Head of Data Science (Data Sciences)

About Voyager

Voyager Therapeutics (Nasdaq: VYGR) is a biotechnology company dedicated to breaking through barriers in gene therapy and neurology. The potential of both disciplines has been constrained by delivery challenges; Voyager is leveraging innovative expertise in capsid discovery and deep neuropharmacology capabilities to address these constraints. Voyager’s TRACER AAV capsid discovery platform has generated novel capsids with high target delivery and blood-brain barrier penetration at low doses, potentially addressing the narrow therapeutic window associated with conventional gene therapy delivery vectors. This platform is fueling alliances with Pfizer Inc., Novartis and Neurocrine Biosciences as well as multiple programs in Voyager’s own pipeline. Voyager’s pipeline includes preclinical programs in Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), each with validated targets and biomarkers to enable a path to rapid potential proof-of-biology.

Job Summary

Voyager has the world's richest repository of capsid sequence data. As Head of Data Science, you will unlock its potential to revolutionize tissue-specific drug delivery. Voyager generates hundreds of terabytes of data from its novel sequencing and digital pathology systems. Your goal is to lead the team that turns these data into novel drug designs that save lives to make a real-world impact on patients. You will build and lead a team leveraging data science methods to help improve our capability to design novel capsids for tissue-specific drug delivery. You will bring leadership and technical expertise to work across the Voyager team while driving innovation and strategy in data science. The ideal candidate will be a leader with deep experience thinking through problems that translate well to DNA sequencing data, problems whose solutions could require techniques from bioinformatics, biostatistics, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, or something in between.

Given the expanding scope of the Voyager’s aspirations, you will build and lead a team of data scientists and computational biologists to innovate and drive strategy plus provide data-driven decisions. The team will be ~4 in 2022 and expand in 2023 as you implement your vision. You will oversee and lead bioinformatics analysis, computational biology methods development, code documentation and review, and visualization and meta-analyses of data with a particular focus on novel capsid engineering including application of AI/ML approaches to further our understanding of the properties of our gene therapy capsids. Further, you will contribute to the vision and implementation of a queryable database for our ever-growing collection of labeled capsid sequences for both our scientists and our partners. You will also establish a collaborative and efficient workflow and environment across the team, working largely through cloud-based computational infrastructure. As the VP, Data Science, you will report to the Chief Scientific Officer, which helps signify the cross functional, interdisciplinary nature of the position. In particular, the candidate should know that the weight of discovery will be shared with top notch biologists, and that the data science group can count on that group’s expertise and support.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and utilize machine learning capabilities at VYGR in order to design the next-generation capsids that will transform the field of gene therapy.
• Drive strategy and discovery by providing leadership, mentorship, and technical expertise, including implementing data management best practices, in data science to enable rapid progression of novel therapeutic concepts as applied to the Voyager novel capsid discovery pipelines.
• Develop novel analytic capabilities, workflows, and an integrated data environment for analysis, visualization, and interpretation of large, complex datasets to maximize insight from sequence data.
• Build and grow a world-class team of scientists responsible for applying computational biology and statistical analysis techniques (including machine learning) while establishing a culture of scientific quality and rigor.
• Manage a portfolio of projects to enable timely, data-driven decisions across Voyager’s portfolio by providing transparency on project status, potential roadblocks for execution, and new strategies to Voyager leadership as part of the project management responsibilities.

Qualifications

• PhD/MS in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Statistics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Math, Physics, or a relevant field with 10+ yrs. of experience in industry and/or academic research; expert knowledge of scientific principles and concepts with a strong publication record involving impactful biology or product.
• 5+ years of experience managing and growing a team greater than 5, including individuals with a range of experience (straight from graduate school through 10+ years of industry experience); proven leadership skills and the ability for guiding a team through innovation.
• Be a leader, directly impact the science by recommending specific engineering strategies based on mining existing data by being capable of responsibility for combination of technical elements (e.g., data engineering, informatics, IT, data analysis, bioinformatics).
• Technically proficient in statistical analysis (e.g., Python and R) and engineering for data science (e.g., version control, containerization, and workflow languages like Nextflow).
• Experience applying new tools for the integrative analysis and visualization of multi-dimensional datasets.
• Track record of building, tuning and operationalizing machine learning models.
• Experience sharing data solutions using web apps such as Streamlit and R-Shiny to a wider audience.
• Excellent verbal, written, analytical, and presentation skills; communicate a clear vision down, up, and across.