Sr. Computational Immunologist

SUMMARY:

Novasenta Inc. uses a next-generation drug discovery approach combining unique computational and experimental platforms to explore the human tumor microenvironment and discover novel therapeutically relevant targets and drugs. The Computational Sciences team is at the core of Novasenta’s mission through its development of customized platforms, multi-dimensional databases of clinical tumor samples with a focus on single-cell genomics and the application of advanced analytics. Novasenta’s human-centric discovery and development offers the potential to quickly find and advance more effective therapeutics against cancer. The company has an exceptional team that is committed to scientific innovation, transforming lives and building a strong and supportive culture.

The successful candidate will play a key role in the development and application of computational approaches to support pre-clinical target discovery and clinical translational efforts. The successful candidate will contribute to computational biology analyses at Novasenta. Specifically, they will use cutting-edge tools to analyze biological datasets and help develop insights towards the discovery and application of novel therapies.

Depending upon the candidate’s experience, there is flexibility for working full-time on-site or remotely with regular visits to Novasenta’s main site in Pittsburgh.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Be the computational biology expert and contribute to pre-clinical and clinical studies as well as help build our inhouse knowledge base for immune disease-related target identification.
• Deliver in a timely manner, in-depth, start-of-the-art analyses of NGS data pertaining to single cell (scRNAseq, CITE-seq, Spatial RNAseq, and TCRseq) and bulk transcriptomics and genomics.
• Identify, acquire, curate and analyze critical data-sources to support efforts involving atlas building and integrative analyses for pre-clinical and clinical studies.
• Keep up with emerging trends in computational biology and immunology, especially their potential applications to drug discovery in the context of immunology.
• Communicate with computational and experimental scientists and present results of data curation and analyses to the broader Novasenta team.
• Contribute to the strategic direction of the Computational Sciences team through your knowledge of new and innovative developments in immunology, computational biology and potential applications to drug discovery.
• Prepare reports, publications, and presentations for both internal company and external audiences and, when required, give oral presentations.
• Actively participates in the scientific dialogue of the group and proactively collaborates with colleagues.
• Ensure on-time and complete compliance with mandatory corporate training, best practices and regulatory requirements.

CORE QUALIFICATIONS: 

• PhD in computational immunology, computational biology or a closely related field involving deep genomic and biologic analytics.
• 2 or more years of work experience or equivalent experience in biopharma / biomedical field.
• Expert knowledge of bioinformatics and statistical concepts.
• Good understanding of immunology and biology and ML fundamentals.
• Experience analyzing immunological datasets associated with oncology and/or auto-immune diseases.
• Proficiency in R, Python and version control systems like GIT.
• Expertise with analyzing NGS datasets (single-cell related technologies and bulk RNAseq) as well as extracting relevant biological insights.
• Proven ability to evaluate experimental data and propose relevant analyses and appropriate experimental designs for data collection.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Able to deal with uncertainty and solve problems creatively and independently with solid judgement.
• Self-motivated, organized, goal oriented, team player with demonstrated ability to work with minimal supervision and adhere to and follow defined timelines, milestone, and objectives.
• Demonstrated record of success with relevant publication record.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience with cloud computing (i.e., AWS).
• Experience with independent development of bioinformatic packages is desired.
• Experience in pre-clinical target and drug discovery is highly desirable
• Experience with querying relational database systems (i.e., SQL), particularly graph databases.
• Experience interpreting and analyzing multi-plex flow cytometry data.