Computational Biology, Assay Development Intern

Why join Freenome?

Freenome is a high-growth biotech company on a mission since 2014 to create tools that empower everyone to prevent, detect, and treat their disease. 

To achieve this mission, Freenome is developing next-generation blood tests to detect cancer in its earliest, most treatable stages using our multiomics platform and machine learning techniques. Our first blood test will detect early-stage colorectal cancer and advanced adenomas.

To fight the war on cancer, Freenome has raised more than $1.1B from leading investors including a16z, GV (formerly Google Ventures), T. Rowe Price, BainCapital, Perceptive Advisors, RA Capital Management, Roche, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, and the American Cancer Society’s BrightEdge Ventures. 

Are you ready for the fight? A ‘Freenomer’ is a mission-driven employee who is fueled by the opportunity to make a positive impact on patients' lives, who thrive in a culture of respect and cross collaboration, and whose work makes a significant impact on the company and their career. Freenomers are determined, patient-centric,  and outcomes-driven. We build teams around divergent expertise, allowing us to solve problems and ascertain opportunities in unique ways. We are dedicated to advancing healthcare, one breakthrough at a time.

About Our Summer 2023 Internship Program

Our interns provide valuable support and fresh perspectives to our teams as we work toward setting a new direction in the fight against cancer.

This is a 10-week program, designed to provide impactful work and foster an environment for learning and professional development through mentorship and networking opportunities. Throughout the program, our interns will be empowered to drive key projects with real business outcomes. This is a highly cross-functional and personalized program, offering guidance and support from our Hiring Managers and assigned mentors.

Our program is intended to begin mid-June and end mid-late August. The working hours for this role are 9am-5pm Pacific Time, with some flexibility determined by the Hiring Manager and leadership team. This position is open to remote within the US or onsite at our headquarters in South San Francisco.

About this opportunity:

As a Computational Biologist Intern in the Assay Development Group, you will be critical to the development of early, noninvasive tests for cancer detection. You will bring a strong foundation in data science to perform computational analyses, enabling us to understand and visualize wet lab processes. You will work closely and cross-functionally with many teams, including Regulatory and Quality, Molecular Research and Development, Laboratory Operations, Biostatistics, Computational Science, and Engineering to develop new tools to better understand and troubleshoot as we further develop an assay to detect cancer at its earliest, most treatable stages.

In this role, you will learn about the physical process of the assay and how that relates to the assay outputs (e.g., how different reagents relate to bioinformatics pipeline outputs). You will also learn good coding best practices, especially in regards to pipeline management, and sharing code using version control.  This role reports to the Senior Computational Biologist. 

What you’ll do:

• Link the wet lab biochemical processes and the data generated from our bioinformatics pipeline to generate data visualizations for our cancer detection assay.
• These tools will be important for the development team and clinical team to quickly assess experimental results and will enable longitudinal monitoring (assay to assay and month to month).

Must haves:

• Currently pursuing a Master’s or PhD in either Molecular Biology/Genetics or Computational Biology/Statistics.
• Or alternatively, within 1 year graduation with BSc, or 1 year post graduation.
• Some experience in data analysis using Python (Numpy, Pandas), or R (tidyverse), or similar tools.
• Use of data visualization packages such as Plotly or ggplot.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills to communicate to scientific and broader audiences.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Ability to work on a cross-functional team in a highly collaborative environment, working with both computational and experimental scientists.

Additional information:

All interns will be hired through a third-party provider and will be considered contingent workers. We invite you to check out our career page @ https://careers.freenome.com/ for additional company information.  

Freenome is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity. Freenome does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.

Applicants have rights under Federal Employment Laws.  

• Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

• Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)
• Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA)