Senior Bioinformatics Scientist - Ghobrial Lab

Located in Boston and the surrounding communities, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a leader in life changing breakthroughs in cancer research and patient care. We are united in our mission of conquering cancer, HIV/AIDS, and related diseases. We strive to create an inclusive, diverse, and equitable environment where we provide compassionate and comprehensive care to patients of all backgrounds, and design programs to promote public health particularly among high-risk and underserved populations. We conduct groundbreaking research that advances treatment, we educate tomorrow's physician/researchers, and we work with amazing partners, including other Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospitals.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

Bioinformatics and Data Management

• Design and maintain data architecture systems ensuring proper organization, documentation, and provenance tracking from generation through processing.

• Manage Google Cloud Platform infrastructure including project lifecycle, access control, and cost monitoring.

• Collaborate with wet-lab and computational biology teams to establish data management workflows and quality standards.

• Develop and optimize bioinformatics pipelines using Nextflow on Google Cloud Batch.

• Provide technical guidance on data sharing practices and ensure compliance with documentation requirements, and all institutional and regulatory guidelines.

• Provide scientific guidance on data analysis for sequencing data

Management of Scientific Project Deliverables, Collaborations, and Timelines:

• Oversee assigned projects from data generation through delivery and/or publication.

• Work with leadership to prioritize efforts, set budgets, and assign resources.

• Ensure success of project computational milestones associated with assigned projects, grants and research efforts.

• Maintain expertise in the latest research scholarship and advances in the field and provide scientific input on proposals and project direction.

• Integrate activities across multiple teams to maximize success of the overall project output.

• Ensure effective communication and alignment of efforts across all contributing computational collaborators both internal and external and timely reporting of progress to leadership and stakeholders.

• Proactively identify and work to resolve project roadblocks.

• Manage the internal and external relationships and partnerships pertinent to the objectives of assigned project computational collaborations.

• Works closely with the leadership team to promote synergy among the various teams and efforts, and that the various initiatives together advance the overall scientific planning and research objectives of the Lab.

• Accountable for ensuring project deadlines and contractual obligations are met for assigned projects.

• Accountable for the compliance of assigned projects.

Scientific Leadership:

• Lead, mentor, and supervise the project team of dry lab researchers.

• Contribute critically to strategic planning and scientific direction of the research group’s portfolio of projects.

• Drive innovation by identifying areas of improvement and development that align with those strategic goals.

• Cultivate a deep understanding of the scientific principles, theories and methodologies within the hematology precursor space, as well as the cutting-edge technologies and computational methodologies leveraged by the field.

• Guide research design and computational approach and provide critical feedback on progress.

• Analyze and interpret scientific data to draw meaningful conclusions and make recommendations for future research direction.

• Leverage existing multi-omics data to inform strategic decision-making as well as cohort design.

• Ensure synergy and efficiency in research efforts across interdisciplinary teams including wet lab discovery, clinical research, and bioinformatics to ensure synergy of the various project contributors.

• Report on research progress and present results, both formally and informally.

• Ensure that all research is conducted in compliance with regulatory and contractual obligations as well as institutional and industry best practices.

• Key performance indicators for this role will include project completion rate, innovation impact of project output, data integrity and quality of project research output, as well as team development for assigned projects.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong expertise in cloud computing (Google Cloud Platform preferred) including infrastructure management and cost optimization.

• Proficiency in workflow management systems (Nextflow) and containerization technologies.

• Experience with data architecture, version control, and reproducible research practices.

• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across wet-lab and computational teams with excellent communication skills.

• Demonstrated experience in complex, large-scale project or program management.

• Demonstrated experience managing large databases.

• Demonstrated experience managing budgets and resources on assigned projects.

• Demonstrated experience in translational research.

• Strong competencies in project planning and resource management with the ability to coordinate multiple activities and resources, while maintaining a focus on quality.