Human Genetics Industrial Placement Programme 2022

Want to solve some of the world’s biggest health challenges? 

With over 300 years of innovation, we’re a science-led global healthcare company that discovers, develops and manufactures innovative medicines and vaccines. Our industrial placements are real roles with real responsibility, where you can gain experience in a purpose-led, performance-driven healthcare business. Join us and help millions of people do more, feel better, live longer.

GSK are a science-led global healthcare company that researches and develops innovative Pharmaceuticals and Vaccines products. Our challenging and inspiring mission is to enable people to do more, feel better and live longer by developing innovative products and improving access to healthcare for patients around the world.

Whatever the role, you will experience working in a fast-paced research environment with access to cutting edge technology, whilst interacting with industry-leading scientists across multiple disciplines and sharing different experiences. During the internship, you will be supported and given training (laboratory and office practices, where applicable) until confident to work independently - with a focus on GSK health and safety requirements.  You will be enrolled in GSK internal courses to develop your knowledge of company policy and for your personal development including opportunities to attend seminars led by GSK scientists and networking opportunities.

Role 1: Statistical Geneticists/Bioinformatician for target identification and validation  

The successful candidate will learn and implement strategies to integrate genetic evidence, including polygenic risk scores (PRS), to the discovery and validation of drug targets for common diseases. This placement provides the opportunity to learn and work with a broad spectrum of cutting-edge statistical and computational approaches applied to various omics data. The successful candidate will be working in different disease areas and an understanding of working in a regulated environment may also be gained. Our aim is to train students in becoming independent in planning, implementing and interpreting scientific data as well as collaborating with other scientists.

You will:

• Learn and apply statistical genetics methods used to support drug target identification. 
• Gain extensive exposure and direct experience in applying genetic, statistical and computational knowledge for drug target discovery.  
• Receive training on high performance cluster computing systems, relational databases and how to develop analysis workflows.  
• Be offered hands-on experience in analysing different type of omics data (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics etc). 
• Assess and implement the best strategy for rare genetic variant calling and annotation. 
• Gather and integrate existing data from different sources for the inference of allelic series for target identification. 
• Build and improve visualisations to support target identification.  
• Assess and implement new strategies for PRS calculation and use existing data to validate our PRS-based approach.  
• Contribute to improve and assess the success of recall by genotype strategies using either PRS and rare variants. 

Role 2: Computational Biologist (Genetics) 

This is an exceptional opportunity for candidates who would like to take up a career in human genetics and drug discovery. Within this role embedded in the Human Genetics group, the candidate will get an opportunity to interact and learn from scientists and collaborators with years of experience in computational biology, statistical genetics, genetic epidemiology and drug discovery.  

The role will involve the analyses and interpretation of the association of genetic variation with diseases by studying molecular phenotypes (lipids, proteins, metabolites etc.) and the identification of biomarkers that are critical to drug development.

Specifically, the candidate will analyse or get access to the association of millions of genetic variants with the molecular phenotypes and with diseases in humans. This information will then be used to identify the biomolecules that are associated with diseases and hence potential drug targets. During the placement, the candidate will gain experience in applied genetics (analyses and interpretation of human genetic data and association with diseases), computational biology (graphs representing the association of genetic variants with molecular phenotypes and diseases), visualisation of networks and most importantly contribute to active drug target discovery and development. Lastly, the placement will provide the candidate with several opportunities to improve their communication skills through scientific presentations and collaborations.

Multiple roles available

Please read below about the positions we are recruiting for, when you apply you will be able to select 2 preferences. We will accommodate your preference where possible. 

Degree requirements

You will have completed a minimum of 2 years of your undergraduate degree; but will not have graduated at the start of your placement. You may be expected to provide evidence from your university to show you will be an undergraduate student for the duration of the placement year and they are supportive of your placement.

Currently studying towards as Biology, Genetics, Computational sciences or relevant quantitative degree.

Benefits

• A salary of £21,000, plus a bonus  
• Access to GSK resources such as employee assistance programmes, private healthcare, and training and development. 

Application deadline: We recommend you apply as soon as possible, because we accept ongoing applications and will close this vacancy once we have enough applications.  

For Industrial Placements that involve lab-based work, working with human biological samples the student must be Hepatitis B vaccinated to work within these labs. Hepatitis B vaccination is entirely voluntary.  If you decide not to be vaccinated, your decision will be fully respected.  You will be given appropriate project work, but would not be able to work with human biological samples.  It’s critical we follow the appropriate health and safety guidelines to all employees safe.

We have changed the way we recruit in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, you can learn more about how our practices have adapted here.

We’re 100% open to all talent 

We’re 100% open to all talent – whatever your gender, marital status, religion, age, colour, race, sexual orientation, nationality or disability. We want to recruit the right people for GSK from the widest possible backgrounds, so we can better serve the diversity of our patients and consumers. And also because it’s the right thing to do. 

Need help with your application?

Please email us at gskplacements@srgtalent.com and let us know how we can help you. Or email us your number and we’ll call you back. We’ll make all reasonable modifications to support you throughout the recruitment process and we’ll treat all information you give us in confidence. Please get in touch to help us process your application as soon as possible.