Scientific Director / Sr. Director - Bioinformatics - Inmunology

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

Eli Lilly and Company is committed to developing medicines and identify novel targets to improve outcomes for patients. Lilly has invested in autoimmunity and immunology research and development.  We have a robust pipeline covering novel targets and mechanisms, mid- and late-stage potential treatments and approved medicines for a variety of autoimmune indications.  These new therapies align with our corporate strategy to commercialize first-in-class and best-in-class treatments to address unmet medical needs. In support of these goals, bioinformatics scientists deliver biologically, and clinically testable hypotheses based on systematic analyses of proprietary and public clinical and pre-clinical data. This is achieved through a) deep knowhow of specialized biological databases, b) expertise in developing and applying genetics and ‘omics data from multiple platforms, and c) application of integrative analysis approaches. The overarching objective is to improve knowledge around the targets, pathways, and molecular basis/heterogeneity of disease so that we can design better potential medicines and identify patients that are more likely to respond to particular treatments.
 

The bioinformatics scientist operates in a dynamic and cross functional environment, working closely with discovery scientists, clinical researchers, computational scientists and statisticians to enable research related to drug discovery and identification of biomarker with a specific focus on autoimmune diseases. All informatics work is done in a “reproducible research” environment. The candidate will be expected to share best practices with others and also be willing to adopt new methods. This entails using molecular profiles and multiple internal and external biomedical databases to help understand disease heterogeneity and then to leverage it to enable research related to drug discovery and helping define relevant patient populations.

Key responsibilities
 

• Collaborate with discovery biologists, clinical researchers/physicians, and statisticians to enable various aspects of drug/biomarker discovery or development in support of the autoimmune portfolio deliverables, beginning from novel target discovery, all phases of clinical trials, to post launch. 

• Propose, conduct analysis, and provide interpretation in support of key project aims.  

• Present results and provide scientific reports as needed or requested by the project teams as a component of project reviews, milestones or governance in a manner fit for cross-functional team consumption.

• Use internal and external data sources such as but not limited to genome variation, genotype-phenotype association, molecularly characterized disease state databases, etc., to routinely deliver assimilated information and insights relating to target of interest or pathway of interest, appropriateness of pre-clinical models, mechanistic understanding in perturbation studies, biomarkers supporting pharmacodynamics or efficacy and hypothesis relating to patient stratification.

• Participate in the evaluation and identification of new vendors, services, platforms in genomics arena for eventual application for scientific investigations such as (but not limited to) disease characterization or diagnostic applications.

• Leverage internal expertise in informatics from other therapeutic areas, advanced analytics and statistics.

• Collaborate closely with others around data analysis methods and application. 

• Represent Immunology in external collaborations with both academic centers and commercial companies.

• Provide analysis or related support as needed in context of such collaborations.

• Facilitate bringing in data/knowhow or learning into the broader organization. 

• Contribute to external scientific community through presentations and participation in appropriate scientific conferences and journal publications.

Requirements

• PhD degree or equivalent in medicine, biology, computational or statistical sciences with at least 5 years of relevant bioinformatics experience in the pharmaceutical field. 

• Experience with Single Cell Sequencing

• Experience with Genetics or Genetics background
   

Additional Skills / Preferences

• Statistics experience is preferred.

• Experience working with Clinical Trials

• Highly familiar with biological research related to one or more disease and related areas in autoimmune disorders and the desire to continue learning. 

• Ability to interpret and effectively communicate the findings of omics level data with collaborators that are meaningful to the team.

• Hands-on experience of quality control and analyzing data generated using many of the following a) genetic analysis, b) single cell approaches, c) spatial omics, d) proteomics and, e) methylation, with emphasis on biological interpretation. Familiarity with multiple genomics platforms from vendors such as 10x Genomics, Illumina, etc. around applications such as WGS, RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq, DNA Methylation and Genotyping. 

• Experience in applying computational systems biology or integrative analysis approaches to facilitate interpretation and hypothesis generation from results of genetics, genomics, proteomics and epigenetics studies, preferably in a cross functional setting. Ability to rapidly prototype novel methods for suitable scientific problems.

• Experience in novel target discovery and validation, biomarker discovery, mechanisms of action of drugs candidates, and correlating genomic/genetics data with clinical and biochemical phenotypes. Proven ability to provide testable hypotheses to project teams based on systematic analysis of data from pre-clinical and clinical samples.

• Expertise in a range of biological databases and use for translational or basic research. Experience with publicly and commercially available bioinformatics pathway/network analysis tools, genomics and genetics databases. Good bioinformatics programming skills in scripting or programming languages and related bioinformatics packages. Experience working in a high-performance unix cluster, Nextflow, and a cloud-based environment.

• Demonstrated ability to develop and use the tools in the “reproducible research” environment using Rmarkdown, R, dplyr, jupyter, and python. Strong coding skills are a key requirement in this position as all analysis is done in this environment. Expertise in collaborative software developments such at Github. 

• Previous wet lab experience.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

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Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia Network, Black Employees at Lilly, Chinese Culture Network, Japanese International Leadership Network (JILN), Lilly India Network, Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), PRIDE (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN), Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL), enAble (for people with disabilities). Learn more about all of our groups.

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location.  The anticipated wage for this position is

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

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