Associate Director, AI Image Analysis

Associate Director, AI Image Analysis  - Pathology, CPSS

Are you passionate about advanced pathology imaging and digital image analysis? Can you apply these skills to help us in drug discovery? Do you have expertise in applying computer vision and AI image analysis techniques to digital pathology data and have an appetite for applying these skills to advance the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medicines to patients? We have an opening at our Pathology department at AstraZeneca!

As an Associate Director, AI Image Analysis, you will apply groundbreaking technologies and advanced image processing and analysis to help derive biological insights from digital pathology imaging data to support drug development projects. You will work alongside our team of image analysis scientists, imaging scientist, pathologists, biologists and data scientists within Clinical Pharmacology and Safety Sciences (CPSS). 

CPSS is changing the way imaging technologies are combined to offer outstanding insight and impact. Our global Imaging teams combine data from histology, digital pathology, multiplex immunofluorescent assays and advanced molecular imaging techniques (including mass spectrometry imaging) to understand the spatial biology of disease and drug discovery.

This position offers the opportunity to be involved in the investigation of both the safety and efficacy of drugs within our projects in both a preclinical and clinical setting. We believe this is a truly exciting opportunity.

The Role

You will support drug discovery project delivering AI image analysis solutions and endpoints. You will develop AI image analysis tools using commercial software platforms and tailored innovative computer vision models supporting our digital pathology-based imaging (H&E, IHC, multiplex immunofluorescence) across multiple therapeutic areas. You will be fully connected with our global Pathology & Discovery imaging teams offering access to our full suite of technologies.

You will take a lead in delivering established and innovative AI image analysis. Providing expertise in image processing, segmentation and quantitative analysis using both established image analysis software as well as other computer vision-based machine learning and deep learning approaches to derive solutions to a range of problems in biomedical images. Working in a highly multidisciplinary environment with scientists across AstraZeneca.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Drive the delivery of image analysis to support our digital pathology strategy and deliver impact to drug discovery projects across the AZ portfolio.
• Oversee the design and delivery of novel computer vision solutions to extract meaningful insights from digital pathology data, enabling informed decision making in safety assessments, drug efficacy and biomarker identification.  These solutions include the application of specialized approaches in classification, detection, segmentation, regression, clustering,  image analysis, data integration, data visualisation and statistical analysis.
• Find opportunities to optimize workflow, reduce costs and enhance project efficiencies using advanced computational tools. Collaborates across the Astrazeneca Data and AI community to develop best practices and cross functional opportunities that drive value.
• Develop effective relationships and collaborate with cross functional teams e.g. Pathologists, Image Analysis scientists and other Bioscientists, to develop analysis strategies & plans, manage image analysis studies, analyse images and derive results for drug safety and efficacy assessment.
• Responsible for ensuring project deliverables are clearly defined and delivered on time, within scope and budget while maintaining high quality standards. In addition, the role should be able to manage stakeholder expectation for associated risks and limitation of outputs results.
• Communicate project results, conclusions and recommendations effectively to colleagues, teams, stakeholders and collaborators through written reports and oral presentations at internal and external meetings.
• Contributes to the publication of scientific abstracts, posters, presentations, manuscripts and/or patent applications.

Education & Experience Requirements:

• MSc/PhD (or equivalent numbers of years of experience) in mathematics, computer science or a related quantitative field.

Essential Requirements:

• Significant experience in the application of AI and data analysis in the digital pathology field and/or relevant scientific application domains
• In depth expertise in computational approaches, data science, software development tools applicable to pharmaceutical R&D, proficiency in AI, machine lear