Senior Scientist, Bioinformatics, Oncology R&D

AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP ,
Saffron Walden, Essex
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Job Description

AstraZeneca is a global, science-driven biopharmaceutical company. We are dedicated to discovering, developing, and delivering innovative, meaningful medicines and healthcare solutions that enrich the lives of patients. The vision of AstraZeneca Oncology is to redefine cancer, redefine our solutions to cancer, and restore patients' lives. The Computational Oncology team has expertise in production informatics, bioinformatics and data science and works with our oncology drug project teams throughout the discovery pipeline, from new target discovery to late stage clinical trials. There exists an opportunity for a talented and motivated bioinformatician with expertise in the genomics of cancer to join the group. The post holder will work with our DNA damage response (DDR) project teams, and the Lynparza/Olaparib project team in particular, to deliver large scale genomic profiling to support the characterisation of patients on our clinical trials. In addition you will develop cutting edge genomics methodologies to expand the use of ctDNA in the clinic. Encouragement and support will be provided to help the individual develop specialist knowledge and skill sets. Accountabilities/Responsibilities: If successful you will... + Work as part of the Lynparza/Olaparib project team to characterise the genomic landscape of patients on our clinical trials and define markers of response & resistance. + Pioneer the use of ctDNA data from patients upon progression in our clinical trials to understand the drug resistance mechanisms. + Work with external partners to evaluate and develop clinical assays to be used for the selection of patients in our clinical trials. + Work as part of our DNA damage response (DDR) project science teams to address scientific and technical challenges involved with progressing a new medicine toward and through the clinic, using data from clinical trials in combination with other data (e.g. from our CRISPR/functional genomics screening centre, our 2M genomes initiative etc). + Lead the development and application of standardised bioinformatic approaches to the analysis and interpretation of high throughput genomics data. + Proactively engage in knowledge sharing and peer support, including training our bench science community to build expertise in the tools critical to Oncology bioinformatics. + Build and steer development of small prototype tools for bench scientists to access and visualise project data. + Build collaborations within industry and academia to find the most effective solutions to our drug discovery problems. + Publish your work in high impact journals. Requirements: Education: + Relevant PhD (or equivalent graduate degree plus proven applied experience), combining: + a deep understanding of the genetics/genomics of cancer + technical expertise in either bioinformatics, computational biology, biostatistics or similar. Essential: + Expertise in the analysis of genomic data (WGS, WES & sequencing panels) covering data QC, handling, processing & interpretation. + Knowledge of cancer genetics and/or the DNA damage response. + Knowledge of key algorithmic & statistical methods applicable to cancer genomics. + R/python programming expertise (inc. use of Bioconductor and Shiny). + Programming in a Unix environment. + Skilled in effective communication of complex data to non-experts. + An excellent publication track record. + Effective contributions to collaborative projects involving cross-disciplinary and global teams. Desirable: + A thorough understanding of the contribution of bioinformatics to drug discovery. + Deep understanding of the DNA damage response pathway. + Expertise in the development of novel statistical approaches for the analysis of biological data. + Well networked within external bioinformatics and oncology communities. + Awareness of graph modeling, machine learning, artificial-intelligence, Bayesian analytics or other non-traditional approaches to model biological data. Location: Chesterford Research Park, UK Closing Date: 10th January 2020 If you are interested, please apply. #DataAI

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