Senior Scientist, Computational Biology

 

Join our team of pioneers!

Based in Cambridge, MA and Gaithersburg, MD. We are committed to improving the health of people worldwide with our fundamental research and our work in the area of development of immunotherapies utilizing the full potential of the immune system to fight cancer, infectious diseases and other serious diseases. We believe in scientific rigor, innovation and passion as driving forces. BioNTech was founded by scientists and physicians to translate science into survival by combining fundamental research and operational excellence.

With decades of deep immunology expertise and experience in developing and optimizing mRNA as part of its broad suite of novel technologies, the company is working with the global community to defeat life-threatening and serious diseases such as cancer, COVID-19, malaria and tuberculosis. The first ever approved mRNA vaccine was created in the labs of BioNTech in Mainz, Germany. A fully integrated immunotherapy powerhouse. We remain focused on bringing our broad pipeline of next-generation immunotherapies and vaccines to people around the world to address cancer, infectious diseases, as well as a growing list of other medical conditions. To accomplish this, we continue to be deeply rooted in science and academic research while also having built a fully integrated, global immunotherapy company with cGMP and GMP manufacturing facilities anchored around deep expertise in immunology and complemented by an expanding set of capabilities.
 

 

Senior Scientist, Computational Biology

 

We seek an innovative, collaborative, and enthusiastic Sr Scientist to be a part of the Computational Biology research team at BioNTech US. Our team aims to understand the biology of adaptive immune response and harness the power of immune receptors to create innovative medicines for cancer and infectious disease. A successful candidate will work in a multidisciplinary environment alongside teams of immunologists, biochemists, and AI researchers to investigate immune receptor repertoires and develop novel protein designs for targeted therapies. At BioNTech US, we are at the cutting-edge of infectious disease and cancer immunotherapy research.

 

Primary responsibilities include: 

• Development and application of machine learning algorithms for structural biology, including protein design.
• Collaborating with diverse scientific teams (immunology, biochemistry, structural biology, AI) to develop integrated experimental/in silico pipelines.
• Computational analysis of diverse data modalities, including protein structures and immune receptor repertoires.
• Conducting critical analysis of scientific literature in relevant fields such as immunology, structural biology, and AI to develop unbiased and up-to-date understanding of the subject matter. Contributing to collaborative team learning.
• Generating scientific hypotheses, planning research, interpreting and presenting data.
• Leading or co-leading projects in a multifunctional team setting.
• Contributing to scientific publications, patents, and internal presentations.

Requirements:

• Ph.D. degree in computational biology, bioinformatics, mathematics, physics, or other field that requires strong quantitative reasoning skills, with a proven track record of quality work in this field (publications and presentations).
• Evidence of innovative problem-solving, including the ability to identify and investigate important new research topics independently.
• Working knowledge of probability and statistics, with the ability to draw reliable conclusions from the data, including proper estimates of uncertainty.
• Knowledge of key ML concepts such as overfitting/underfitting, model regularization, common architectures, training objectives, and generative models.
• Proficiency with Python.
• Proven ability to learn new scientific areas quickly and independently. Willingness and ability to rapidly adopt and share new knowledge and tools.
• Strong interest in immunology and structural