Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Spatial Transcriptomics Computational Biology

Be a part of the legacy: Postdoctoral Research Fellow Program

Our Research Laboratories’ Postdoctoral Research Fellow Program aims to be a best-in-industry program for industrial postdoctoral researchers, designed to provide you with an academic focus in a commercial environment. With the resources, reach, and expertise of a large pharmaceutical company, postdoctoral researchers will be positioned to excel in an institution committed to breakthrough innovation in research and discovery.

What You'll Be Doing:

We are seeking a passionate computational biologist with expertise in analyzing single cell sequencing and/or spatial transcriptomics data to join the Genome Sciences team within the Department of Genetics & Pharmacogenomics (GpGx) at our site in Boston.  Our mission is to develop high-throughput cutting-edge technologies to better understand disease mechanism and to identify and validate new targets and biomarkers. Our group utilizes innovative genetic screening (i.e., CRISPR) and multi-omics single cell approaches such as simultaneous RNA and protein profiling (i.e., REAP-seq), immune repertoire profiling, CROP-seq/Perturb-Seq, and Spatial Transcriptomics to impact all stages of the drug development pipeline from pre-clinical to clinical development. Genome Sciences collaborates closely with the discovery therapeutic areas (i.e., oncology, immunology, and neuroscience) to utilize these technologies to pursue key biological questions.

The main goal of this project is to evaluate the cutting-edge Visium Spatial Transcriptomics technology as a platform that could be regularly used in Neuroscience and Oncology to boost discovery and study mechanism of action (MoA) across programs to help prioritize targets and better understand disease mechanism. The postdoc would: (1) develop visualization tools to enable rapid technology development cycles, (2) develop bioinformatic pipelines for data integration with other omics data from the same sample such as imaging mass cytometry (IMC), MERFISH, and single cell REAP-seq; and (3) analyze tissue sections from AD brain and tumors from pre-clinical models and patient samples to better characterize cellular cross-talk, distribution in disease, and study MoA in relation to efficacy.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Pioneering analytics capabilities for this novel technology that combines histology with transcriptomics to provide a map of gene expression across tissue sections,
• Developing bioinformatic pipelines for analyzing spatial transcriptomics data and integrating with other omics data from the same samples such as single cell RNA-seq, REAP-seq, or imaging mass cytometry (IMC)
• Developing interactive visualization tools to enable rapid technology development cycles and exploration of the data
• Evaluate the potential of the Spatial Transcriptomics technology for wide use across therapeutic areas (i.e., Oncology and Neuroscience) for (1) studying mechanism of action (MoA) in pre-clinical models  (2) identifying biomarkers tied to MoA and efficacy, (3) profiling patient samples to determine if in vivo/in vitro model systems accurately represent human disease, and (4) discovery of novel targets and biomarkers.
• Analyze tissue sections from AD brain and tumors from pre-clinical models and patient samples to better characterize cellular cross-talk, distribution in disease, and study MoA in relation to efficacy.
• Being proactive and collaborating closely across multi-disciplinary groups including, Oncology, Neuroscience, Research IT, Oncology Preclinical Analytics and Discovery PGx
• Written and verbal communication of study results to project teams and leadership, including proposals for further experiments to validate key findings
• Publish findings in high impact journals

What You Bring: 

• Candidates must currently hold a PhD or receive a PhD by summer 2020 in Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Computational biology, Computer Science, Immunology, Molecular Biology, Statistics or related field
• Demonstrated experience on the computational analysis and interpretation of single cell RNA-seq or and/or Total-Seq datasets
• Expertise with data integration and interpretation
• Proficiency in at least one programming language, such as R or Python
• Familiarity with data visualization packages, such as R Shiny, ggplot, or plotly
• Strong communication (oral and written) and collaboration, including an ability to effectively communicate experimental design, results and conclusions
• Publications in high impact journal

Preferred Experience and Skills

• Experience with high-performance Linux cluster and cloud computing
• Experience with reproducible research tools and version control
• Previous experience with statistical learning techniques is a plus

We are a research-driven biopharmaceutical company. Our mission is built on the simple premise that if we “follow the science” and that great medicines can make a significant impact to our world. And we believe that a research-driven enterprise dedicated to world-class science can succeed by inventing medicine and vaccine innovations that make a difference for patients across the globe.

Who we are …

Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey, USA is known as “Merck” in the United States, Canada & Puerto Rico. We are known as “MSD” in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Latin America & Asia Pacific. We are a global biopharmaceutical leader with a diverse portfolio of prescription medicines, oncology, vaccines and animal health products.

We are driven by our purpose to develop and deliver innovative products that save and improve lives. With 69,000 employees operating in more than 140 countries, we offer state of the art laboratories, plants and offices that are designed to Inspire our employees as we learn, develop and grow in our careers. We are proud of our 125 years of service to humanity and continue to be one of the world’s biggest investors in Research & Development.

What we look for …

In a world of rapid innovation, we seek brave Inventors who want to make an Impact in all aspects of our business, enabling breakthroughs that will affect generations to come. We encourage you to bring your disruptive thinking, collaborative spirit and diverse perspective to our organization. Together we will continue Inventing For Life, Impacting Lives while Inspiring Your Career Growth.

INVENT.

IMPACT.

INSPIRE.

If you need an accommodation for the application process please email us at staffingaadar@merck.com

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We are an equal opportunity employer, Minority/Female/Disability/Veteran – proudly embracing diversity in all of its manifestations.

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