Staff Data Scientist

About Us

Valo Health is a technology company that is integrating human-centric data and AI-powered technology to accelerate the creation of life-changing drugs for more patients faster. Valo was created with the belief that the drug discovery and development process can and should be faster and less expensive, with a much higher probability of success. We are using models early to fail less often, executing clinical trials to add valuation to the company, and generating fit-for-purpose data to feed back into Valo’s Opal Computational Platform™ as we reinvent drug discovery and development from the ground up. Disease doesn’t wait, so neither can we.  

We are a multi-disciplinary team of experts in science, technology, and pharmaceuticals united in our mission to achieve better drugs for patients faster. Valo is committed to hiring diverse talent, prioritizing growth and development, fostering an inclusive environment, and creating opportunities to bring together a group of different experiences, backgrounds, and voices to work together. We achieve the widest-ranging impact when we leverage our broad backgrounds and perspectives to accelerate a new frontier in health. Valo seeks to become the catalyst for the pharmaceutical industry and drive the digital transformation of the industry. Are you ready to join us?  

About the Role
As a core member of Valo’s Chemical Data Sciences team, your primary role will be training and applying predictive models to drive Valo’s drug discovery programs, both internally and with partner collaborations. Along with other members of the team, you will leverage Valo’s Opal Platform and your extensive skill set in computational and life sciences to tackle a broad range of complex chemical design and optimization challenges. The team you will be joining is responsible for a high level of communication and collaboration with other key groups within the organization. You will be working with the in- vitro pharmacology group to ensure we are training the best possible models and helping to solve the correct optimization problems through mutual understanding of the data, the
problem domain, and the desired outcomes. Additionally, you’ll partner with various engineering teams to advance new capabilities, create and improve data pipelines, and improve data ingestion and evaluation processes. A successful candidate for this role will be experienced in the drug discovery industry, have an appropriately broad array of skills to draw from, be rigorous with an attention to detail, and enjoy collaborating with a diverse set of scientists, entrepreneurs, and domain experts in ways that cut across traditional industry boundaries. This position is best suited to someone who will be excited by working on a wide range of programs and has an innate scientific curiosity that drives them to ask questions.

What you’ll do…

• Train, assess, deploy, and interpret statistical machine learning models that inform, derisk, and advance our programs.
• Work with data scientists, researchers, product teams, and other domain experts to build solutions to complex data-oriented problems
• Communicate complex and nuanced statistical concepts to biologists and medicinal chemists
• Communicate complex and difficult biological and chemistry concepts to computer scientists

What you Bring…

• A PhD (or Masters with experience) in Computational Chemistry, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, or related quantitative fields
• At least 5 years of relevant industry experience required
• Proven experience in critical evaluation of the scientific literature; basic skills in mining of biological assay data is a plus
• Good understanding of methods in cell biology, biochemistry, and molecular biology are essential
• A skilled programmer in python and/or R, fluency with shell scripting, and comfortable working on the command line
• Experience with existing cheminformatics tools and platforms such as RDKit, OpenBabel, Pipeline Pilot, KNIME, MOE, and Schrödinger
• Understanding of data modeling and database technologies, including experience with SQL
• Understanding of the practical application of modern machine learning methods
• Strong project management skills with significant practical experience managing multiple, parallel projects
• A confident and effective communicator – equally comfortable within a platform engineering discussion and a medicinal chemistry discussion
• An ability to work well under pressure and drive projects that affect critical timelines
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail

More on Valo 

Valo Health, LLC (“Valo”) is a technology company built to transform the drug discovery and development process using human-centric data and artificial intelligence-driven computation. As a digitally native company, Valo aims to fully integrate human-centric data across the entire drug development life cycle into a single unified architecture, thereby accelerating the discovery and development of life-changing drugs while simultaneously reducing costs, time, and failure rates. The company’s Opal Computational Platform™ is an integrated set of capabilities designed to transform data into valuable insights that may accelerate discoveries and enable Valo to advance a robust pipeline of programs across cardiovascular metabolic renal, oncology, and neurodegenerative diseases. Founded by Flagship Pioneering and headquartered in Lexington, MA. Valo also has offices in New York, NY. To learn more, visit www.valohealth.com.