Bioinformatician/Data Scientist

Cygnal Therapeutics is a privately held, early-stage biotechnology company pioneering a novel category of therapeutics, built upon the concept that the peripheral nervous system and relevant neuronal pathways play an integral role in multiple disease processes. Cygnal is developing drugs to manipulate Exoneural Biology for the treatment of cancer, immunological diseases, and regenerative processes.

Cygnal Therapeutics was founded by Flagship Pioneering, an innovation enterprise that conceives, creates, resources, and grows first-in-category life sciences companies. Flagship Pioneering has created over 40 groundbreaking companies over the past fifteen years, all of which are pioneering novel and proprietary biological, industrial, and engineering approaches to solve major needs in human health and sustainability. These companies include Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MCRB), Moderna (MRNA), Syros Pharmaceuticals (SYRS), Rubius Therapeutics (RUBY), Axcella Health (AXLA), Evelo Biosciences (EVLO), and Indigo Agriculture.

POSITION SUMMARY:

Cygnal Therapeutics is seeking a bioinformatics / data scientist to join our bioinformatics team. The position requires broad scientific and technical experience in bioinformatics, emphasizing the development and use of analytical tools for interrogating large-scale genomic/genetic and transcriptomics data to develop therapeutic hypotheses.  You will work very closely with our biology teams for discovery and validation of new drug targets, understanding mechanism of action, develop predictive biomarkers. Working with biologists, you will help to design and analyze next generation sequencing data from model system and human tissues, utilize bioinformatics tools, databases, to provide biological interpretations and insights. Your role will also involve aspects of data management/infrastructure, computational biology, machine learning. Successful candidates should be scientifically motivated self-starters, comfortable working in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment and keen on modeling biological processes using rich datasets.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Build and implement data analysis pipeline, tool kits and storage solution for genomics, and genetics and transcriptomic data
• Work closely with Platform and Biology teams to create appropriate data analyses plans, execute the analyses and communicate key findings
• Analyze and extract biological insights from internal and public datasets by developing new computational methods or leveraging existing methods when possible
• Identify and acquire relevant public and third-party ‘omics data and perform integrative data analyses to generate insights and propose therapeutic hypotheses
• Implement and develop data analysis/visualization tools to enable biologists accessing data
• Perform integrative, pathway and network analyses to understand disease mechanisms, and to support target and biomarker discovery
• Maintain scientific and technical expertise through familiarity with scientific literature, attending conferences, and developing relationships with thought leaders

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• MS or PhD in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics or a related field
• Self-starter, independent thinker and quick learner with strong attention to detail
• Expert in data mining and data analysis
• Familiarity with bioinformatics tools and databases
• Demonstrated industry experience or academic achievement, as evidenced by publications in high impact journals or data science is required
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, capable of conveying technical information in a clear and thorough manner
• Confident execution, focused and team-oriented with an ability to thrive in an entrepreneurial environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep understanding and working experience of data mining algorithms and explorative analysis
• Strong programming skills in a scripting language such as Python and R
• Experience in creating dashboards or other utilities to allow biologists to investigate data independently
• Solid experience in drug target identification, validation and biomarker discovery

• Experience in the field of oncology, immuno-oncology or neural sciences, familiarity with public omics datasets and publications

RECRUITING & STAFFING AGENCIES: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.