Team Lead and Resource Manager, Cellosaurus

Job tasks

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics is seeking a Team Lead and Resource Manager, Cellosaurus to lead the Cellosaurus cell lines knowledge base, an internationally renowned data resource part of the SIB resource portfolio.

Mission

The Team Lead and Resource Manager, Cellosaurus will provide strategic, scientific, and operational leadership for Cellosaurus, ensuring that it remains a high-quality, open, and sustainable biological data resource supporting research and innovation.

The successful candidate will plan, coordinate, and actively contribute to the maintenance, development, orientation and promotion of Cellosaurus to deliver timely, reliable, and high-quality releases to the user community. The incumbent will oversee the biocuration activity and software development of the resource, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and scientific relevance, and will be responsible of fund raising to ensure sustainability of the resource.

The mission will also include leading dissemination and outreach activities, promoting Cellosaurus to the international scientific, clinical, and industrial communities, and strengthening its visibility, adoption, and impact.

Finally, this role will require leading the Cellosaurus team, fostering a collaborative, high-performance environment dedicated to excellence in biocuration and data stewardship and to participate in SIB’s network activities.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and implement Cellosaurus’s long-term scientific and strategic roadmap, aligned with SIB priorities and international best practices, and build industry collaborations through targeted outreach and partnership development.

• Ensure Cellosaurus remains the authoritative reference resource for cell line identification, provenance, and characterization.

• Secure and manage competitive funding from national, European, and international sources to ensure the long-term sustainability and growth of Cellosaurus.

• Oversee the creation, review, and updating of high-quality content, ensuring accuracy, consistency, traceability, and compliance with international standards.

• Coordinate the maintenance and regular release cycles of Cellosaurus, delivering timely, reliable, and well-documented updates to the user community.

• Establish and refine curation guidelines and quality control procedures.

• Pursue the technical evolution of Cellosaurus in collaboration with SIB IT, developers, and external partners to ensure scalability, robustness, and interoperability with other biological databases and tools.

• Promote FAIR data principles and integration with key international resources and data infrastructures.

• Identify documentation and training needs and oversee the development of clear, comprehensive, and user-oriented documentation, tutorials, and use-case examples.

• Ensure that Cellosaurus remains accessible and useful to a broad community including academic researchers, clinical laboratories, and industry. Promote a high-quality user experience and service.

• Act as the primary scientific ambassador for Cellosaurus in international networks, standards initiatives, and partnerships.

• Lead dissemination and outreach activities for Cellosaurus, including conference presentations, workshops, publications, and collaborations.

• Lead, inspire, and develop the Cellosaurus team, fostering a collaborative and inclusive working environment.

• Build and maintain strategic partnerships with research institutes, cell banks, consortia, companies, journals, and funding agencies.

Profile requirements • PhD in cell biology, molecular biology, bioinformatics, biochemistry, data science, or a closely related life-science discipline.• Demonstrated expertise in biocuration, cell line annotation and ontology development, together with proven experience in addressing technical and biological challenges related to cell line management, such as authentication and quality control. Proven track record in leading and managing biological data and/or knowledge resources and international consortia• Experience in collaborating with industry and clinicians would be an asset• Demonstrated ability to secure and manage competitive research and/or infrastructure funding from national and international agencies• Excellent capacity for strategic thinking and organisational skills• A collaborative spirit, exceptional interpersonal, diplomatic and negotiation skills, the ability to find consensus and compromise and a solution-oriented attitude• Outstanding writing and communication skills in English; knowledge of French and/or German a plus• Ability to work to tight deadlines