New hires in office-based roles in the US & Puerto Rico will be required, subject to applicable law, to demonstrate that they have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or qualify for a medical or religious exemption to this vaccination requirement that can be accommodated without an undue burden to the operation. However, subject to applicable law, employees working in roles that the Company determines require routine collaboration with external stakeholders, such as employees in customer facing commercial or research based roles, will be required to be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment.
Our Company is a global health care leader with a diversified portfolio of prescription medicines, vaccines and consumer health products, as well as animal health products. Today, we are building a new kind of healthcare company – one that is ready to help create a healthier future for all of us.
Our ability to excel depends on the integrity, knowledge, imagination, skill, diversity and teamwork of people like you. To this end, we strive to create an environment of mutual respect, encouragement and teamwork because our research scientists, as our inventors, are crucial team members to the drug discovery process. Broadly, we identify and target steps in disease mechanisms or pathways that could be inhibited or enhanced. Our goal is to isolate a compound that is effective against a disease target. Using innovative thinking, state-of-the-art facilities, and robust scientific methodology we collaborate to discover the next medical breakthrough.
Senior Scientist, Computational Immunology
We are a global biopharmaceutical leader with a diverse portfolio of prescription medicines, oncology, vaccines, and animal health products. We are driven by our purpose to develop and deliver innovative products that save and improve lives. With 69,000 employees operating in more than 140 countries, we offer state-of-the-art laboratories, plants and offices that are designed to inspire our employees as we learn, develop and grow in our careers. We are proud of our 125 years of service to humanity and continue to be one of the world’s biggest investors in Research & Development.
The Immunology Analytics (IA) group is seeking a passionate and creative computational biologist to help discover the next wave of immunology-based therapeutics. Immunology research at our company is driven by a deep interest in leveraging internal and public data for target ID and validation purposes across multiple auto-immune and inflammatory diseases. Some key areas of interest include but are not necessarily limited to inflammatory bowel disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, and atopic dermatitis.
The successful candidate will be at the forefront of analyzing cutting-edge multi-scale molecular profiling and functional genomics data to discover and validate new targets that can be used to modulate the immune system in auto-immune and inflammatory conditions. You will collaborate closely with colleagues in Discovery Research spanning therapeutic and functional areas, ranging from computational biology, immunology, and chemistry, and will be based at our Research Lab in Cambridge, MA.
In this exciting role, you will:
Contribute to multiple stages of drug discovery by investigating multi-omics molecular profiling datasets including large-scale single-cell, bulk RNA, low input RNA, spatially resolved tissue-level molecular profiling datasets, and functional genomics screens.
Collaborate with experimental scientists to characterize novel targets coming from genetics and translational and disease pathway exploration,
Use internal and external data to help identify target engagement markers, mechanisms of action, and provide functional validation of novel drug targets.
Be proactive and work collaboratively, as well as communicate effectively with various project teams across scientific disciplines and functions, bringing together genetics, pharmacology, chemistry and molecular biology.
Contribute to iterative experimental design and mechanistic hypotheses generation through the mining and interpretation of complex biological data.
In addition, but not limited to, you will:
Engage with Discovery Teams to translate biological hypotheses into computational investigations of multi-omics molecular profiles.
Lead efforts on the experimental design, analysis and interpretation of DNA and RNA sequencing experiments in support of discovery research programs.
Identify, analyze, and integrate internal and external data and knowledge resources to enable data mining in a biological context to identify new targets for inflammatory bowel disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, and atopic dermatitis.
Work with in-house, open-source and/or commercially available software platforms for the processing and analysis of DNA and RNA data.
Assist with project management by coordinating efforts with internal and external collaborators.
Survey the literature on novel bioinformatics analysis methodology and algorithms and introduce them in-house when appropriate.
Education Minimum Requirement:
Ph.D. in Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Computational Biology, Computer Science, Genetics, Immunology, Molecular Biology, Statistics or related field, OR upcoming expected completion of Ph.D. by May/June 2022.
Required Experience and Skills:
Demonstrated experience in the computational analysis and interpretation of large-scale DNA, RNA, or single-cell RNA sequencing datasets.
Familiarity with public databases and repositories of bulk and single-cell DNA and RNA profiling data.
Proficiency in statistical computing environments and programming languages, such as R or Python.
Excellent attention to detail and strong communication (oral and written) skills.
Self-motivated and capable of prioritizing deliverables among multiple simultaneous projects
Builds strong relationships within highly collaborative, multidisciplinary teams
Preferred Experience and Skills:
Knowledge of immunology.
Critical thinking around experimental design, statistical hypothesis testing, and biological interpretation.
Familiarity with the analysis of data derived from functional genomics screens.
Capable of integrating information generated from multiple sources to strengthen research hypotheses.
Experience with high-performance Linux cluster and cloud computing.
Experience with machine learning, statistical inference techniques, or network based analysis.
We are a research-driven biopharmaceutical company. Our mission is built on the simple premise that if we “follow the science” that great medicines can make a significant impact to our world. We believe that a research-driven enterprise dedicated to world-class science can succeed by inventing medicine and vaccine innovations that make a difference for patients across the globe.
Who we are …
We are known as Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada and MSD everywhere else. For more than a century, we have been inventing for life, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world.
What we look for …
Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping to save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with a diverse group of colleagues who pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling some of the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is constantly evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join us—and start making your impact today.
