Jobs in Structural Biology and Related Fields

Position as EMBD Team Leader

Hinxton, United Kingdom

Application deadline: 23 Feb 2023

In the wake of the “resolution revolution” in cryo-EM, the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB; emdb-empiar.org) has become a critical resource in this area, being the globally unique archive for cryo-EM volume data. In just a few years’ time, the archive has grown from a few thousand to around 25,000 entries and it has taken a leading role in acquiring and implementing community recommendations on how cryo-EM data should be archived and validated. With continuing revolutionary developments in the field (such as in-situ structural biology) and major progress in other relevant fields (such as accurate protein-structure prediction methods), the years ahead promise to be equally exciting and challenging for EMDB.

To tackle the challenges ahead, the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) is now recruiting an EMDB Team Leader (an EMBL Faculty position). The position is one-of-a-kind in the world and a unique opportunity for a scientist with experience in this rapidly expanding and developing field to have a huge impact on how the scientific community archives, validates and re-uses cryo-EM data in the coming decade.

The successful candidate will lead a team (of 7 staff members at present) to further develop EMDB, working with wwPDB partners and community experts, to ensure that the archive serves the needs of researchers, data scientists, funders and the wider public. This will involve anticipating and assessing the impact of methodological developments in the field on archival, curation, integration, visualisation and dissemination of cryo-EM data. Currently, the EMDB activities are funded by EMBL-EBI and the Wellcome Trust, and we expect the new Team Leader to be able to make a compelling case to funders to support its continued operation and development.

The following are key requirements for this role; applicants should be able to demonstrate most of them:

• A PhD degree in a relevant field.
• At least 3 years post-doctoral experience in the cryo-EM field.
• Good understanding of data collection, handling, processing, analysis, visualisation, interpretation, archiving, and validation in one or more of the common cryo-EM modalities.
• Demonstrated knowledge of research using cryo-EM techniques broadly as well as of the cryo-EM community and its practices, standards, and resources.
• Software development skills and experience in, or understanding of, modern software development by a team of developers.
• Project and people-management experience.
• Enthusiasm for engaging with the wider cryo-EM community.

Closing date: 23 February 2023

Contract duration: 5 years (renewable to a maximum of 9 years)

This position is for an ambitious scientist, with a passion for open data, who wants to lead the development of a unique resource for global, public cryo-EM data archiving, integration and dissemination.