Principal Scientist, Computational Genomics

He/she will be part of the Computational Sciences group in the Discovery Sciences organization within Janssen Parma R&D. He/she will be a member of the Population Analytics team within Computational Sciences which aims to bring together researchers within and outside of Janssen with expertise in human disease genetics, genetic epidemiology, computer/computational science, high performance computing, population/statistical genetics, genomics etc. 

The mission of the Population Analytics team is to support longitudinal, population-based studies to increase understanding and facilitate the search for therapies that prevent, intercept or cure disease. They will be responsible for integration, analysis and interpretation of data collected on various cohorts and across geographical/time scales. They will decipher causal factors such as genes, the environment and an individual’s lifestyle that will facilitate the discovery of novel targets, biomarkers and pathways implicated in disease. This remains an extremely challenging problem, which we expect these researchers to address with the goal of using biomedical data to build a best-in-class target identification and validation engine (TIDVALE) to feed our pipeline. 

Role & responsibilities:
• Provide expertise in the analysis of genotype/phenotype data from longitudinal, population and/or targeted cohort-based studies that consider individual variability in genes, environment and lifestyle and leverage the knowledge gained to increase understanding of disease.
• Establish and optimize AI/ML algorithms incorporated within computational pipelines on a wide range of computing platforms. The aim is to deploy the tools necessary to translate genotype/phenotype data from large population-based cohorts and targeted studies to help our researchers identify or validate potential therapeutic targets, pathways and biomarkers implicated in disease.
• Develop processes to efficiently integrate and analyze a variety of high-dimensional data, including electronic health record, biosensor/imaging, and multi-omics data from the UK Biobank. Apply predictive modeling approaches to these data in order to further translate findings from genomics analyses, addressing questions of interest in our therapeutic areas and facilitating interactions between colleagues across the organization.
• Act as scientific partner and subject matter expert in collaborations with internal and external partners.
• Supervise, guide and mentor junior scientists and postdoctoral fellows and in general act as an expert scientific leader to support and nurture collaborations with internal and external partners to build our TIDVALE.
• Perform and publish high-quality research relevant to the mission of the organization; effectively communicate data and results to our stakeholders within and outside of J&J and work effectively with colleagues across J&J sectors.