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Requirements
Job Overview
Under the limited direction of Dr. Cathy H. Wu, Professor of Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology and Director of Protein Information Resource, the Bioinformatics Team Lead will assume responsibilities for leading and developing novel algorithms and software tools supporting the NIH-funded UniProt Consortium project listed below, as well as collaborative projects being established. The candidate will be expected to work in a team environment, working closely with collaborating organizations.
UniProt: AI-Driven Scaling of Protein Knowledge for Biomedical Research
09/02/2026 – 08/31/2031, U24HG007822-13
$23,920,712 (total costs); GU-PIR Component: $4,276,115
MPI: Dr. Cathy Wu (contact PI), GU-PIR (Georgetown University-Protein Information Resource), USA; Dr. Alex Bateman, EMBL-EBI (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute), UK; Dr. Paul Thomas, SIB (Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics), Switzerland
Additional duties include, but are not limited to:
Lead bioinformatics and software engineering efforts for the UniProt Consortium project.
Oversee algorithms, databases, and application development, including system design and implementation.
Coordinate key informatics activities such as UniRef production, ID mapping, bibliography systems, Peptide Search, and website/FTP maintenance.
Develop and improve bioinformatics tools and systems, including databases, analytics tools, web interfaces, workflows, scalability, and performance.
Contribute to the scientific community through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and staying current with emerging technologies.
Work Interactions
This position serves as a technical and collaborative link among Georgetown University and external partners, working closely with bioinformatics and data curation colleagues at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB), and the PIR curator team. The position coordinates and contributes to cross-institutional activities involving protein sequence databases, annotation, data curation, and bioinformatics services, and provides technical expertise for resolving complex data and infrastructure issues. Through these collaborations, the position influences the quality, interoperability, and reliability of resources used by researchers and the broader scientific community. The position supports Georgetown University’s mission in biomedical research, data science, and the advancement of scientific knowledge.
Requirements and Qualifications
Master’s degree in computer science
A minimum of ten years of experience in bioinformatics software engineering
A minimum of ten years of experience in developing software to support the PIR bioinformatics infrastructure for the UniProt project, including the parallelization, optimization and scaling of the UniRef clustering methods for database production in regular releases
Extensive experience in programming with C, C++, Perl, Python
Extensive experience in database management, including Oracle
Extensive experience in bioinformatics databases, web applications, and web interface development
Experience in advanced algorithm design, including artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) methods
Experience in high-performance computing and cloud computing
Experience in system administration and server…