Scientist II/Sr. Scientist I, Cheminformatics

Wave Life Sciences is a biotechnology company focused on unlocking the broad potential of RNA medicines to transform human health. Our RNA medicines platform, PRISM, combines multiple modalities, chemistry innovation and deep insights in human genetics to deliver scientific breakthroughs that treat both rare and prevalent disorders. Our toolkit of RNA-targeting modalities includes editing, splicing, RNA interference and antisense silencing, providing us with unmatched capabilities for designing and sustainably delivering candidates that optimally address disease biology. Our diversified pipeline includes clinical programs in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency and Huntington’s disease, as well as a preclinical program in obesity. Driven by the calling to “Reimagine Possible”, we are leading the charge toward a world in which human potential is no longer hindered by the burden of disease.

Description

Wave is looking for a creative and highly motivated individual to help drive oligonucleotide therapeutic discovery and drug development. The successful candidate will be an integral member of the Data Science Team and work cross-functionally with medicinal chemists, process chemists, biologists, and data scientists. This person will manage Wave’s monomer and oligomer registries; develop custom software for assembling, visualizing, and analyzing oligonucleotide structures and their activities; and build insights from our database to increase Wave’s efficiency in designing new drug candidates.

Experience

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree with 2 years experience in cheminformatics, computational chemistry, computer/data science
• Excellent communicator; able to prioritize, plan, summarize and explain work to teams and management
• Driven, curious and able to work both independently and collaboratively

Responsibilities

• Registry Management
  • Provide support and training for users of Wave’s chemical registries
  • Oversee Wave’s molecular naming conventions
  • Develop a suite of cheminformatics software to validate and compute relationships between Wave’s chemical entities
• Software development
  • Integrate into agile microservice development team
  • Take ownership of code for chemical toolkit integration and application to chemical entities
  • Develop tools to support facile conversion from HELM to standard molecular formats and vendor specific formats
  • Craft custom solutions integrating with vendor platform to enhance the speed of drug discovery
• Provide advice and guidance to discovery teams regarding prediction enabled molecular design

Key Skills

• Detailed knowledge of the chemistry of DNA and RNA oligonucleotide therapeutics
• Experience working with small and large molecule registries (experience with Dotmatics preferred)
• Understanding of representation formats for small and large molecules (e.g, HELM, SDF, InChI, molfile, SMILES)
• Languages/Platforms:
  • Programming Languages (at least 2): Python, R, Javascript
  • Relational Database Experience (at least 1): MySQL, Oracle, PostGreSQL
  • Cheminformatics Toolkits (at least 1): RDKit, CDK, ChemAxon, Indigo
• Previous application of statistics & machine learning preferred

Wave Life Sciences provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Wave Life Sciences complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

Wave Life Sciences expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of Wave Life Sciences’ employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge.

We value our relationships with professional recruitment firms. To protect the interests of all parties, and given the large volume of inquiries received from third-party placement agencies, we are not able to respond to all agency inquiries. We do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than directly from candidates for current or future positions. Submission of unsolicited resumes in advance of a signed agreement between our company and a placement agency does not create an implied obligation and, if an unsolicited candidate represented by a placement agency is hired, we are not obligated to pay a fee. Only approved recruitment firms will be allowed to provide services to Wave Life Sciences, USA.