Chinook Therapeutics Job Description: Computational Biologist
Company: Chinook Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing precision medicines for patients with kidney diseases. We apply our proprietary research platform to discover and develop therapeutics with novel mechanisms of action against key kidney disease pathways. Our development focus is on rare, serious disorders with clear unmet medical needs and defined and rapid clinical development opportunities. Our lead program, atrasentan, is a late-stage clinical program for the treatment of primary glomerular diseases, which is planned to move into a phase 3 registrational trial for IgA nephropathy and a phase 2 basket trial for glomerular diseases, both in early 2021. We are also evaluating BION-1301, an anti-APRIL monoclonal antibody, in a phase 1b trial for IgA nephropathy, and are advancing CHK-336 towards a planned IND in 2021 for an ultra-orphan kidney disease. In addition, our pipeline has several other preclinical programs at the validation and lead optimization stages, and we are also evaluating business development opportunities for early and late-stage clinical assets to enhance the pipeline.
Chinook launched in 2019 with a $65 million Series A financing from leading healthcare investors Versant Venture, Apple Tree Partners and Samsara Biocapital. In October 2020, we merged with Aduro Biotech, Inc. and completed a $115 million financing with leading healthcare investors, including EcoR1, Orbimed and others. Chinook now has over $275 million in operating capital and trades on Nasdaq under the ticker “KDNY”. The company has locations in Vancouver, BC, Seattle, WA and Berkeley, CA.
Position: Chinook Therapeutics is seeking an energetic and collaborative Computational Biologist to join the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology team. Our laboratories are based in Vancouver, Canada but the successful candidate could be located in Seattle, Oakland or Vancouver, Canada or remote. This individual will support the development, implementation and application of computational tools and methods to provide actionable biological insights and contribute to a strong scientific understanding of drug targets and biological pathways within the context of precision medicines for kidney disease. Candidates will work primarily within the Computational Biology team, but will interface with a multidisciplinary discovery team of biologists, medicinal chemists, DMPK scientists, and in vivo pharmacologists.
Location: Seattle, WA, Oakland, CA, Vancouver, BC or remote
Key Responsibilities:
- Develop, implement and apply computational tools and methods to store, process, analyze, visualize and integrate in-house and public genetics, RNAseq, NGS, metabolomics, proteomics and other ‘omics data types to address key drug discovery questions on biological and disease mechanisms, biological rationale, target safety, patient stratification, and biomarker identification
Collaborate with members of our Biology team on the analysis of in vitro and in vivo datasets
Analyze public and proprietary expression databases to assist in the development of new therapeutic programs
Design, develop and implement software tools and analytical procedures supporting bioinformatics analysis
Education, Experience and Skills:
PhD in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, or a related discipline; or MSc and 5+ years of experience
Proficiency in the utilization of statistical and computational software environments to process and analyze data (R, Python)
- Expertise in the design of experiments and statistical analysis of experimental data
- Experience in the computational analysis of RNA and DNA datasets from various technologies (RNA-Seq, single-cell RNA-Seq, Nanostring, ATAC-seq, etc.)
- Experience with gene network analysis, cell type deconvolution, proteomics or machine learning is a plus
- Experience with AWS cloud compute environment is a plus
- Excellent communication skills (both oral and written) with ability to clearly and concisely summarize computational concepts and findings to cross-disciplinary scientists
- A strong team player with a passion for science and drug discovery
Chinook is an Equal Opportunity Employer and we do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, place of origin, religion, family status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, and disability or any other federal, state, provincial or local protected ground.
