Research Assistant

When you step into a role, what do you want the purpose of the company you work for to be? How does that align with the individual purpose that motivates your ambition?

As the only independent Medical Research institute in Australia focused on childhood cancer, our purpose is to translate and discover (through world class research), new treatments that will cure cancer and reduce the side effects in children and adolescents.

We save & change lives. At The Children’s Cancer Institute we believe that a life should be long. Cancer cuts life short for hundreds of children every year, before they’ve even had a chance to make their mark. We aim to not only improve their quality of life, but eradicate the cause of their pain.

Choose to be part of a team that will nurture your talent and grow your career, so you too can contribute to this purpose. Together, we can, and we will cure all children of cancer. It’s not if. It’s when.
The Genomic Childhood Cancer Risk team at the Children’s Cancer Institute investigates the genetic causes of childhood cancer. We aim to understand why children develop cancer, and ultimately how to prevent cancer in children altogether. To achieve this, we develop novel computational approaches to identify genetic cancer risk, and in collaboration with our clinical partners apply these approaches to patient cohorts.

As the Research Assistant in our Genomic Childhood Cancer Risk team your purpose will be to:

• Work with members of the Genomic Childhood Cancer Risk team, and external researchers, to develop novel analytical approaches to estimate cancer risk.
• Support cohort genomics projects within the group, through engineering, running, and monitoring analytical pipelines.
• Present work at meetings and conferences, and contribute to the preparation of publications and grants.
• Engineer software tools to assess established and novel cancer risk measures in paediatric cancer and other cohorts.
• Apply these tools at scale to large in-house and on-cloud cohorts, and analyse their output
• Interact with members of the GCCR and CB groups to ensure the efficient completion of your work.
• Liaise with external researchers at SCH, KCC, and other institutions, to address research in paediatric cancer risk.
• Foster a harmonious and collaborative team culture and support the REDI vision – respect, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
• Maintain and enhance your skills and knowledge through participation in education and the Institute’s development program

To succeed you will have…

• A BSc, BEng or MSc in bioinformatics, biology, applied mathematics, computer science, or a related field
• Strong expertise in at least one of bioinformatics, software engineering, or statistics, with fluency in at least one scripting language (eg R, Python, bash), and familiarity with command line use of POSIX systems (eg Linux).
• Experience in data analysis and strong familiarity with statistical reasoning
• Demonstrated experience in the development and execution of computational pipelines, such as bioinformatics pipelines or CI workflows.

Desirable skills would be:

• Expertise in cloud-based and/or high-performance computing platforms and software containers
• Familiarity with version control systems and team-based software development methods.
• Expertise in at least one of genetics, genomics, applied mathematics, cancer biology, or molecular biology

We will support you to be your best with benefits that include but are not limited to:  

• Access to our ‘FlexBEST’ program – true flexibility from day 1
• Focus on employee wellbeing, including a leading EAP program, and up to 5 gifted wellbeing days off (paid) per year
• Investment in leadership development and career advancement opportunities

Join a group of dedicated people in a performance-driven environment to achieve success and discover what it's like to look forward to coming to work every day and make a real difference.
A detailed job description and additional information about Children's Cancer Institute can be found on our website at: https://www.ccia.org.au/careers-study . We embrace diversity and encourage applications from people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
To apply, please click the 'APPLY' link and forward both your resume AND cover letter (mandatory) clearly addressing the qualifications, experience and skills required.

Note: Applications will be reviewed prior to the closing date; which is dependent on the status of the recruitment process.