Open gig position
Open gig position
Where?
The Phyloinformatics lab is led by Dr. Denis Jacob Machado, an assistant professor of bioinformatics. Dr. Machado is a faculty member of UNC Charlotte’s Department of Bioinformatics and part of our Computational Intelligence to Predict Health and Environmental Risks (CIPHER)center. CIPHER is a university-wide research center that focuses on genomics and computing technologies as applied to microbiology, biological and human diversity, and health.
What?
The phyloinformatics lab has published a Python script to annotate genes in the genome of flaviviruses. The program “Fast Loci Annotation of Viruses” (FLAVi) was originally on Viruses (2020; vol. 12, page 892, DOI: 10.3390/v12080892) and is available on GitLab. During this project, we want to review and update this code to make it more user-friendly, especially for users with little computational skills.
Who?
The ideal candidate is an undergraduate or graduate student who has beginner or intermediate-level skills in Python programming, some experience with Linux systems, some experience using a computer cluster and job schedulers, and demonstrable program-solving skills. The ideal candidate is also interested in open-source coding that can positively impact society and human health. Students with little programming experience are welcome to apply if they feel confident with their ability to develop these new skills quickly.
The candidate shall work at least 240 hours. The ideal candidate should be able to commit to at least 4 hours of work per week during the project duration. The project is expected to be concluded in 2024.
Why?
This project will help the student develop basic bioinformatics skills and expose the student to interdisciplinary research on phylogenetics systematics, molecular biology, and computational virology. Programming skills: Python and Shell scripting. Additional computational skills: executing jobs with a job scheduler in a research cluster. Other skills: teamwork, organization, version control, and data reporting.
Minimally, we hope to update the GitLab repository of the FLAVi program and announce a new version that is more accessible and user-friendly.
Previous post
Girls Who Code's Axe Hacks event
Next post
Ramadan Kareem Iftar Party on April 8