Senior Bioinformatician

Wellcome Sanger Institute
Hinxton
10 months ago
Applications closed

Related Jobs

View all jobs

Senior Bioinformatician

Bioinformatician / Senior Bioinformatician

Senior Data Engineer

Senior ML Engineer

Senior Quantity Surveyor (various locations)

Senior Software Engineer (GO/PHP)

Do you want to help us improve human health and understand life on Earth? Make your mark by shaping the future to enable or deliver life-changing science to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges.

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior Bioinformatician to support single-cell and spatial transcriptomic studies needed to train large-scale AI-based foundation models as part of a collaborative project with Open targets ( This role will aid multiple computational projects across the lab, focusing on curating large-scale cohorts of training data to train foundation models. The position involves working within an interdisciplinary team of life scientists, computer scientists, and ML scientists.

The post holder will maintain a key understanding of the research portfolio within the team and contribute to the development of innovative and creative data analysis strategies. They will also contribute to the development of the training pipeline and machine learning and artificial intelligence models. Additionally, they will have the opportunity to develop their skills in machine learning and AI models. Finally, they will be responsible for exploring opportunities to transition project-based analysis work into established scalable pipelines and advocate for open and reproducible science.

You will join an interdisciplinary team of life scientists, computer scientists, and mathematicians. We all learn from each other and work together in supporting Wellcome's mission to address worldwide health challenges. This is an exciting opportunity to work in single-cell and spatial genomics to understand how the immune system develops and maintains health.

Key responsibilities of the role:

  • Help generate and lead data analysis, and interpret large single-cell genomics data relating to the Human Cell Atlas research generated by the group, shared by collaborators and publicly available, including multi-omic and spatial datasets (e.g. scRNAseq, scATAC, 10x Genomics Visium and Xenium).
  • Implement innovative and creative data analysis strategies to aid in the pursuit of biological insights and clinical translation using single-cell research.
  • Work in a team to answer research questions formulated together with the members of Haniffa Lab, and with team members across the wider Institute as appropriate. Contribute to problem-solving discussions to solve complicated or multifaceted problems and generate novel ideas and new approaches.
  • Organise and keep track of developed codes and generated data within the group.
  • Feedback results to project leaders when required to achieve deadlines.
  • To prepare high-quality data reports and manuscripts to communicate results, including through publication and presentations at scientific meetings.
  • To take a full part in the general duties of the team, and to pass on skills and knowledge to other team members and visitors. To take part in wider Sanger Institute activities as appropriate.
About You

You are a bioinformatician with experience analysing genomic data and interpreting biological data. You are seeking a senior role that includes elements of statistical analysis, data analysis and pipeline engineering. You are a highly detail-oriented problem solver and are eager to learn and develop in the areas in which you have less experience. Teamwork and collaboration are essential aspects of this role, and you will be enthusiastic about creating effective and productive working relationships with collaborators both within and outside the organisation.

You will be supported in your personal and professional development and have the opportunity to lead peer-reviewed publications on genetics and genomics approaches.

Essential Skills
  • MSC or PhD in a relevant quantitative discipline (e.g. Computational Biology, Genetics, Bioinformatics, Physics, Engineering or Applied Statistics/Mathematics); or equivalent working experience in Bioinformatics or a related discipline
  • Experience programming in high-level scripting languages (Preferably Python and/or R), and the Unix Shell
  • Understanding and some experience in the fields of genomics, data processing and high-throughput data analysis
  • Experience in single-cell genomics data analysis and integration, e.g. scRNAseq, scATAC (desirable)
  • Experience developing statistical/machine-learning methods for the analysis of large-scale biological datasets, particularly Gaussian processes, neural networks and deep generative models (desirable)
  • Extensive experience in a research environment with an established track record of productivity through publications, or writing reports in the industry
  • Enthusiastic, proactive attitude and desire to learn
  • Strong communication skills to allow efficient interactions with team members
  • Commitment, problem-solving skills and attention to detail
  • Ability to organise own workload and manage competing priorities
  • Ability to summarise complex information and present to a wide variety of audiences in a concise and logical manner
  • Demonstrates inclusivity and respect for all

Relevant publication of the groups:

  • Lotfollahi, M., Naghipourfar, M., Luecken, M. D., Khajavi, M., Büttner, M., Wagenstetter, M., Avsec, Ž., Gayoso, A., Yosef, N., Interlandi, M. & Others. Mapping single-cell data to reference atlases by transfer learning.Nature Biotechnology1–10 .
  • Lotfollahi, M., Wolf, F. A. & Theis, F. J. scGen predicts single-cell perturbation responses.Nature Methods16, 715–721 .
  • Lotfollahi, M., Rybakov, S., Hrovatin, K., Hediyeh-Zadeh, S., Talavera-López, C., Misharin, A. V. & Theis, F. J. Biologically informed deep learning to query gene programs in single cell atlases.Nature Cell Biology .

Get the latest insights and jobs direct. Sign up for our newsletter.

By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy and terms of service.

Industry Insights

Discover insightful articles, industry insights, expert tips, and curated resources.

Contract vs Permanent AI Jobs: Which Pays Better in 2025?

n the ever-evolving world of technology, the competition for top talent in artificial intelligence (AI) is intense—and the rewards are significant. By 2025, AI roles in machine learning, natural language processing, data science, and robotics are expected to be among the highest-paid professions within the UK technology sector. As an AI professional, deciding between contracting (either as a day‑rate contractor or via fixed-term contracts) and permanent employment could drastically impact your take‑home pay, job security, and career trajectory. In this article, we will delve into the various types of AI roles in 2025—particularly focusing on day‑rate contracting, fixed-term contract (FTC) roles, and permanent positions. We will compare the earning potential across these three employment types, discuss the key pros and cons, and provide practical examples of how your annual take‑home pay might differ under each scenario. Whether you are already working in AI or looking to break into this booming field, understanding these employment options will help you make an informed decision on your next move.

AI Jobs for Non‑Technical Professionals: Where Do You Fit In?

Your Seat at the AI Table Artificial Intelligence (AI) has left the lab and entered boardrooms, high‑street banks, hospitals and marketing agencies across the United Kingdom. Yet a stubborn myth lingers: “AI careers are only for coders and PhDs.” If you can’t write TensorFlow, surely you have no place in the conversation—right? Wrong. According to PwC’s UK AI Jobs Barometer 2024, vacancies mentioning AI rose 61 % year‑on‑year, but only 35 % of those adverts required advanced programming skills (pwc.co.uk). The Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) likewise reports that Britain’s fastest‑growing AI employers are “actively recruiting non‑technical talent to scale responsibly” (gov.uk). Put simply, the nation needs communicators, strategists, ethicists, marketers and project leaders every bit as urgently as it needs machine‑learning engineers. This 2,500‑word guide shows where you fit in—and how to land an AI role without touching a line of Python.

ElevenLabs AI Jobs in 2025: Your Complete UK Guide to Crafting Human‑Level Voice Technology

"Make any voice sound infinitely human." That tagline catapulted ElevenLabs from hack‑day prototype to unicorn‑status voice‑AI platform in under three years. The London‑ and New York‑based start‑up’s text‑to‑speech, dubbing and voice‑cloning APIs now serve publishers, film studios, ed‑tech giants and accessibility apps across 45 languages. After an $80 m Series B round in January 2024—which pushed valuation above $1 bn—ElevenLabs is scaling fast, doubling revenue every quarter and hiring aggressively. If you’re an ML engineer who dreams in spectrograms, an audio‑DSP wizard or a product storyteller who can translate jargon into creative workflows, this guide explains how to land an ElevenLabs AI job in 2025.