We are looking for highly motivated and bright individuals interested in high-throughput cutting-edge data analyses methods in genomics (computational positions). Available positions:

Applications are invited from suitable candidates in both, the Max Planck India Partner Program and the CRP Wheat Program for openings at the levels:

Minimum qualification Salary scale (per month)

Project assistant Bachelor’s / Master’s Rs. 10000 / Rs. 14000

Project fellow (junior data analyst) Masters + research experience Rs. 16000

Research fellow (senior data analyst) Masters + adequate research experience/desirable skill sets Rs. 22000

Research Associated PhD (<1yr) / > 1 yr experience Rs. 28000 / Rs. 32000

Condition to satisfactory performance, availability of funds and requirements of the project, the positions could be available upto a period of ~2 years (or funding of the project).

Essential qualification: MSc/BTech/MTech/PhD (or other suitable qualification) in discipline related to bioinformatics, computational biology, computer application (or equivalent)/ ‘Advance PostGraduate Diploma in Bioinformatics’. Proficiency in one of the programming languages or statistics (proficient in R for example) is compulsory.

Desirable qualification:

1. Programming experiences in at least one low level language such as C/C++ and one scripting language such as Perl/Python/PHP and knowledge of SQL/MySQL.

2. Substantial experience in the linux or other unix environments.

Application process: Applications should contain CV along with brief description (maximum 1 page) of research conducted (highlighting skills and experience) till now. Applications should be sent by email to Shree P. Pandey, Department of Biological Sciences, IISER-Kolkata, Mohanpur Campus, West Bengal within 2 weeks (Feb 19th 2015). E-mail: sppiiserkol@gmail.com, sppandey@iiserkol.ac.in Brief description of the group: We are an interdisciplinary group focusing on small-RNA (miRNA, siRNA) mediated regulation of signaling and defense. Project equally involve bioinformatics and systems biology (specially microarrays and next-generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis and its use), along with plant molecular biology, genetic engineering, field biology, and analytical plant chemistry for understanding response of plants to biotic stresses. For more details visit: http://www.iiserkol.ac.in/~sppandey/

Advertisement:

www.iiserkol.ac.in/images/iiserk/advertisements/advertisement_7_spp_feb_2015.pdf

1. Co-assembly procedure with read mapping for estimation of the abundances of genes in each metagenome
2. Co-assembly of a large number of metagenomes via merging of individual metagenomes
3. Includes binning and bin checking, for retrieving individual genomes
4. The results are stored in a database, where they can be easily exported and shared, and can be inspected anywhere using a web interface.
5. Internal checks for the assembly and binning steps inform about the consistency of contigs and bins, allowing to spot potential chimeras.
6. Metatranscriptomic support via mapping of cDNA reads against reference metagenomes

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/jtamames/SqueezeMeta

Name of the Post: Research Associate
No. of the Post: 01 One
Age Limit: Max. 35 years
Salary: Rs. 22000/- per month plus HRA

Required Job Profile:
Candidate must possess M.Sc. in bioinformatics or biotechnology from recognized university or institute.
Desired Job Profile;
Candidate having Ph.D. or pursuing Ph.D. in the related subject or equivalent published work in reputed peer reviewed journals or advance PG dipoma in bioinformatics course.

How to apply:
Eligible and interested candidates should need to send the bio-data and bring all related documents in original and set of attested copies of the same in the time of interview.

Last date: 16.02.2015
Refer to http://www.nehu.ac.in/Advertisements/BIFTuraAdvt_221214.pdf

Summary
Employer Address: Dr.B.K. Mishra Coordinator BIF, RDAP Department, North Eastern Hill University, Tura Campus, Tura, Meghalaya
Email: drbkm1972@yahoo.co.in;birendramishra14@gmail.com
URL: http://www.nehu.ac.in/Advertisements/BIFTuraAdvt_221214.pdf
Phone: 03651-223107
Required Skills: not mentioned / required for this post
Required Experience: not mentioned / required for this job post
Required Education: M.Sc. in bioinformatics or biotechnology from recognized university or institute.
Job Location: Tura, Meghalaya, India

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/Reedwarbler/GAPPadder

Installation

To download the development version of pacman:

Download the zip ball or tar ball, decompress and run R CMD INSTALL on it, or use the devtools package to install the development version:

## Make sure your current packages are up to date
update.packages()
## devtools is required
devtools::install_github("trinker/pacman")

Note: Windows users need Rtools and devtools to install this way.

More at https://github.com/trinker/pacman

Address of the bookmark: http://www.phrap.org/consed/consed.html

Young Professional II (Computer Science/Applications)
Master degree in Computer Science/Computer Applications/B.Tech (Computer Science) or equivalent.
Desirable: 1. Knowledge of Statistical and Computational Genomics/ Proteomics/ Bioinformatics/Data mining tools. 2. Experience in handling HPC, programming languages and database management packages.
A consolidated salary of Rs.25,000/- per month.
21 to 45 year

Young Professional II (Biotechnology/ Bioinformatics)
Master degree in Bioinformatics/ Biotechnology/ B. Tech(Biotech) or equivalent. Desirable: 1. Knowledge of Computational Genomics/Proteomics/Bioinformatics. 2. Expertise in NGS data analysis and knowledge of allied software and tools.
A consolidated salary of Rs.25,000/- per month.

Senior Research Fellow
1. Bachelors degree with Zoology, Fisheries and 2. Master's degree in Fishery science/ Zoology with Fisheries/ Biotechnology/ Life Sciences with specialization in Fisheries/ Molecular Biology. 3. 1 st Division or 60% marks or equivalent overall grade point average.
Desirable: Work experience in Fisheries, molecular research techniques, bioinformatics and Computer skills. NET qualified
Note: The project involves extensive exploration tours and sampling from water bodies all over India
Rs.16,000/- p.m. for 1st & 2nd year and `18,000/- p.m. for 3rd and subsequent years +HRA (as per rules) 35 years for male and 40 years for female candidate

How to apply

A walk-in-interview will be held on 04th March, 2015 at 10:00 hrs at National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, Lucknow. Eligible and desirous candidates fulfilling all the requirements may appear for the interview with duly filled in application giving full details of academic records and experience(s) along with attested photocopy as well as original copy of the relevant documents and a passport size photograph on the attached proforma.

http://www.nbfgr.res.in/

Metagenomic simulators are a way of dealing with this issue; they produce artificial sequencing datasets in which both the composition of the microorganisms and the expected results are known. Researchers can then test a pipeline on such a controlled dataset and see precisely how well it functions. However, as metagenomic studies have become larger, more diverse, and more complex, simply generating artificial reads is no longer sufficient. The simulators now have to replicate community variation, sequencing errors, different sequencing platforms, massive data volumes, and even laboratory-based biases.

MIDASim (2024) was designed with a particular emphasis on microbial community dynamics. Unlike previous tools which regarded each simulated sample as individual, MIDASim is able to efficiently generate realistic multi-sample microbiome datasets, covering the cases where changes over time are being tracked. This feature is particularly useful when investigating how microbial communities vary between people, different experimental setups, or at various times. By overcoming the computational limitations of earlier simulation methods, MIDASim has made it easier to carry out large and complex microbiome simulation studies.

A major challenge is scale. Since modern metagenomic projects can involve millions or even billions of sequencing reads, generating such large synthetic datasets can become a significant computational problem. In order to tackle this issue, Izzy (2025) was developed. As a high-throughput metagenomic read simulator, Izzy is designed with speed in mind while still reproducing the typical patterns of sequencing errors. The people who developed it stated that it can be as much as 60 times faster than earlier tools, which makes large-scale simulations far more practical. Now, researchers can begin to ask not how long a simulation will take but rather what size dataset they want to test.

At the same time, the sequencing technology became more diverse. Researchers were not any longer restricted to using Illumina short reads since Oxford Nanopore and PacBio long-read sequencing also became important in the field of metagenomic research. In order to address these new requirements, MeSS (Metagenomic Sequence Simulator, 2025) was developed. The programme is based on a Snakemake framework and is therefore compatible with the Illumina, Oxford Nanopore and PacBio platforms. MeSS has also been designed to operate efficiently and to use less memory than earlier tools; it provides ready-made templates for the microbiomes of different sites in the human body, thus giving researchers a simple means of beginning to generate realistic simulated communities.

The simulation problem became even more specialized. Suppose that sequencing is not based on uniform sampling of DNA? In the case of targeted sequencing and hybridization-capture experiments, particular sequences are deliberately enriched, and the probability of capturing a target depends on both the probe and the target sequence. A standard model based on uniform sampling might fail to take into account this important feature of real experiments. That is why RAmpSim has been designed specifically to handle simulations for capture-based and targeted sequencing. Instead of depending solely on the assumption of uniform sampling, it includes a thermodynamic nearest-neighbor energy model to represent probe–target interactions and sequence-dependent enrichment. As a result, it is especially suitable for applications such as hybridization capture in metagenomics, where the efficiency of recovering a sequence can depend strongly on how it relates to the capture probes. RAmpSim thus reflects a wider trend towards simulations that aim not only to reproduce sequencing output but also key aspects of the experimental process itself.

MIDASim, Izzy, MeSS and RAmpSim all demonstrate how fast metagenomic simulation is evolving. MIDASim is able to deal with realistic variation within a large number of and changing microbial communities. Izzy overcomes the problem of generating very large datasets. MeSS provides support for a number of sequencing technologies in an efficient and repeatable manner. RAmpSim increases the experimental realism for capture-based sequencing. Although each of these tools addresses a separate issue, they all contribute to advancing the field.

Modern metagenomic simulation therefore aims not only at producing artificial FASTQ files. Researchers nowadays desire simulated datasets that reflect community changes, incorporate the characteristics of the sequencing platform, include real error patterns, take into account computational scale, and account for experimental biases. As metagenomic workflows become more advanced, the simulators have to keep up with this development. The tools are now going beyond that of simple data generators; they produce controlled versions of complex metagenomic experiments and thus provide researchers with something that ordinary sequencing data seldom does: a dataset in which the answer is known before any analysis takes place.

It is possible to create a vector by typing data directly into R using the combine function ‘c’

x

same as

x

creates the vector x with the numbers between 1 and 5.

You can see what is in an object at any time by typing its name;

x

will produce the output ‘[1] 1 2 3 4 5′

Note that names need to be quoted

daysofweek ← c(‘Monday’, ‘Tuesday’, ‘Wednesday’, ‘Thursday’, ‘Friday’);

Usually however you want to input from a file. We have touched on the ‘read.table’ function already.

mydata

Now mydata is a data frame with multiple vectors

each vector can be identified by the default syntax

#if any of these are typed it will print to screen

mydata$V1 mydata$V2 mydata$V3

By default the function assumes certain things from the file

• The file is a plain text file (there are function to read excel files: not covered here)
• columns are separated by any number of tabs or spaces
• there is the same number of data points in each column
• there is no header row (labels for the columns)
• there is no column with names for the rows** [I’ll explain].

If any of these are false, we need to tell that to the function

If it has a header column

mydata header=T also works

Note that there is a comma between different parts of the functions arguments

If there is one less column in the header row, then R assumes that the 1^st column of data after the header are the row names

Now the vectors (columns) are identified by their name

#if any of these are typed it will print to screen

mydata$A mydata$B mydata$C

# Summary about the whole data frame

summary(mydata)

# Summary information of column A

summary(mydata$A)

We can shortcut having to type the data frame each time by attaching it

attach(mydata)

# summary of column B as ‘mydata’ is attached

summary(B)

Two other important options for read.table

If is is separated only by tabs and has a header

mydata

Really useful if you have spaces in the contents of some columns, so R does not mess up reading the columns . However if the columns or of an uneven length it will tell you.

If you know that the file has uneven columns

mydata

This causes R to fill empty spaces in a columns with ‘NA’ .

The last two examples will still work with our file and give the same result as with only headers=T

Graphs

to get an idea of what R is capable of type

demo(graphics)

steps through the examples, and the code is printed to the screen

We will work with simpler examples that have immediate use to biologists.

Remember to get more information about the options to a function type ‘?function’

Histogram of A

hist(mydata$A)

If there was more data we could increase the number of vertical columns with the option, breaks=50 (or another relevant number).

boxplot(mydata)

We can get rid of the need to type the data frame each time by using the attach function

# if not already done so

attach(mydata)

boxplot(mydata$A, mydata$B, name=c(“Value A”, “Value B”) , ylab=“Count of Something”)

same as

boxplot(A, B, name=c(“Value A”, “Value B”) , ylab=“Count of Something”)

Scatter plot

# if not already done so

attach(mydata)

plot(A,B) # or plot(mydata$A, mydata$B)

SAVING an image

Windows users (Rgui) RIGHT click on image and select which you want.

These instructions work for everyone.

You need to create a new device of the type of file you need, then send the data to that device

to save as a png file (easy to load into the likes of powerpoint, also great for web applications.

png(‘filename’)

boxplot(A, B, name=c(“Value A”, “Value B”) , ylab=“Count of Something”)

or to save as a pdf

pdf(‘filename’)

boxplot(A, B, name=c(“Value A”, “Value B”) , ylab=“Count of Something”)

Note

• Nothing will appear on screen, the output is going to the file
• Also it may not be saved immediately but will once the device (or R) is turned quit.

To quit R type

q() # If you save your session, next time you start R, you will have your data preloaded.

Or if you want to remain in R

dev.off() #turns of the png (or pdf etc) device, thus forces the data to save

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/thackl/gggenomes