Computational Toxicologist

Job description

Job Title: Computational Toxicologist

Location - Colworth Science Park UK

Salary - Competitive plus bonus, Healthcare, Pension, Agile Working

Business Context and Main Purpose of the Job

The role sits within Unilever's Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre (SEAC), which is responsible for carrying out safety assessments of all Unilever products. The role primarily involves providing leadership and bioinformatics expertise for the design and development of a novel informatics infrastructure for SEAC. This infrastructure will provide a platform that will incorporate a knowledge management system, data integration tools, models and databases (both internal and external) to enable both expert computational biologists and risk assessors to apply Next Generation Risk Assessment skills and technologies to safety risk and impact assessments for Unilever. The platform will need to be capable of handling biological and chemical assay, omics and high content image data types. The role will also work across R&D to ensure that flexible approaches and resources are built and adopted for a wider R&D user base. The role will be part of team leading the change agenda within SEAC, to ensure that novel approaches for risk and impact assessment are embedded within the organisation.

You will be required to work with a range of scientific experts in a number of different disciplines, including biologists, toxicologists, eco-toxicologists, computational chemists and mathematical modellers. You will need to be able to communicate effectively with stakeholders and provide training for experts and non-experts within SEAC.

As a member of the Bioinformatics Team the role holder will:

Drive implementation of our strategy for advancing our capabilities for data management

and integration from internal & public sources

Provide design and development expertise for the components of the platform; including

development and dissemination of user-friendly tools, workflows and databases to a wide

group of scientists within the company

Work closely with external suppliers and experts in the informatics field

Interface effectively and work closely with scientists across SEAC to identify requirements

for data storage, retrieval and visualisation

Provide training to both expert and non-expert users to ensure novel approaches are

embedded within the organisation

Work with other scientists in R&D to drive adoption of new informatics infrastructure and

approaches

Main Accountabilities

Joint responsibility for the design, development and dissemination of a knowledge

management system, data integration system, user-friendly tools, workflows and

databases to a wide group of scientists within SEAC and wider Unilever R&D

Contribute to the design and development of a data visualisation platform

Facilitate data collection and work with the Informatics team and Data and Systems team

to implement data integration

Identify meta-data requirements

Liaise with external data providers to ensure data structure aligns to in-house

requirements and appropriate meta-data is obtained

Develop working partnerships with leaders in the informatics field e.g. Thompson

Reuters, European Bioinformatics Institute

Essential Skills, Experience and Qualifications

· Experience of ontology-based data integration

· Experience/understanding of big data technologies e.g. Hadoop

· Relevant degree in bioinformatics or computational biology or equivalent with

significant professional experience in this area

· Strong technical background with demonstrated programming skills in at least one

of the following: Perl, Python, R, Java, PHP,SQL

· Strong problem solving capability and ability to work autonomously

· Strong written & verbal communication skills

· Ability to lead and motivate others

· Ability to communicate complex concepts to a non-expert audience

Desirable Skills and Experience

· Experience in database design

· Experience of high performance computing

· Experience of working in multidisciplinary teams on research problems

· Demonstrable experience of working with standard bioinformatics tools and

databases (e.g. ChEMBL, ArrayExpress, KEGG, Taverna, Pipeline Pilot, Cytoscape

etc)

· Experience in creating scripts to mine and integrate data from external sources

· Familiar with LINUX environment and basic systems administration

· Experience of handling and accessing diverse biology/chemistry datasets &

databases

Competencies (SOLs)

· Growth Mind-set

· Bias for action

· Accountability and Responsibility

· Consumer and Customer Focus

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Unilever is a global Fast-Moving Consumer Goods company in the UK and Ireland. We are already on target to achieve our huge ambition to double the size of our business globally whilst reducing our environmental impact. We are growing our business and also doing what is right for our consumers, community and environment. We are developing brands for people's lives today and for the changing environment tomorrow - making sustainable living commonplace.

Working at Unilever means that you get to take part in this exciting journey and work with amazing people who are really passionate about our large portfolio of famous brands. We want to improve billions of lives and you too can join us in making a sustainable difference.

HOW TO APPLY

Hear stories from our Unilever Makers and understand how you can start your own Unilever career at: http://www.unilever.co.uk/careers-jobs/professionals/.

Or to apply now, click on “Apply to this job”. All candidate applications are reviewed in accordance with the criteria outlined for the job role. Please note that the closing date for the receipt of applications is 22nd September 2016.

Candidates who have applied online can track their application through the candidate tracking link or, if you have any additional queries, you may contact the Recruitment hotline number on 0800 0284390.