Apriori Bio is an early-stage biotechnology company with an ambitious and exciting mission: to lay the foundation for Global Pathogen Shield™ protective interventions that that can neutralize a wide range of the most dangerous and rapidly evolving infectious pathogen threats. The company is developing a revolutionary approach to this challenge and recruiting a team of top-tier scientists to build what it believes will be a powerful, first-in-category R&D platform.
Apriori Bio was founded by Flagship Pioneering, a biotechnology company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $90 billion in aggregate value. Many of the companies Flagship has founded have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture. Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at www.flagshippioneering.com
Job Description:
Apriori Bio is seeking a Scientist in Data Science with a track record of developing and successfully applying analytical tools to high-throughput assays. This role is positioned at a critical interface that bridges high-throughput assays and computational methods to design variant-resilient vaccines and antibodies against infectious disease. Experience in analysis of high-throughput functional genomics assays (e.g. deep mutational scanning, barcode-based NGS assays, and other library based phenotypic assays) and data visualization is desired, as is technical expertise in protein engineering or structure, virology, vaccinology, viral phylogenetics and/or viral phylodynamics. The successful candidate will play a critical role in formulating and executing a science & technology approach that will allow the company to deliver against its near- and longer-term goals. This individual will join a dynamic, rapidly growing and collaborative team, and should also be comfortable in a fast-paced start-up environment.
Roles & Responsibilities:
- Build robust computational tools to interpret data from viral deep mutational scanning experiments and apply learnings to product design
- Identify and source additional relevant external and internal datasets (e.g. viral sequence variation and phylogenetics, structural informatics) to augment the interpretation and application of viral deep mutational scanning data.
- Develop data visualizations to communicate learnings from analyses
- Collaborate with experimental and computational scientists to guide data analysis, interpret results, and build an iterative experimental cycle.
- Work with computational and experimental scientists to establish data management practices and SOPs to improve efficiency and reproducibility
- Provide technical input in support of company’s science & technology strategy and monitor progress toward key strategic goals on an ongoing basis.
- Communicate insights and conclusions to colleagues in the scientific and leadership teams.
Qualifications:
- PhD in computational biology, genomics, virology, immunology, or a related field.
- Experience with scientific or quantitative computing (python preferred), bash scripting, and relational databases
- Experience in implementing best practices in reproducible scientific computing (git, documentation, object-oriented programming, etc.)
- Experience in exploratory data analysis, statistics, and statistical inference (such as machine learning, Bayesian inference, etc.)
- Demonstrated success in analyzing high-throughput functional assays
- Experience with protein engineering, viral antibody responses or vaccine design, phylogenetics and/or analysis of viral sequence variation.
- Ability to work in and adapt to a fast-paced environment
Preferred Qualifications:
- Previous work with viral entry proteins, biological sequence or protein structure datasets, or computational vaccine design
- Demonstrated experience developing dashboards, visualization and/or phylogenetic software.
- Experience with bioinformatics (i.e. snakemake/nextflow, samtools)and data engineering (i.e., SQL/noSQL) tools
- Familiarity with collaborative data science environments, such as jupyterhub, databricks, sagemaker, dataiku, or alteryx
Values and Behaviors
We are seeking individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit, strong communication skills, and comfort working in and contributing to a dynamic and cross-functional team environment. The level of the role will be commensurate with the education and years of experience of the identified candidate.
At Flagship, we recognize there is no perfect candidate. If you have some of the experience listed above but not all, please apply anyway. Experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way. We are dedicated to building diverse and inclusive teams and look forward to learning more about your unique background.
Recruitment & 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.
