Senior Data Scientist

Key Skills

Bioinformatics, Data Analytics, Data science techniques, Data Visualization, Machine learning techniques, matplotlib, Python Programming, Statistics

Job Description

We are seeking a quick-learning Bioinformatics researcher with a strong desire to broaden their bioinformatics and data science skills, and in advancing the emerging area of gene editing and cell therapy in drug discovery and development.The successful candidate will have a rare opportunity to learn and contribute to drug development across disease areas and phases. The individual will join us in the Imaging and Data Analytics department, within the Clinical pharmacology and Safety Sciences (CPSS) function at AstraZeneca.This role provides a distinctive opportunity to learn from researchers who are working on a variety of diseases such as cancer,across our global sites.

The candidate will use computational approaches to generate biological insights, enable new data science capabilities, and will drive many computational efforts focused on advancing molecular-level understanding of therapeutic effects, thus accelerating the development of novel therapeutic drugs for patients in need.The position is a unique opportunity to gain experience in a variety of computational approaches and work with industry leaders, while publishing and contributing directly to the development of future drugs across many diseases.

Responsibilities

• Build in silico capabilities to advance understanding of molecular mechanisms using multi modal omics approaches, to identify, measure and characterize on- and off target editing in the context of CRISPR-engineered cell and gene therapy products.

• Drive hypothesis generation by applying computational biology approaches, data integration, and biological knowledge

• Build and/or implement new computational biology capabilities to translate biological data into insights

• Collaborate with academic research groups and contribute to publications in peer-reviewed journals

• Help educate and train AstraZeneca colleagues in computational biology and related areas

• Identify and proactively help to enable new ways of gaining insights through biological data

Requirements

• PhD in computational biosciences (e.g., computational biology, bioinformatics, genomics or computer science) or several years of experience in independently leading computational genomics-related projects

• Demonstrated experience in genomics, preferably in variant analysisfrom NGS data (e.g., detection of nucleotide variants).

• Excellent knowledge of large genomic datasets and tools to analyze such datasets 

• Demonstrated expertise in Python or other languages, together with data visualization frameworks (eg, ggplot2, matplotlib or others) 

• Use of basic statistics and basic data science (eg, dimensionality reduction)

• A keen interest in learning data science techniques, such as machine learning, for biological problems 

• Teammate mentality and ability to explain complex topics to scientists from other subject areas

Desirable:

• Good knowledge of biology.

• Knowledge of molecular mechanisms of disease 

• Excellent ability to work on multiple projects at the same time

• Knowledge of drug discovery or pharmaceutical development

At AZ, we’re proud to have an exceptional workplace culture that encourages innovation and collaboration. Here, employees are empowered to express diverse perspectives – and made to feel valued, energized and rewarded for their ideas and creativity. AZ is a place where passionate people can immerse themselves in their work and make significant contributions to scientific excellence and medicines – does this describe a place where you would like to work? If so, apply today (no cover letter needed). Are you ready to bring new ideas and fresh thinking to the table? Brilliant! We have one seat available and we hope it’s yours.