The Sanger Institute is currently seeking a highly talented postdoctoral fellow with strong analytical skills to spearhead statistical/computational analysis of the genetics and genomics of PreEclampsia, a serious illness that afflicts mother and fetus during pregnancy and is a leading cause of maternal and fetal death in both the developed and developing world. No genes causing PreEclampsia are known, and the successful candidate will join a leading, newly funded international consortium tasked with identifying PreEclampsia’s genetic causes. The position will require analysis of thousands of subjects genotyped for hundreds of thousands DNA variants in order to identify variants that cause PreEclampsia.

The position offers scope to develop methods for identifying disease genes and researching related phenomena, and for learning techniques to analyse large-scale genotype and whole genome sequence data. The successful candidate will also have the challenge and opportunities afforded by the unusual nature of the PreEclampsia phenotype – whose genetic causes may reside in the genome of the mother, of the fetus, and/or in interaction between the two genomes.

Essential Skills
• A PhD in Quantitative Science (Quantitative Genetics, Statistics, Computing, or equivalent)
• Understanding and relevant experience for analysing large datasets for genetic association to discrete and/or quantitative traits in population-based samples.
• The successful candidate will be familiar with at least one statistical package (e.g. R/SPLUS, SAS) and have programming experience (e.g. Perl, C++. Java) and knowledge of Unix/Linux.
• Excellent written and spoken English are essential
• Must be able to effectively communicate with collobrators and occasionally present oral communication to large groups
• Firm grounding in statistical and mathematical methods

Ideal Skills
• A passion for identifying disease genes and for applying and developing analytic techniques to enhance their detection is needed
• An interest in understanding the genomic and population genetic context in which disease genes reside.

Other information
Now is an extremely exciting time for the study of human genetic variation. Genes responsible for common human diseases can now be identified by testing several hundred thousand to several million markers across the human genome. As a world leader in human genomics, genome informatics, and whole genome DNA sequencing, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) is now focusing large-scale genotyping, DNA sequencing, and mathematical analysis on the identification of disease-causing genes.

Postdoctoral Fellows are typically in their first or second postdoctoral position as part of a period of early career research training. The post is a three year fixed-term contract.

Successful applicant(s) who have submitted their PhD thesis and are awaiting their PhD award to be confirmed will be placed on a transitional pay point, currently £26364 per annum. On confirmation applicants will be moved on to the pay scale above.