Senior Computational Biologist

About Proxima (formerly VantAI):

Proxima combines cutting-edge machine learning with deep systems biology, physics and chemistry expertise to solve the most challenging problems in drug discovery. We specialize in the discovery of compounds and biologics that modulate complex protein-protein interactions, using data-driven modeling approaches. Our machine learning-powered in silico platform has helped leading biopharma partners advance their development programs at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods.

About the Role:

Proxima is seeking highly-motivated Computational Biologists interested in building the leading AI-enabled drug discovery platform for novel induced proximity therapeutic modality.

Successful candidates will work closely with the Computational Chemistry, Machine Learning and Application Engineering teams to tap into the wealth of evolutionary, structural and -omics data to unlock the full potential of unified machine learning representations and large-scale geometric deep learning generative models.

Projects may include designing large-scale scientific workflows for mining public and unique in-house data; developing novel systems biology and structural biology computational methods, tools and algorithms; and/or designing, training and fine-tuning best-in-class machine learning models. In our projects we apply induced proximity approaches to some of the most challenging targets considered “undruggable” as well as discover, build and develop novel proximity platforms spanning across multiple targets and disease areas.

We value individuals who want to make an impact, have a deep intellectual curiosity, enjoy solving challenging problems and have a track record of achievement. At Proxima, we believe that success is determined by talent and hard work, and individuals are given equal opportunities to grow and advance based on their abilities and contributions.

Key Responsibilities: 

• Develop pilot capabilities and create large-scale data pipelines from the ground up 

• Collaborate with other teams across Proxima and partnering organizations to achieve project goals by contributing code, analyses, benchmarks, optimizations and ideas to ongoing research-driven projects

• Integrate biological insights into the next generation of AI/ML models for drug discovery

• Validate and interpret computational predictions by working closely with experimentalists 

 Basic Qualifications:

• Hold an MSc or PhD degree in computational biology, bioinformatics or a related field

• Possess mixed academic and/or industrial experience, preferably in the biotech industry

• Have a strong background in computational structural or systems biology

• Demonstrate strong programming skills in Python, R and/or other languages

• Experience building reproducible and scalable computational biology workflows

• Experience designing and applying machine learning models

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with geometric deep learning, graph neural networks, protein language models, transformers and representation learning is a plus

• Preferably have prior exposure to drug discovery problems

• Experience working with cloud-based infrastructure

• Agile project management

NYC Salary: $120,000 - $180,000

This band is a reflection of the job description as written. Looking for a higher salary? Apply anyway! We are happy to speak to more experienced candidates who may require a higher salary and discuss that experience in our first touchpoint.