Postdoctoral Fellow - Bioinformatician : Heidelberg, Germany

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is one of the highest ranked scientific research organisations in the world. The Headquarters Laboratory is located in Heidelberg (Germany), with additional sites in Grenoble (France), Hamburg (Germany), Hinxton (UK) and Monterotondo (Italy).

Applications are invited for an 18 month ERC funded postdoc position for a bioinformatician to work in the group of Dr. Marcus Heisler with a research focus on plant development.

The laboratory is investigating the mechanisms by which cell type boundaries regulate the morphogenesis of the plant tissues by focusing on a set of transcription factors, using both live-imaging and genomics based approaches. The prime function of the candidate will be to use bioinformatics methods to help interpret and integrate genomics data generated from three types of experiments including RNA-seq after transcription factor knock-down or ectopic expression, ChIP-seq for identifying direct targets and RNA-seq based profiling of the cell types these transcription factors are expressed in.

Qualifications and Experience

The candidate should have completed a PhD in which bioinformatics based approaches were utilized for answering biological questions. The candidate should have a strong background in statistics, an understanding of molecular biology and gene expression analysis (qPCR/RNA-seq) and expertise in bioinformatics methods and tools such as Bioconductor. The candidate should also be familiar with methods to access online data repositories and knowledge of Python or Perl may be advantageous. Good communication and presentation skills and fluency in English are expected.

No work experience beyond a PhD is required although some experience working in a research environment would be beneficial. The candidate should be able to take responsibility for his/her project as well as work well in collaboration with wet-lab postdocs.

Contract Duration: 18 months….