SAIC-Frederick, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).  As prime contractor for the National Cancer Institute’s research and development center in Frederick, MD, this national laboratory is dedicated to rapidly translating basic research into new technologies for diagnosing, treating, and preventing cancer and AIDS.  SAIC-Frederick maintains a full suite of advanced technologies in areas such as nanotechnology, genomics and imaging; operates the federal government’s only drug and vaccine manufacturing facilities; operates the high-performance Advanced Biomedical Computing Center; and supports more than 300 clinical trials for patients in the US and around the world. 

THIS POSITION IS CONTINGENT ON AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT (ARRA) FUNDING. SAIC-F is seeking a Senior Scientist to provide leadership in bioinformatics and biostatistical analysis for ARRA National Cancer Institute (NCI) Programs. These NCI programs include The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) (http://cancergenome.nih.gov), Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) (http://target.cancer.gov), and the Cancer Genome Characterization Initiative (http://cgap.nci.nih.gov/cgci.html). Goals of the analysis include assessing the technical quality of data, assessing the scientific quality of data, comparing newly generated data with existing data, and developing novel hypotheses about cancer biology, diagnosis, tumor progression, and therapies. The Senior Scientist will provide scientific and technical leadership for this analysis work and work closely with other scientists within SAIC-F and the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT). Some projects will be broadly defined and will require a high level of initiative and responsibility. For example, may be tasked with identifying mutations and copy number alterations that appear to be driving tumor progression or characterizing tumor subtypes in a given data set. Other projects will be more narrowly defined. For example, possible projects include computing the sequence read coverage for all exons in a given set of genomic sequence data. Several projects may be active concurrently.

Required Skills/Experience: In addition to education requirements, a minimum of five (5) years of competent, innovative research in a related field. Must have significant experience with bioinformatics and biostatistics in the area of cancer research; the ability to direct the work of other bioinformatics and biostatistical analysis; an understanding of current method of DNA and RNA sequencing; experience in analyzing high-throughput genomic data, including genotype, genomic sequence and gene expression data; experience in applying algorithms for computing sequence homology, for mapping sequence reads to reference genomic sequence, and for detecting sequence variation; experience in correlating molecular and clinical measures and in applying algorithms for clustering and classifying samples by molecular measures; and understanding of current methods of measuring gene and miRNA expression and alterations in genomic copy number and heterozygosity. Must have outstanding oral and written communication skills and the ability to completely define an analytical approach for defined scientific questions. This position is subject to obtaining a Public Trust Clearance.

Desired Skills: Experience directing the work of others and expertise in biostatistics, bioinformatics algorithms, and programming languages such as R or scripting languages such as Perl. Experience in managing development and deployment of applications and services that are subject to the regulatory requirements in the clinical trials regulatory domain. These regulatory requirements include 21 CFR Part 11, HIPPAA, FISMA, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and OMB Memorandum M-06-16.