Senior/Research Fellow [LKCMedicine] Full-time

Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow

The Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) trains doctors who put patients at the centre of their exemplary care. The School, which offers both undergraduate and graduate programmes, is named after local philanthropist Tan Sri Dato Lee Kong Chian. Established in 2010 by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in partnership with Imperial College London, LKCMedicine aims to be a model for innovative medical education and a centre for transformative research. The School's primary clinical partner is the National Healthcare Group, a leader in public healthcare recognised for the quality of its medical expertise, facilities and teaching. The School is transitioning to an NTU medical school ahead of the 2028 successful conclusion of the NTU-Imperial partnership to set up a Joint Medical School. In August 2024, we welcomed our first intake of the NTU MBBS programme, that has been recently enhanced to include themes like precision medicine and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare, with an expanded scope in the medical humanities. Graduates from the five-year undergraduate medical degree programme will have a strong understanding of the scientific basis of medicine, with an emphasis on technology, data science and the humanities.

The Centre for Microbiome Medicine, led by A/Prof Sunny Wong and Asst Prof Kazuyuki Kasahara, is dedicated to exploring the complex relationships between diet, metabolism, the microbiome, and disease. The team places a strong focus on colorectal cancer and metabolic disorders, driving forward translational research to turn foundational scientific discoveries into meaningful health outcomes for patients, Singapore, and the global community.

We are seeking a motivated Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow with a background in Bioinformatics or Computational Biology and a passion for molecular microbiology to join our research team. The candidate will play a crucial role in advancing our understanding of microbiome-host interactions and their implications for human health. The candidate will carry out independent research projects, collaborate with other researchers, and leverage their expertise to develop innovative algorithms for data analysis. Additionally, they will be responsible for communicating their findings to the scientific community through academic meetings and publications in a professional manner. The role also includes preparing and submitting grant applications for ongoing and future research initiatives.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide bioinformatics analysis of microbiome-related omics data (e.g., metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing), including taxonomic profiling, functional annotation, and reconstruction of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs).
• Integrate microbiome datasets (e.g., metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics) with host genomics and clinical data to investigate host-microbiome interactions.
• Develop, implement, and maintain automated, scalable pipelines and workflows for microbiome data processing and analysis.
• Stay up to date with emerging bioinformatics tools and incorporate relevant methods into ongoing research projects.
• Manage datasets and databases, ensure data security, privacy, and compliance to university guidelines.
• Collaborate with cross-disciplinary team (internal team members and external collaborators) to ensure bioinformatics pipeline aligns with overall research objective.
• Visualize and communicate complex microbiome data in a clear and accessible manner for interdisciplinary teams.
• Contribute to formulating hypothesis, grant writing, publications in peer-reviewed journals and present research findings at conferences, seminars, and meetings.
• Supervise and mentor junior lab members, including graduate and undergraduate students in bioinformatics analysis and sequencing data interpretation.

Required educational qualification, experience, skills and competencies:

• PhD degree in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Computer Science, Molecular Biology or related field.
• At least 2 years of relevant experience in microbiome bioinformatics role with hands-on expertise in metagenomic data analysis.
• Strong proficiency in programming languages and data analysis tools commonly used in bioinformatics (e.g., shell scripting, Python, R).
• Solid understanding of omics data, including metagenomics, RNA-seq, and metabolomics.
• Experience with microbial taxonomic profiling, functional annotation, and genome-resolved metagenomics (MAGs).
• Familiarity with best practices in data management (e.g., Github), and reproducible research.
• Ability to design publication-ready figures and perform data visualization tailored to scientific manuscripts.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, and manage multiple research projects or datasets, and collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary teams.
• Entry level candidates with strong technical skills and motivation are also welcome to apply.