Career Center

Located in Boston and the surrounding communities, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a leader in life changing breakthroughs in cancer research and patient care. We are united in our mission of conquering cancer, HIV/AIDS and related diseases. We strive to create an inclusive, diverse, and equitable environment where we provide compassionate and comprehensive care to patients of all backgrounds, and design programs to promote public health particularly among high-risk and underserved populations. We conduct groundbreaking research that advances treatment, we educate tomorrow's physician/researchers, and we work with amazing partners, including other Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospitals.

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute seeks an Associate Computational Biologist, under the Department of Medical Oncology to work as a data scientist on the analysis of new datasets generated in the context of multiple clinically oriented cancer sequencing projects in order help advance efforts for precision cancer medicine.??

The qualified candidate will develop and support data processing and analysis tools, create new algorithms for emerging clinically focused needs, maintain datasets and databases, integrate tools and databases into existing high-throughput pipelines, and facilitate the display and the distribution of processed data.

Related projects and responsibilities will include:

• Analyze and interpret high-throughput clinical DNA and RNA sequencing data, with a specific focus on immunological characterization.
• Extract and analyze spatial data from protein immunofluorescence protein imaging data.
• Interprets complex biological information. Performs tasks to reduce and consolidate output from software.
• Prepares data for utilization by other scientists.
• Retreive data from public databases and provide additional context and insight to DFCI studies.
• Must be able to query various sources for the information needed (e.g. the Web, publications, internal DFCI resources).
• Directs and guides DNA, RNA and protein sequence database searches and computational analysis of resulting data.
• Implements end-users needs in database searching and integration.
• Excellent verbal/written communication skills and willingness to collaborate cross-departmentally.
• Contribute to collaborative projects and co-author publications.
• Communicate new findings in a translational research environment strongly focused on discovery and development of novel immunotherapies to improve patient care

These projects are collaborative efforts between the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute, and multiple other institutions.?? The goals of this initiative consist of analyzing sequencing data to determine the effects of genomic alterations and expression changes on clinical behavior, both retrospectively and prospectively.??

These new data could help identify novel approaches for personalized care in oncology.?? In addition, this data may provide support for new methods in clinical decision-making, biomarkers for rational drug development, and new insights into tumor biology through innovative analyses.

The person hired for this position will join the team in this effort, and will participate in the design and implementation of algorithms to analyze the data and integrate with other data sets including clinical outcomes data.

This person will also help with the generation of tools needed for manipulating and preparing data for display; transferring data to external collaborators and data repositories; and will also help maintain, support, and document shared tools, code base, and data sets. As the software infrastructure evolves, this position is likely to present diverse and flexible opportunities - from deeper and more complex software design problems, to becoming more involved in the bioinformatic and analytic aspects of predictive modeling.

MINIMUM JOB QUALIFICATIONS:

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• A B.S. or M.S. in bioinformatics, mathematical, physical, or computer science, or comparable research experience, together with significant experience in computer programming and computational biological applications.
• A strong background in statistics and biology. Experience managing and curating large datasets and with machine learning techniques desired.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and the ability to perform both self-directed and guided research are required.
• Must demonstrate outstanding personal initiative and the ability to work effectively as part of a team.
• Ability to meet deadlines and efficiently multitask is a must.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills with the ability to effectively collaborate across a range of knowledge (e.g. effective communication with software developers and physicians).
• Experience in R and/or Python is preferred, with willingness to learn new languages and tools as the field grows (e.g. Github, Docker, WDL, etc).

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES REQUIRED:

• Programming experience including but not limited to: R, Python, etc.
• New languages are required to be learned as field evolves.

At Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, we work every day to create an innovative, caring, and inclusive environment where every patient, family, and staff member feels they belong.?? As relentless as we are in our mission to reduce the burden of cancer for all, we are equally committed to diversifying our faculty and staff.?? Cancer knows no boundaries and when it comes to hiring the most dedicated and diverse professionals, neither do we. If working in this kind of organization inspires you, we encourage you to apply.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is an equal opportunity employer and affirms the right of every qualified applicant to receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, national origin, sexual orientation, genetic information, disability, age, ancestry, military service, protected veteran status, or other groups as protected by law.