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Principal Scientist, Computational Biology

Employer
Finch Therapeutics
Location
Somerville, Massachusetts, US
Salary
Competitive
Closing date
Oct 15, 2021

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About Finch

Finch Therapeutics is a clinical-stage microbiome therapeutics company leveraging itsHuman-First Discoveryplatform to develop a novel class of orally administered biological drugs.

With the capabilities to develop both complete and targeted microbiome therapeutics, Finch is advancing a rich pipeline of candidates designed to address a wide range of unmet medical needs. Finchs lead candidate, CP101, is in late-stage clinical development for recurrentC. difficileinfection (CDI). In June 2020, Finch announced thatCP101 met its primary efficacy endpoint in PRISM3, the first of two pivotal trials to support the development of CP101 for the prevention of recurrent CDI.Finch is also developing CP101 for chronic hepatitis B, and FIN-211 for autism spectrum disorder. In partnership with Takeda, Finch is advancing FIN-524 and FIN-525 for ulcerative colitis and Crohns disease, respectively.

Position Summary

At Finch the Data Science team is an integral component of Research. As a member of our team, your mission is to develop systems and intuition to advance successful microbial therapies. You will develop and lead projects that involve designing experiments (computational, bench, animal, and clinical) and extracting mechanistic understanding of disease drivers and microbial therapies from the analysis of high-throughput microbial and host data. You will further our host biology platform by mining microbial and host datasets and working closely with bench scientists and clinicians to propose and test functional hypotheses. You will play the role of a project leader as well as a technical expert in Finch collaborations with academic laboratories and partner companies. You will have the opportunity to participate in our product development from early discovery, biomarker discovery to regulatory applications and clinical trials, learning about the full life cycle of drug development.

Responsibilities
  • Lead cross-functional project teams and scientific working groups, and align project and team objectives with company strategy
  • Collaborate with internal and external partners in interdisciplinary teams and represent Data Science as the prime technical and/or scientific expert
  • Clearly communicate project plans, results, caveats, and rationale for decision-making with a variety of audiences including clinicians, bench scientists, industry executives, and academic researchers
  • Develop and maintain expert knowledge of advanced concepts in one or more relevant areas: microbial/host genomics, statistics, immunology, drug development and translational research
  • Propose new biological hypotheses for microbial drivers of pathology and therapy based on analysis of high throughput data, literature review, and in house experiments; work with bench scientists to design microbial and host function and phenotype experiments, and lead analysis of resulting data to test these hypotheses
  • Contribute to advancing Finchs computational platform by developing new analysis strategies for large heterogenous biological datasets (e.g. transriptomic, metagenomic, metabolomic, proteomic) through effective use of machine learning and multivariable statistics
  • Work with clinicians to analyze high-throughput trial data to enable translational research
  • May manage other computational scientists and bioinformatics research associates
  • Work effectively as part of a multifunctional team in support of a commercially viable therapeutics discovery platform


Qualifications
  • PhD in computational biology or a related field with 5+ years of industry experience or significant relevant post-doctoral experience in drug discovery or biomedical/clinical research
  • Track record of leading cross-functional, project-focused, teams to drive scientific discovery
  • Proven expertise in statistical analysis of high-throughput datasets from one or more of: genomics/ transcriptomics of microbial community or host systems, metabolomics, immunology, and genetics.
  • Proficiency in algorithm design, implementation and deployment using R/Bioconductor, Python, or other contemporary, open-source tools
  • Proficiency with data visualization, especially with R or python matplotlib
  • Familiarity with cloud computing, in particular Google Cloud
  • Ability to work independently
  • Eagerness to work collaboratively in a team and to both give and receive feedback to support professional development for self and others
  • Ability to perform complex analyses in a time sensitive fashion
  • Strong organizational and communications and team-work skills
  • Passion, humility, and excitement to drive research forward


Additional Desired Skills & Experience (not required)
  • Previous managerial experience in industry setting
  • Experience executing computational analysis of metagenomic datasets


More About Finch

Here at Finch, we strive to create the best work environment and experience for you through our formal benefits programs and fringe perks. Together, we hope that well create a fun & supportive environment in and out of the workplace as we strive to create a new class of therapeutics together to help patients.
  • Ourformal benefitsinclude medical, dental, and vision coverage throughHarvard Pilgrimin addition to life insurance and long-term & short-term disability policies. We offer discretionary and flexible paid time off policies. Should you choose to startor grow yourfamily while working at Finch, we aspire to lead our peers by offering several months of paid parental leave. We also offer a generous non-discretionary 401K contribution to help teammates save for life beyond Finch in the future and other savings and investment opportunities.
  • We also try to keep the workplace an inspiring and motivating place to work with ourfringe perks.Ourfacilities in Somerville, MA include an in-office gym with a shower and towel service(temporarily closed due to COVID), fully stocked kitchen with free snacks, iced coffee & flavored/sparkling waters on tap. We sponsor ride-sharing to and from the office from preset locations around Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. We are always evaluating our fringe perks and hope to grow them alongside our team.

*Only facility-dependent employees are working on-site in Somervilleuntil further notice.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are committed to recruiting, developing, and retaining the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool.All aspects of employment including the decision to hire or promote, will be based on aptitude, performance, and business need. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, nationalorigin, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, military and veteran status, or any other legally protected status. Finch will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities, in accordance with applicable law.

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