Research Associate (Limited Term)

Date Posted: 12/10/2024

Req ID:41087

Faculty/Division: Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Department: Department of Molecular Genetics

Campus: St. George (Downtown Toronto)

Description:

Overview:

The Laboratory for RNA-Based Lifeforms (https://RNAlab.ca) at the University of Toronto is an interdisciplinary research collective led by Dr. Artem Babaian. The lab focuses on understanding the structure and function of genes through the prism of RNA.

The sequence biodiversity of Earth’s RNA viruses and sub-viral agents is enormous and unexplored, at most 0.1% of the virome has been described. Our lab creates the computational means for ultra-efficient virus discovery by combining modern informatics and massive (petabyte-scale) data analyses. Building upon the Serratus project (www.serratus.io) we will explore the far limits of Earth’s Virome. 

Learn more about Serratus:

• The initial Nature paper describing the project
• Overview talk from ISMB22: “Serratus: Hacking Earth’s Virome”
• CBC News story about the Serratus project

Key Duties:

Computational virology is undergoing a renaissance. We’re looking to support passionate, self-motivated scientists with a clear vision to take on high risk research ideas and move the field forward. We aim to further extend the Serratus platform so that it also incorporates multi-faceted predictions and data regarding the biological, ecological, and experimental determinants of viral biology. The Research Associate is expected to independently carry leading, designing and implementing the computational framework required to predict and simulate the aforementioned behavior, as well as to deploy them on highly-scalable cloud computing infrastructure to facilitate dissemination of the data to the whole scientific community.

Given the interdisciplinary specialization of the laboratory, we are looking for a candidate with a unique combination of a strong biological expertise coupled with demonstrable experience in algorithm design, software development, database management and deployment of scalable services.

The applicant must have exceptional verbal and written communication skills, as they will be responsible for writing scientific papers, preparing data and text for grant applications, and communicating the results at national and international scientific conferences. Assistance with teaching, grant writing, and administrative duties is expected.

Qualifications:

• A PhD in Biology, Genomics, Computer Science or equivalent combination of research, experience and education
• 4+ years of related industry experience leading designing and implementing a computational framework
• Demonstrable experience writing high-performance code in two or more of these languages: C/C++, Julia, Python or R, and with one or more frameworks like BLAS and OpenMPI.
• Demonstrable experience designing and implementing GPGPU algorithms with frameworks like CUDA.
• Demonstrable knowledge of APIs for 3D vector graphics like GLSL, OpenGL.
• Demonstrable experience writing user interfaces for the web with technologies like HTML/CSS/Javascript and UI frameworks like React, WebGL is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrable experience deploying and managing cloud infrastructure in AWS or GCP, with technologies like Docker and Terraform.
• Previous experience related to computational simulations of morphology and/or 3D topological analysis of biological components.
• Experience preparing grant applications and presenting results at international conferences.
• Publications in a topic of research relevant to these qualifications

This position is a one-year term opportunity. 

Closing Date: 01/17/2025,11:59PM ET

Employee Group: Research Associate 

Appointment Type: Grant – Term 

Schedule: Full-Time

Pay Scale Group & Hiring Zone: R01 — Research Associates (Limited Term): $52,574 – $98,576

Job Category: Research Administration & Teaching

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