To represent Swiss bioinformatics and carry out its mission, SIB draws its strength from a community of over 80 research and service groups. These are led by Group Leaders that are either employed by SIB or based in major schools of higher education and research institutes in the country. Find out how to become a Group Leader and the other ways in which you can take advantage of our network, as an embedded bioinformatician in a wet lab or as a member of our bioinformatics intersection at LS2.
A career at SIB
Our community of 900 members includes 200 employees who work across Switzerland, carrying out our executive and support functions. These are performed both at the SIB Hub on key projects or as part of affiliated groups at our partner institutions such as to develop the leading open databases and software tools we offer to the life science community.
How to become a Group Leader
If you are leading a research group involved in service, research, infrastructure or development in bioinformatics, in a Swiss school of higher education and/or research institute, you may be eligible to join SIB as a Group Leader.
Scientific excellence is at the very core of our selection process. Provided our selection criteria are met (incl. your group produces new bioinformatics resources or is a core facility providing bioinformatics support, your willingness to engage in SIB’s activities), the Group Leader membership request is voted on by the Council of Group Leaders on the basis of a majority, and should be approved by the Foundation Council.
The procedure takes place twice a year: by 31 March and 31 October for a renewable period of 4 years. For more information, please contact us.
Upon joining SIB, new Group Leaders become members, as does their team, of our community of 900 scientists in Switzerland.
Want to give back to the community by getting involved?
- Share your bioinformatics knowledge and become a trainer in the Training programme.
- Stay tuned for our calls to participate in committees, such as the SIB Award Committee, the Scientific Committees for our conferences, and topic-specific groups or initiatives, such as the Diversity focus group or the EcoImpact focus group.
- Take part in after-work activities organized by your local Social Committee or set one up in your city.
- Create a focus group or join an existing one (e.g. epigenomics, semantic web of data, single-cell omics) to share with peers on specific scientific topics.
When bioinformatics meets the wet lab
There are more and more bioinformaticians physically collocated with researchers in wet labs: so-called “embedded bioinformaticians”. Their presence in the research groups is a real advantage, as they can provide direct guidance on how to design experiments, how to manage and analyse data and the optimized use of the various bioinformatics tools.
Embedded bioinformaticians
If you are a bioinformatician working in a non-SIB Group or in an institution that is not among our institutional partners, you may still be eligible to become a member. By becoming an SIB Member as embedded bioinformatician (see box) you can take advantage of our expert network, which you can consult continuously to benefit from state-of-the-art expertise and support in the field. You first need to establish a collaboration with one of SIB’s Groups.
Apply here to become an SIB embedded bioinformatician.
I am an SIB embedded bioinformatician in the Clinical Pathology Division at the Geneva University Hospitals. My background is in computer science with a solid grounding in biology, and thus allows me to understand and address biological questions by developing novel computing approaches, such as clinical diagnostics tools and pipelines.
LS2 Intersection Bioinformatics
In 2019, LS2 Life Sciences Switzerland and SIB created the LS2 Intersection Bioinformatics, to materialize the fact that bioinformatics and life sciences feed from each other. It is aimed at Swiss-based life scientists with an interest in bioinformatics.
Through activities that are determined by its board, this intersection:
1) creates additional bridges between the two disciplines,
2) fosters collaborations between SIB Members and LS2 Members, and
3) accelerates the development of methods and tools supporting the latest experimental developments.
Members of this newly formed intersection benefit for instance from reduced registration fees to the [BC]2 conference, from tailor-made regular highlights of the latest news from the Swiss bioinformatics community, and more.
New members can apply for the LS2 membership here and select "Intersection Bioinformatics" in the online application form.