Turnstone Biologics (“Turnstone”), a privately held clinical stage biotech company, is developing breakthrough cancer immunotherapies. By advancing two leading and complementary platforms, that drive innate and adaptive tumor immunity, we aim to provide benefit to the millions of cancer patients underserved by current treatment options. Turnstone’s proprietary vaccinia virus platform is engineered to drive coordinated immune activation, potent viral activity, and local expression of encoded therapeutics. Additionally, our innovative tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) platform leverages clinically validated treatment protocols. It has been specifically designed to extend beyond the use of bulk TILs to enrich for the most relevant T-cells for tumor eradication, preserving broad antigen diversity and minimizing time to treatment for patients. The Company has an ongoing Phase 1/2a trial in solid tumors (RAPTOR) for its leading oncolytic virus candidate, RIVAL-01, and is expecting to file an IND for the lead TIL therapy candidate, TIDAL-01, in 2021.
At Turnstone, the science drives decision-making and our therapeutics are designed with the patient foremost in mind. We continue to build a world-class, high-performing company that embraces being a learning organization with a sense of urgency. Imagine coming to work every day where over-communication, transparency, teaching, listening, asking, thinking, working hard, and having fun are normal – actually, expected? Imagine having a coach, mentor, peers, and partners where candid feedback, self-improvement, risk taking, failing, learning from that failing, and succeeding thereafter are what we call ‘another day at Turnstone’? If you are a passionate person, and our science excites you – this opportunity may be for you.
Position Overview:
This role will build and utilize big-data platforms to analyze preclinical, manufacturing and clinical data. This is a hands-on technical role in which you will aggregate and analyze multiple data types including bulk and single cell genome and transcript sequence data, multiplexed flow cytometry, proteomics, pathology, functional immunology, and manufacturing data. You will help define mechanisms of action, manufacturing optimization strategies and product portfolio development and selection as well as to generate hypotheses that will define and drive the next generation of oncology therapies.
We are in the early stages of building strategies, structures and process so this role will be busy and expanding. You would have the opportunity to create something new and ‘WOW!’ all of us and grow right along with the company.
The responsibilities of this role include:
- Model and analyze large, complex genomics datasets using machine learning and statistical methods to generate biological insights.
- Support cross-functional collaborations between informatics team and other R&D and GMP manufacturing functions and teams.
- Create and/or operate computational approaches and analytical tools or customize existing applications (as required) to interrogate immune cell quantity, function and phenotype within the tumor microenvironment.
- Investigate the biology of tumor-reactive T cells, nucleic acid in cancer, generate statistically secure findings, and relate them to performance and clinical value of novel gene and cellular therapies.
- Consult within research and cross-functionally to analyze problems, recommend informatics-based solutions, or determine computational strategies.
- Work closely with interdisciplinary teams including research, clinical, product development, laboratory operations, and external collaborators.
- Represent company externally in informatics and industry conferences.
- Stay abreast of industry and academic developments in biological computational science.
- Generate, interpret and communicate knowledge from gene expression profiles, genome annotation, TCR sequencing and single cell RNA sequencing data.
- Manipulate publicly accessible, commercial, or proprietary genomic, proteomic, or post-genomic databases.
- Improve user interfaces to bioinformatics software and databases.
- Instruct others in the selection and use of optimal and appropriate bioinformatics tools
- Review professional literature to maintain professional knowledge.
- Contribute to building a culture that embraces scientific excellence, integrity, urgency, partnerships with key stakeholders and continuous learning/improvements.
Requirements
- Ph.D. (or MSc + at least 3 years) in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Statistics, Biological Sciences, Cancer Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Computer Science, Physics, or equivalent preparation and experience.
- This role will be positioned out of either site in San Diego or Ottawa
- Willingness to travel (when it’s safe as it pertains to global pandemics) up to 25% to other Turnstone sites
- Proven track record of strong contributions demonstrated by highly cited publications, impactful tools, products, or data sets used by the scientific community, presentations at international conferences, and awards.
- Deep expertise in cancer genomics
- Track record of scientific contributions to successful drug or diagnostic development programs
- Experience with NGS software workflows and analysis of single cell, whole exome, or targeted NGS sequencing data (DNA and RNA) on Illumina HiSeq/MiSeq sequencers
- Experience with Illumina NGS workflows including library construction, hybrid capture enrichment, or amplicon-based sequencing
- Collaborative development skills using version control systems (e.g., Git)
- Familiarity with using virtualized working environments such as Docker
- Experience working in the cloud (AWS), on a Linux based high-performance computing cluster, and contributing to shared code bases is desirable
- Proficiency with statistical analysis in R or Python, and data visualization highly desirable
- Experience with ELN and LIMS systems is desirable
- Working knowledge of RNA-Seq, flow cytometry, variant calling, single cell genomics analysis is preferred
- Lead authorship roles on high-impact publications is desirable
- Experience in supporting informatics in the FDA regulated / GMP manufacturing setting is desirable
- Working understanding of innate and adaptive immune systems is preferred
- Able to work effectively in a fast-paced, small biotech environment
- Willingness to roll-up sleeves and pitch in to help team hit milestones
- Strong ability to prioritize, multi-task, and work in an evolving environment
- Excellent presentation and written / verbal communication skills
- Strong interpersonal skills and a communication style that matches the Turnstone style: respectful, transparent, and constant