Expert/Sr. Expert, Data Science – Immuno-Oncology & Hematology

Key Skills

Data science techniques, Java Programming, Machine learning techniques, Python Programming, R Programming, SQL, Terabyte scale datasets

Job Description

The Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) is Novartis’ innovation engine, focusing on powerful new technologies that have the potential to help produce therapeutic breakthroughs for patients. Within NIBR, the Immuno-Oncology & Hematology (IOH) department is dedicated to developing and deliver cutting-edge therapies to benefit patients with cancer and blood disorders.

We are seeking an experienced data scientist/computational biologist/bioinformatician to join the IOH Data Science team to support the drug discovery process. In this very collaborative environment, you will engage in a range of exploratory and translational research activities and will support target and biomarker discovery through data curation, visualization, and computational analysis. You will contribute computational expertise to the department, work closely with IOH project teams and collaborate with other NIBR data scientists.

The ideal candidate should be a creative, proactive, and flexible scientist, a highly motivated and open-minded team player that communicates clearly and effectively, and a continuous learner. You will help to answer biological questions via computational analyses that leads to interpretable results. As a result, you need to have a solid understanding of omics data, data science and machine learning methodologies.

This is a unique opportunity to contribute to drug development to deliver innovative new therapies to patients with cancer and blood disorders.

Responsibilities include, but not limited to:

• Interrogate large-scale omics datasets, including single-cell data, to answer research questions and drive target and biomarker discovery.
• Contribute to the IOH Data Science team’s key activities on immuno-oncology.
• Help build computational infrastructure that facilitates sustainable development of computational tools, storage and integration of large datasets, and simultaneous query of multiple datasets.
• Make oral and written updates in team meetings as needed, communicating key findings to both computational and experimental biologists.
• Document analysis code and results in electronic lab notebooks and contribute to scientific publications.
• Keep abreast of newly published methods in machine learning and computational biology.

Diversity & Inclusion / EEO

The Novartis Group of Companies are Equal Opportunity Employers and take pride in maintaining a diverse environment. We do not discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status. We are committed to building diverse teams, representative of the patients and communities we serve, and we strive to create an inclusive workplace that cultivates bold innovation through collaboration and empowers our people to unleash their full potential.

Minimum Requirements

What you'll bring to this role:

• M.Sc./Ph.D. degree in computational biology, bioinformatics, biomedical engineering, computer science, statistics, applied math, or a related discipline.
• The level of the position will be commensurate with experience.
• Solid scientific programming skills in Python, R or related languages.
• Prior experience analyzing omics data to answer biological questions strongly preferred. This experience must be demonstrated by the completion of relevant projects.
• Candidates with a solid working knowledge of cancer biology and immunology preferred.
• Candidates with experience analyzing tumor heterogeneity and plasticity preferred.
• Comfortable interacting with project teams and can independently execute computational analyses, troubleshoot, and complete relevant documentation.
• Requires a strong interest in building, assessing, and employing machine learning models to interrogate omics data.

Why consider Novartis?

766 million lives were touched by Novartis medicines in 2021, and while we’re proud of this, we know there is so much more we could do to help improve and extend people’s lives.

We believe new insights, perspectives and ground-breaking solutions can be found at the intersection of medical science and digital innovation. That a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment inspires new ways of working.