Turnstone Biologics is a clinical stage biotechnology company developing new medicines to treat and cure solid tumors by pioneering a differentiated approach with a clinically validated technology, tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy. Turnstone’s innovative TIL therapy, which is designed to extend the efficacy of TILs to multiple solid tumor indications by selecting and manufacturing the most potent tumor-reactive T-cells (Selected TILs) for tumor eradication, represents the Company’s foundational therapeutic modality driving its cancer immunotherapy pipeline. The Company recently commenced two clinical trials in various solid tumor types with its lead Selected TIL therapy candidate, TIDAL-01, one of which is in collaboration with Moffitt Cancer Center. Turnstone is developing additional strategies to further potentiate the clinical benefit of Selected TILs, including use in combination with their novel viral immunotherapy.
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:
The successful candidate will have a unique opportunity to work closely with several functional teams, including research, technical operations, translational medicine and clinical, to build and analyze a rich database from multi-omic biomarker assays that will be deployed across two clinical trials. These biomarker assays will delve into mechanisms of action and resistance and deep phenotyping of our novel patient-specific selected and expanded tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) precision medicine platform in melanoma and other indications. These crucial clinical datasets intersect with related measurements from our preclinical and manufacturing teams in order to refine our understanding of the transformational therapeutic potential for cell-based immune oncology therapies. This is a hands-on technical role in which you will develop the data analysis and archiving systems, including but not limited to database integration and machine learning tools. Our two clinical trials have just begun, so now is the time to join to shape the analysis and draw meaningful conclusions that will have a lasting impact on the program and, more importantly, on our patients.
The responsibilities of this role include but are not limited to:
- Build from existing biomarker data workplans - including CITE-seq, TCRseq, WES/RNAseq, flow cytometry, and multiplex cytokines - to deeply immunophenotype manufacturing, final TIL drug product, and on-treatment patient samples.
- Work hand-in-hand with Translational Medicine leadership to connect diverse datapoints across numerous biomarker assays.
- Formulate, test, and iterate on translational hypotheses; analyze data and draw conclusions to deliver a robust package of biomarker data and presentations.
- Derive mechanistic insights, drive reverse translation, and improve future cellular drug products.
- Create robust models based on statistical and data mining techniques, e.g. linear mixed effects models, to provide insights and recommendations based on large complex data sets.
- Contribute to, model, monitor, manage, and expand the capabilities of our Translational/Biomarker and Clinical databases.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with bioinformaticians, statisticians, teams in research, clinical, quality, product development, technical operations, external collaborators, and clinicians.
- Explore publicly and commercially available genomic, proteomic, and post-genomic databases.
- Create and update clear and visually appealing dashboards to keep Turnstone management updated in near real-time on translational and clinical data in ongoing trials.
- Contribute to building a culture that embraces scientific excellence, integrity, urgency, in our partnerships with key stakeholders.
- Manage service providers (CROs) independently on data management activities and maintain a good working relationship with vendor.
Requirements:
- Ph.D. in genomics or immunology/oncology with experience/expertise in bioinformatics and quantitative sciences (computer science, math, statistics and engineering).
- Proficiency with database systems, querying languages (SQL, MySQL), statistical analysis in R or Python.
- Expertise in biomarker discovery, genomics, and multi-omics data visualization is highly preferred.
- Experience in collaborative development platforms, e.g. Git, and virtualized working environments, e.g. Docker, is preferred.
- Experience working in cloud computing environments, e.g. AWS EC2, is preferred.
- Ability to effectively multi-task and prioritize in a fast-paced, small biotech environment.
- Willingness to constantly learn to improve one’s skillset.
- Strong interpersonal skills and a communication style that matches the Turnstone style: respectful, transparent, and constant.
- Excellent organizational and team member skills.
- Ability to adapt and be flexible to ongoing and moving tasks.
- Fluency in English, written and oral.
- This role will be positioned out of San Diego with an option to work remotely.
- Willingness to travel in accordance with Company and national / international safety guidance up to 25% to other Turnstone sites or vendors.
The anticipated salary range for this role is $120,000 - $145,000.