Director, Translational Bioinformatics

Do you have expertise in and passion for bioinformatics? Would you like to play a pivotal
role that impacts the delivery of novel biologics drugs for oncology, respiratory and
cardiovascular diseases in a company that follows the science and turns ideas into life
changing medicines? Then AstraZeneca might be for you!

The Data Science & Advanced Analytics division is a group of experts from different disciplines including Data Science, Real World Evidence and Bioinformatics who are focused on applying their skills to advance and transform the drug discovery process at AstraZeneca. We collaborate deeply across all therapeutic areas and work closely with our leading biologists, chemists to try and address how big data can accelerate our drug development pipelines . In particular, this role will focus on increasing the biological understanding of disease and drug targets by exploring transformative ways to analyse multi- modal biomarker signatures. If you want to have an impact on transforming patients' lives by accelerating new medicines to patients, this may be the position for you!

We are looking for a Bioinformatics Director to lead a team in Barcelona within our Translational Bioinformatics group.

What You'll Do:
• Lead project teams that contribute to the development of innovative and
transformative data analysis capabilities as part of a cross-functional team
• Analyse and interrogate multi-omics biomarker signatures for applications such as predicting drug failure due to toxicity or predicting patient outcomes in clinical studies
• Manage a team of 5-6 bioinformaticians and support their development
• Act as a scientific leader and strategic thinker
• Work collaboratively with data and drug discovery scientists to deliver insights that will have direct impact on the drug discovery and development pipeline
• Demonstrate effective communication to translate complex concepts to non-experts in internal and external scientific meetings
• Contribute ideas and provide creative input to projects across multiple disease areas including respiratory, immunology, cardiovascular, renal, metabolism and neuroscience.
• Remain at the cutting edge of bioinformatics.

Essential for the Role:
• PhD in bioinformatics or related field and extensive relevant experience
• First-hand experience in the analysis and interpretation of large, complex datasets
• Expertise in transcriptomics and/or proteomic analysis
• Experience with analysis of gene networks
• Experience with R and Python
• Ability to explore novel bioinformatic approaches to improve sensitivity and
specificity of existing software solutions.
• Strong, professional communication skills and excellent attention to detail, capable of developing good working relationships with diverse individuals
• Ability to work with stakeholders to identify opportunities and synergies across projects
• Experience working within a team environment
• Philosophy of coaching and developing others

Desirable for the Role:
• Exposure to using Real World Data
• Strong statistical skills
• Understanding of FAIR data principles
• Experience with create production quality code and software engineering techniques and practices. e.g. version control, Jira, Agile, Scrum, code reviews etc.
• Familiarity with multiple R&D data types, especially as they relate to therapeutic area research
• Capability of successfully managing multiple simultaneous projects

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorisation and employment eligibility verification requirements.