A Senior Research Scientist position on a prestigious BBSRC funded grant is available in Dr Justin O’Grady’s laboratory at Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich.

About the grant:

The grant is entitled “Genomic epidemiology of Salmonella, E. coli and AMR in the food chain” and the post-holder will be responsible for delivering the grant milestones and deliverables, writing reports and managing the research group with support from the PI.

Metagenomic sequencing based pathogen identification in food is very challenging owing to the vast amount of food matrix DNA present compared with pathogen DNA (the ratio can be as high as 10⁸:1). Therefore, pathogen DNA enrichment is crucial and we are developing novel strategies to achieve this, removing the majority of the matrix DNA from food and reducing the ratio of matrix:pathogen DNA to < 10:1. This will enable us to develop sequencing based workflows for the rapid detection and molecular epidemiology of foodborne pathogens directly from food samples.

The objectives of the grant are to:

(1) Further develop and optimise our current pathogen DNA enrichment strategies and to develop/test new enrichment strategies

(2) Develop a metagenomics pipeline for detection and molecular epidemiology of foodborne pathogens (in foods and the food processing environment) by optimising enrichment/depletion, DNA extraction, library preparation, sequencing, and data analysis.

(3) Run a performance evaluation study of the metagenomics pipeline on retail foods such as salad, salmon (smoked and fresh), pork and chicken.

(4) Apply the metagenomics pipeline in a large-scale study on the genomic epidemiology of Salmonella, E. coli and AMR in the food chain.

The role:

The post-holder will have experience working with long and short read sequencing technologies including PromethION, MinION, NextSeq, MiSeq (all available in our laboratory) and experience in pathogen DNA enrichment/ host DNA depletion strategies. The post-holder will also be responsible for laboratory management, report and manuscript writing and will be encouraged to apply for fellowship funding as the project proceeds.

The ideal candidate:

Candidates should possess a PhD in Biological Science or a similar subject. They should have good knowledge of metagenomics, bioinformatics and molecular diagnostics. Experience with pathogen DNA enrichment/host DNA depletion strategies is essential. Experience of liaising with industry partners is highly desirable.

Additional information:

Salary on appointment will be within the range £39,150 to £47,850 per annum depending on qualifications and experience.  This is a fulltime contract for a period of 42 months.

Further information and details of how to apply can be found here, or contact the Human Resources team on 01603 450462 or nbi.recruitment@nbi.ac.uk  quoting reference 1003524.

We are committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sectors of society.  The Institute supports equality of opportunity within the workplace and expects all employees to share and display these values.  To support our commitment, we have a range of family, faith and diversity friendly working arrangements to help all staff achieve excellence in their area of work.

As a Disability Confident employer, we guarantee to offer an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for this vacancy.

About the Quadram Institute:

The Quadram Institute is a new interdisciplinary research institute at the forefront of a new era in food and health research. Its mission is to understand how food and the gut microbiota are linked to the promotion of health and the prevention of disease. A partnership between Quadram Institute Bioscience (formerly the Institute of Food Research), the University of East Anglia, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and BBSRC, it brings together scientists and clinicians in a new state-of-the-art building opening in 2018. The Quadram Institute is based on the Norwich Research Park, one of Europe’s largest centres of life sciences and home of the John Innes Centre and The Earlham Institute.