ILRI Bioinformatician - BecA Job in Nairobi Kenya

Vacancy Number: CO/BECA/08/11

Department: BecA-ILRI Hub

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Duration: 2-year term with possibility of renewal

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works at the crossroads of livestock and poverty, bringing high-quality livestock science, communications and capacity building to bear on poverty reduction and sustainable development.

ILRI is one of 15 centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). ILRI has campuses in Kenya (headquarters) and Ethiopia, with other offices located in other regions of Africa (Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria) as well as in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka), Southeast Asia (Laos, Thailand, Vietnam) and East Asia (China).

ILRI also manages the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) Hub at ILRI, a new centre for excellence in modern plant and animal biology in Africa. BecA is an initiative developed within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)/ African Union African Biosciences initiative. It consists of a Hub based on the ILRI campus in Nairobi, Kenya and a network of regional nodes and other affiliated laboratories and organizations throughout the region.

The BecA Hub facilities are world class, including a range of molecular, plant transformation, and genomics laboratories and equipment (e.g. 454 sequencing, Biosafety level 3 laboratory, plant growth facilities).

The Hub hosts and conducts research in crop, microbe and livestock areas where new developments in science offer promise to address previously intractable problems constraining Africa’s development. Capacity building is a major goal of all activities.

The scope covers agriculture and food security and their intersections with human health and nutrition, and the sustainable use of Africa’s natural resources.

Further information is available at http://hub.africabiosciences.org/.


ILRI seeks to recruit a Bioinformatician to work within the BecA Hub.

Key responsibilities:

• Management and quality control of large amounts of data;
• Design, implement and manage database(s) to store and sequence data;
• Processing and analyzing data using a wide range of tools (including BLAST, sequence assemblers, MEGAlign, …)
• Use scripting to aid and automate analysis.

Requirements

• Master’s in Bioinformatics or related field;
• 3 – 5 years work experience in a bioinformatics position;
• Knowledge of Genetics, Biotechnology and their applications;
• Demonstrate experience working and developing in a Linux environment;
• Knowledge in SQL and scripting languages (PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby)

Terms of appointment: This is a Nationally Recruited Staff (NRS) position based at ILRI’s Nairobi campus and is open to Kenyan nationals only. The position is on a 2-year term renewable subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funding up to a maximum of one year. ILRI will give a competitive salary/benefits package to the successful candidate.

Applications addressed to the Human Resources Director, a cover letter, curriculum vitae and the names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience should be emailed to: recruit-ilri-Ken@cgiar.org by 30 September 2011, but screening of applications will start immediately.

The position title and reference number “BIOINFORMATICIAN: BIOINFO/BECA/08/11” should be clearly marked on the subject line of the email applications. Only short listed candidates will be contacted.

To find out more about ILRI and the BecA-ILRI Hub, visit our websites at http://www.ilri.org and http://hub.africabiosciences.org

ILRI is an equal opportunity employer.

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