Associate Director, NGS & Bioinformatics
About The Position
AstraZeneca is seeking an Associate Director to join the NGS & Bioinformatics group within Cell Therapy Translational and Safety Sciences (CT-TSS). The position provides scientific and analytical leadership for bioinformatics work generating translational and safety insights across the cell therapy pipeline, including CAR, TCR, and in vivo programs. The role focuses on single-cell RNA sequencing and multi-omic analysis, application of AI and machine learning, and development of computational models to address translational questions. The Associate Director collaborates across scientific, clinical, data engineering, and IT teams; communicates findings and their implications to stakeholders; contributes to regulatory and scientific materials; and mentors junior team members.
Requirements
- PhD in bioinformatics, computational biology, or a related field.
- At least 6 years of relevant pharmaceutical industry experience.
- Demonstrated expertise in bioinformatics and computational analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing and multi-omic datasets.
- Experience generating translational and safety science insights from genomic or transcriptomic data within cell therapy, immunology, or tumor biology programs.
- Deep understanding of cell therapy biology, immune cell phenotyping, and/or tumor biology, and current knowledge of analytical methods for characterizing cell therapy products and their mechanisms of action.
- Deep familiarity with bioinformatics pipelines for single-cell and immune-profiling datasets.
- Proficiency in programming languages such as Python and R, with experience building and maintaining analytical pipelines.
- Experience with cloud computing environments and high-performance computing clusters for scalable data processing.
- Background applying AI/ML models to biological data, including prediction, feature extraction, and integrative multi-omic analytics.
- Solid understanding of statistics and their application to biomedical science and clinical data.
- Working knowledge of FAIR data principles, structured metadata, and harmonized data practices.
- Exceptional ability to interpret and communicate complex datasets verbally, in writing, and in presentations, adapting to scientific, clinical, and executive audiences.
- Ability to work collaboratively across functions and prioritize multiple projects concurrently in a fast-paced environment.
Responsibilities
- Lead single-cell RNA sequencing-based analyses to generate translational and safety science insights supporting the cell therapy pipeline.
- Oversee the development and optimization of bioinformatics pipelines for single-cell transcriptomics and multi-omic data integration.
- Apply and guide AI/ML methodologies and advanced analytics to derive actionable insights from complex multi-modal datasets.
- Develop, validate, and operationalize program-specific and cross-trial computational models integrating longitudinal multi-omic and clinical data for response prediction, mechanism-of-action characterization, biomarker discovery, and resistance profiling.
- Lead evaluation, adaptation, and implementation of AI foundation models for single-cell and multi-omic data, including domain-specific pretraining, fine-tuning, embedding-based representation learning, benchmarking, and deployment.
- Guide assay development teams on NGS assay design, sequencing strategy, data quality requirements, and analytical readiness.
- Interpret and integrate complex datasets within and across programs, and provide written and verbal updates on findings and their translational and safety implications.
- Contribute to regulatory-support materials, internal strategy documents, publication strategy, and preparation of data for scientific conferences.
- Collaborate with bioanalysis, clinical, data engineering, and IT teams on data management, workflow orchestration, and compute scalability for NGS and bioinformatics workflows.
- Stay current with single-cell technologies and AI/ML models and use that knowledge to improve analytical approaches.
- Mentor and provide scientific and technical guidance to junior scientists and bioinformaticians.
Benefits
- Qualified retirement programs
- Paid time off, including vacation, holidays, and leaves
- Health coverage
- Dental coverage
- Vision coverage
- Eligibility for short-term incentive bonuses
- Equity-based awards for salaried roles
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
Education Level
Ph.D. or professional degree
