Machine Learning / Data Scientist

Why join us?

FogPharma is a biopharmaceutical company pioneering the discovery and development of Helicon™ therapeutics, which are peptides capable of efficient cell entry and modulation of both protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions. Through Helicon therapeutics, FogPharma is poised to revolutionize the medical possibilities for patients by precisely drugging intracellular targets long understood to be significant drivers of disease but never before drugged due to the limitations of existing drug modalities to act within the cell.

FOG-001, the company’s first-in-class TCF-blocking β-catenin inhibitor, is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 study for patients with advanced solid tumors, including colorectal cancer. FogPharma is fully leveraging the unprecedented potential Helicons present by deploying proprietary, custom-built machine learning and computational methods as part of its discovery and development process. FogPharma has raised more than $500 million to date from leading life sciences investors. FogPharma is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass.

What’s the opportunity?

This position is a Scientist / Senior Scientist in machine learning reporting to the AD of Machine Learning, in Computational Drug Discovery at Fog. We are seeking highly talented and motivated people to contribute to the development of the Computational Drug Discovery group, a strategic function in Data Science that is part of Fog’s platform discovery engine for Helicon^TM stapled-peptide drugs.  The skill sets of the group includes state-of-the-art machine learning/generative AI, molecular modeling, cheminformatics, structural sciences and data science towards the discovery and development of Helicon^TM stapled-peptide drugs.

You’ll be part of a data science team that is a central pillar of FogPharma’s innovative discovery platform and pipelines targeting “undruggable” genes of major therapeutic interest to patients. Our data science team is an integrated team ranging from computational biology, bioinformatics, computational drug discovery, research informatics and data engineering. We work at the interface of chemistry, biology, clinical and computational sciences, and are responsible for all aspects of data science from building the discovery pipeline to supporting and developing our discovery platform.

Responsibilities

• Provide machine learning (ML) development and support for, but not limited to, hit identification, targeted screening library designs, hit-to-lead progression using multi-objective optimization, new drug-target assessments and advancing drug-pipeline projects towards clinic.
• Develop and implement machine learning methods for predicting Helicon^TM
• Support, develop and productionize our internal ML pipeline efforts and streamline nominations of Helicon^TM designs for experiments.
• Evaluate, and where appropriate, adopt and fine-tune state of the art protein-based ML models for our internal Helicon^TM-to-function modeling efforts.
• Deploy, manage and optimize ML models in production using our internal MLOps capabilities.
• Employ data science and software engineering best practices in your day-to-day work.
• Establish a strong cross functional collaborative-network at Fog and with external partners.

 

What you’ll need to be successful:

• PhD, or MS with 2+ years of experience, developing and applying machine learning models, in Computer Science, Math, Statistics, or related scientific field.
• Experience in life science and biopharmaceutical companies is a plus.
• Demonstrated prior experience in modeling biological sequence-to-function relationships and collaborating with experimental biologists to validate predictions.
• Demonstrated understanding of critical assessment of data procurement, data preparation, model training and predictive model quality.
• Strong scientific programming skills (Python), data visualization, and familiarity with pipelining tools in a Linux environment.
• Fluency in python especially in python scientific/ML stack (pandas, numpy, scikit-learn, PyTorch/JAX). Familiarity in specialized ML libraries (e.g. Deepchem) a plus.
• Excellent communication, collaboration and scientific leadership skills that contribute to and inspire a vibrant community of drug hunters.
• Demonstrated experience building research collaborations and executing complex and interdisciplinary research projects to completion.
• Demonstrated experience/specialization developing neural vision or natural language or graph-based models from scratch.
• Familiarity with software best practices, including cloud computing environments (e.g. AWS, Azure or Google), Docker, code versioning(git), MLOps
• Experience working with either AlphaFold, ProteinMPNN or pLMs (e.g. ESM2) is a plus.
• Experience working with peptides a plus

Core Values

FogPharma is a team of passionate pioneers who are trailblazing the future of precision medicine with the aim of making a meaningful difference in the lives of patients. The company is committed to promoting an inspiring and flourishing working environment for all employees across the business, in all departments, and driving innovation for patient benefit.

• Creative. We are creating a whole new class of medicine requiring creativity to solve challenges as they arise, which we have successfully done since the inception of the company.
• Patient-focused. We are deeply focused on patient outcomes, and all energy in the company is focused on science as it translates to patient impact.
• Execution-oriented. As we begin clinical development and large-scale manufacturing, the team is balancing creativity and nimbleness with relentless, rigorous and flawless execution.
• Humble. We fully appreciate that science and technology and policy are in flux, and we balance deep experience with humility to ask fundamental questions and seek newly available solutions.

As an equal opportunity employer, Fog values diversity and welcomes applicants of all backgrounds and experiences. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other factors prohibited by law.

30 Acorn Park Drive    |     Cambridge, MA 02140    |    www.fogpharma.com