Senior Data Scientist, Chemical / Peptide Sciences

Why Join Us?

Parabilis Medicines is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to creating extraordinary medicines that unlock high-impact protein targets long-considered undruggable. The company has developed a new class of stabilized, cell-penetrant alpha-helical peptides – Helicons™ – capable of modulating intracellular proteins that are inaccessible to traditional drug modalities. 

Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Parabilis is advancing a focused pipeline of multiple first-in-class therapies across both rare and common cancers. Its lead candidate, FOG-001, is the first direct inhibitor of the interaction between β-catenin and the T-cell factor (TCF) family of transcription factors, implicated in colorectal cancer, desmoid tumors, and a range of other Wnt/β-catenin-driven tumors. Parabilis is also advancing investigational degraders of ERG and AR_ON for the treatment of prostate cancer, as well as other preclinical programs. 

What’s the opportunity?

 

Parabilis Inc. is seeking a highly talented and motivated Senior Data Scientist / Cheminformatician to support the platform discovery engine for Helicon^TM peptide drugs. Reporting to the Associate Director of Cheminformatics, the candidate will work collaboratively with biologists and chemists, leveraging skills in data science and cheminformatics to enable hypothesis generation and data insights for advancing Fog preclinical drug discovery.

 

You’ll be part of a data science team that is a central pillar of Parabilis’s innovative discovery platform and pipelines targeting “undruggable” genes of major therapeutic interest to patients. Our data science team is an integrated team ranging from computational biology, bioinformatics, computational drug discovery, research informatics and data engineering. We work at the interface of chemistry, biology, clinical and computational sciences, and are responsible for all aspects of data science from building the discovery pipeline to supporting and developing our discovery platform.

 

Responsibilities

• Provide scientific leadership and data science / (chem)informatics expertise towards, but not limited to, hit identification, targeted screening of Helical peptide library designs, hit prioritization, hit-to-lead progression using multi-objective optimization, new drug-target assessments, and advancing drug-pipeline projects towards the clinic
• Analyze peptide/chemical structure and property space to identify patterns / gaps that inform Helicon and monomer designs
• Adapt and implement data analytics and machine learning techniques towards predictive models of Helicon^TM properties
• Contribute to implementation and development of cheminformatics and research informatics systems and tools for Fog
• Work with IT and data engineering to enable enterprise-level cheminformatics solutions

 

Requirements

 

• MS or PhD in Data Science, Cheminformatics, Computational Chemistry or Computational Biology, Chemistry, Biophysics, Macromolecular sciences, Computer Science, or related scientific field with 5+ years of experience within the pharmaceutical or biotechnology field
• Proven track record of impact in a drug discovery program using informatics/computational techniques
• Demonstrated expertise with cheminformatics (e.g. RDKit, ICM, OEChem) and data science toolkits/libraries (e.g. Pandas, Scikit-Learn, and Numpy)
• Demonstrated understanding of critical assessment of molecule-property data and predictive model quality
• Demonstrated expertise in data analytics and solid grasp of statistical principles
• Experience with data visualization techniques and exploration tools (e.g Vortex, Spotfire, Datawarrior, DataGrok)
• Strong scientific programming skills (Python). Familiarity with modern pipeline tools is a plus.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills that contribute to and inspire a vibrant community of drug hunters
• Experience with (chem)informatics analyses of peptides, machine learning, databases/enterprise informatics systems (e.g. Dotmatics), or cloud computing environments (e.g. Google, AWS, Azure) is a plus

Core Values

Parabilis is a team of passionate pioneers who are trailblazing the future of precision medicine with the aim of making a meaningful difference in the lives of patients. The company is committed to promoting an inspiring and flourishing working environment for all employees across the business, in all departments, and driving innovation for patient benefit.

• Growth-Minded. We’re inventing a new class of medicines—one applicable to therapeutic targets that have been dreamt about, but always considered impossible to drug. Our work requires us to be curious, humble and adaptable.
• In(ter)dependent.We are fiercely independent as a leader in defying the limitations of current therapeutic modalities, and interdependent as a team as we work collaboratively to shift drug discovery paradigms and provide patients with better treatment options.
• Patient-focused.We are deeply focused on patient outcomes, and all energy in the company is focused on science as it translates to patient impact.
• All-In.We’re All-In on solving some of the hardest scientific challenges and delivering one of the most effective new classes of drugs in history.

The base salary range for this position is $145,000 -$ 175,000 per year, depending on experience, qualifications, and internal practices. Parabilis’s total compensation package also includes an annual target bonus, equity, and a comprehensive suite of competitive benefits designed to support our employees’ overall well-being. 

As an equal opportunity employer, Parabilis Medicines values an inclusive workplace and welcomes applicants of all backgrounds and experiences. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other factors prohibited by law.