This opportunity is available at our or Waltham, MA (preferred) or Gaithersburg, MD locations.

Do you have expertise in, and passion for, the study of gene regulation and epigenetics in Oncology using Data Science and Bioinformatics? Would you like to apply your expertise to deliver impact to the Oncology Epigenetics Portfolio in a company that follows the science and turns ideas into life changing medicines? Would you like to join a team that values your contributions, encourages innovation, and supports your career development goals? Then our bioinformatics team within Oncology Data Science at AstraZeneca might be the one for you!

At AstraZeneca, we put patients first and strive to meet their unmet needs worldwide. Working here means being entrepreneurial, thinking big and working together to make the impossible a reality. If you are swift to action, confident to lead, willing to collaborate, and curious about what science can do, then you’re our kind of a person.

In this role within Oncology Data Science at AstraZeneca you will be encouraged to be creative and bring your innovative ideas to progress our innovative medicines into the clinic. The role offers career development and growth opportunities with possibilities for mentorship, technical skill, and leadership training. You will join a department that delivers impact to both Early Preclinical, Early Clinical and Late Oncology portfolio, with a culture built on teamwork and embracing innovation.

Our Waltham, Massachusetts facility develops life changing small-molecule research in North America, with innovative laboratories at the Gatehouse Park BioHub, just west of the city center. Our BioHub facility, is a bold new R&D initiative, which fosters life science discoveries and the exchange of ideas. Here, we play host to some of the most cutting-edge technology and lab spaces, all designed to inspire collaboration and cross-functional science. We believe employees benefit from being challenged and inspired at work. We are dedicated to creating a culture of inclusion and collaboration. With a shuttle bus to and from Alewife station, the location provides you the ability to work in the heart of one of the world’s most vibrant research centers.

Our Waltham site offers a variety of amenities to help book productivity and help keep our employees happy and engaged. This includes a fitness center, employee healthcare clinic, electric vehicle charging stations, dry cleaning, full-service cafeteria and copy center. This is where you’ll find newly-designed, activity-based work spaces to suit a variety of working styles while increasing collaboration between teams and the greater research community. There is a fortnightly happy hour, Lunch & Learn series, and a summer volleyball league. The Waltham location will be moving to a brand-new Kendall Square, Cambridge MA building in 2026.

The Bioinformatics team members within the Oncology Data Science organization embed in the oncology drug project teams to deliver the Oncology research and development pipeline, from new target discovery to translational medicine and clinical trials. Our global group aligns its activities to AstraZeneca’s primary areas of focus within Oncology: immuno-oncology, DNA damage response, tumour drivers & resistance, epigenetics, cell therapies and antibody-drug conjugates. We strive to deliver actionable data science to drive project decision making and progress our drugs to new medicines and improve the lives of patients.

The Oncology Data Science organization is growing to meet the challenges of pre-clinical and clinical big data generation initiatives in AZ Oncology including DNA sequencing, single-cell and bulk expression, proteomics, epigenomics and functional genomics. We are looking for a new Bioinformatician to join our team as a Senior Scientist for discovery and portfolio support with experience in gene expression regulation and Epigenetics at R&D Boston.

This role supports the delivery of our Early Oncology Epigenetics portfolio by delivering actionable bioinformatics insights. You will be embedded in a drug project team and lead the strategy and delivery of computational biology analyses to further project goals. The role will also deliver novel epigenomics capabilities to support the growing Oncology Epigenetics portfolio. You will be asked to expand AstraZeneca’s leadership in Oncology Epigenetics by engaging with the external scientific community, delivering publications, presenting your work to conferences, and contributing to collaborations.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Embed in the drug project and clinical teams to understand their scientific and technical challenges and proactively impact these using bioinformatics.

• Apply data and knowledge analytics to deliver actionable insight driving discovery and development of the next generation of cancer medicines.

• Discover, design and code innovative ways to identify and visualize meaningful patterns in complex data.

• Collaborate with lab scientists to propose and design future experiments to address drug project hypotheses.

• Share code and train peers and bench scientists in the tools critical to understanding complex data.

• Deliver novel capabilities needed to explore new epigenomics technologies.

• Collaborate with industry and academia, and drive AstraZeneca’s scientific leadership in Oncology Epigenomics.

• Publish your work in high impact journals and present at key external conferences.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Minimum 4+ years of research experience (may include PhD training time) in a computational biology or bioinformatics field.

• Relevant PhD (or equivalent graduate degree plus proven applied experience), combining:

• technical expertise in either bioinformatics, computational biology, biostatistics, mathematical modelling, data science or knowledge engineering.

• Deep understanding of the molecular mechanisms driving cancer or immunological disorders.

• R and/or Python programming or equivalent with data visualization expertise.

• Skilled in effective communication of complex data to a non-expert.

Expertise in one or more of the following:

• Analysis of epigenomics data including ATAC-seq, ChIP-seq, Cut&Run, or DNA methylation.

• Analysis and interpretation of data including transcriptomics (RNA-seq) or single cell technologies.

• Data management including curation, data engineering, FAIR and reproducible research practices.

• Knowledge engineering/analytics including knowledge graphs, ontologies, machine learning, or deep learning.

• Enthusiasm and persistence in the application of analytic methods to complex biological problems.

• Familiarity with the Unix environment.

• Capability of successfully managing multiple simultaneous projects.

• Working effectively within cross-disciplinary science teams, including with functional leaders.

• Experience contributing to the research community through publication, conferences, and code.

• Ability to take a step beyond data analysis, towards data interpretation, biological interpretation, hypothesis nomination, and delivering recommendations for next steps.

Why AstraZeneca

At AstraZeneca when we see an opportunity for change, we seize it and make it happen, because any opportunity no matter how small, can be the start of something big. Delivering life-changing medicines is about being entrepreneurial - finding those moments and recognising their potential. Join us on our journey of building a new kind of organisation to reset expectations of what a bio-pharmaceutical company can be. This means we’re opening new ways to work, pioneering cutting edge methods and bringing unexpected teams together. Interested? Come and join our journey.

So, what’s next?

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.

Where can I find out more?

Our Social Media, Follow AstraZeneca on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/1603/

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