
  • Salary: we offer a competitive salary commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate and according to the cost of living in Barcelona
  • Starting date: ASAP (project started January 2020)

Applications Procedure

All applications must include:

  • A Cover Letter with a statement of interest in English, including two contacts for further references - Applications without this document will not be considered
  • A full CV in English including contact details

Applications should be sent filling the application form at the end of this website: https://www.bsc.es/join-us/job-opportunities/10420lscbre2

Deadline

The vacancy will remain open until suitable candidate has been hired. Applications will be regularly reviewed and potential candidates will be contacted.
 

Diversity and Equal Opportunity Employment

BSC-CNS is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We are pleased to consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or any other basis protected by applicable state or local law.

 

Original source: https://www.bsc.es/join-us/job-opportunities/10420lscbre2