Full Stack Bioinformatician / Developer (Postdoc or equal)
Join “The Laboratory for RNA-Based Lifeforms” in University of Toronto’s Donnelly Centre.
Together with Dr. Artem Babaian the work will develop the state of the art for the detection andsequence analysis of RNA viruses and virus-like agents.
(Micro)Biology is undergoing a paradigm shift in our understanding of Earth’s genetic diversity.
This is being driven by the widespread adoption and exponential drop in cost of DNA/RNA
sequencing, with 100+ petabytes of public sequence data available today, and growing. Our labaims to pioneer a new-generation of computational analysis techniques optimized forexabase/exabyte-scale datasets.
Recently we’ve developed an AWS-cloud backed computing architecture, Serratus(https://github.com/ababaian/serratus), which has enabled us process 5.7 million datasets (10.2petabases) in only 11 days. This analysis revealed 130,000+ novel RNA viruses across theworld, where only 15,000 were previously known in public databases. Learn more in our first
Nature paper, or watch our HCLS21 talk.

Who you areWe’re looking for a passionate, team-oriented scientist or engineer who can operate across thefull stack of cloud-computing infrastructure, data analysis, through to web-deployment; or behighly talented in one dimension. Currently we’re developing the Serratus architecture (code:AWS/Terraform, python, SQL, bioinformatics software, bash); the Serratus.io web-interface(code: AWS, CSS, JavaScript); the palmID RNA virus analysis suite and API (code: R, SQL,CSS); and several cloud-oriented analysis tools (AWS/Python). We’re open to applicants withexpertise in the areas of cloud-computing, scalable algorithm development, computational
virology, machine learning (why not?) or UI/UX design. You should be primarily oriented around
quantitative analyses.
You will work closely with a fast-paced international research team. Our work aims to also
create free and open data resources to catalyze the field of virology globally. Demonstrated
development or contributions to open source projects is a major asset. Mentoring andcollaboration junior scientists is expected.
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The Laboratory for RNA-Based Lifeforms. RE: Bioinformatician

Qualifications
Minimum (provide evidence please)●●●Demonstrated expertise in >= 1 programming language such as Python, C++, R, Perl,etc…
Highly motivated to learn, teach and pursue science across disciplines
Experience in the following areas:○ Cloud infrastructure / high-performance computing systems○ Databases (SQL)○ Web development○ Software engineering/documentation best practices

Preferred qualifications●●●

A clear vision of what you would like to pursue
PhD or experience in computational virology, genomic or “Big Data”
Demonstration of scientific mentorship, organizational and/or leadership skills

Where we areThe Canadian Donnelly Centre is located in the downtown (St. George) University of Toronto
campus in Canada. We are embedded amongst several world-class computational biology
groups and the Donnelly offers a cross-disciplinary repertoire of biological laboratories forvalidation/collaboration. The University of Toronto is the top Canadian university, and offers
countless opportunities for extending your academic experiences.
The start date is immediate/flexible, and we encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds.
The position can be full-time or contracted consultant, an ideal contact will be Toronto-local orwilling to relocate, but remote work is possible for an exceptional applicant.
We will be recruiting until this vacancy is filled.
Email your application package to artem@rRNA.ca with subject Application id0002 - bioinfo

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