Translational Science Lead - Early stage, Respiratory Diseases

Are you a driven and experienced scientist thriving for a position where your expertise can make an extraordinary influence? Join the team that follows the science unlike anywhere else. This is the place for curious minds. Dig deep into the biology of complex disease and uncover breakthroughs.

Join our Translational Science and Experimental Medicine (TSEM) department with a fast-paced and collaborative atmosphere - and a culture that is both science-based and patient-focused. This position as Translational Science Lead (TSL) is an opportunity for an engaged and scientifically passionate individual to play an important part within our Early Respiratory and Immunology (R&I) organisation.

The position will be placed at AstraZeneca either in Gothenburg (Sweden), Gaithersburg (US) or Cambridge (UK). You will belong to the Precision Medicine Discovery group and our role is to lead the development of precision medicine in respiratory diseases, driving patient segmentation and delivering translational clinical validation. Underpinned by understanding of disease relevant pathways and drivers.

What you will do:
The Translational Science Lead (TSL) is a key scientific role where you will be focusing on delivering precision medicine strategies to select the patients most likely to benefit from our medicines. The position is both a laboratory and project role, requiring flexibility to ensure all translational aspects of the projects are supported according to timelines.

The TSL is accountable as member of a project team for the precision medicine strategy and clinical target validation strategy. Meaning continuous collaboration with functions within and outside Early R&I, that will be essential to strengthen the link between targets and disease phenotypes and endotypes and bring precision medicine propositions to the clinic.

Main responsibilities:

* Lead and execute patient stratification and biomarker strategies within respiratory diseases
* Building mechanistic understanding of the target and disease through innovative application of experimental methods and technologies.
* Building the translational clinical validation package for respiratory targets to better understand responding sub populations, biomarkers and the biology of our drug targets.
* Identifying and enabling Proof of Mechanism (PoM) biomarkers to demonstrate target engagement at First-Time-In-Man (FITM).

Essential education & skills for the role:

* PhD or equivalent with a strong experimental drive and background in relevant scientific field with strong publication record
* A minimum of 5 years' experience in an academic and/or industry setting
* Proven ability to deliver in precision medicine, target engagment and human target validation and their application to drug discovery
* Shown experience and solid understanding of biology, pharmacology, translational medicine and clinical sciences as well as clinical development with pre-eminence in at least one of these areas.
* Excellent understanding of the respiratory therapy area and disease biology, including related molecular pathways and mechanisms.
* Experience and knowledge of the biological basis for patient segmentation, target engagement and familiar with patient selection and PoM biomarker invention and implementation.

Desirable for the role:

* Broad understanding of relevant technologies and methodologies along with excellent scientific laboratory skills and ability to experimentally address key scientific questions.
* Excellent skills in hypothesis forming and testing and able to draw conclusions and suggest next steps based on the experimental data.

Our team is a highly collaborative group, so the ability to be comfortable working at in a goal-oriented way, with a team focused approach is central to be successful in the role. Furthermore, you have great communication and leadership skills and enjoy being a go-to person to ensure scientific excellence and robust delivery to projects.

Why AstraZeneca?
AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven BioPharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines for some of the world's most serious disease. But we're more than one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. At AstraZeneca, it is safe to share and learn from each other - ours is an inclusive environment. Where difference is recognised and uniqueness is valued.

So, what's next! If you're curious to know more about the position, please reach out to hiring manager Alix Berton at Alix.Berton@astrazeneca.com.

The advert opened for applications March 10th, 2021. We welcome your application as soon as possible, but no later than April 30th, 2021.

Additional information:
Follow AstraZeneca on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/1603/
Follow AstraZeneca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/astrazeneca_careers/?hl=en
Read more about BioPharmaceuticals R&D: https://www.astrazeneca.com/r-d.html

Competitive salary and benefits package on offer.