Principal Scientist, Genetic Epidemiology & Biostatistics

The Research Department at Alnylam is seeking a passionate and creative scientist to join the Preclinical Translational Medicine Group and play a leading role in utilizing human data and clinical insights to enhance the discovery, validation, and prioritization of new therapeutic targets. Our team aims to enhance the translation of basic scientific discoveries in 1) human genetics by improving phenotyping and interpretation of genome-wide association results, and 2) biology by using human data for biomarker discovery and assessment of unmet need. We aim to discover and de-risk novel therapeutic targets and indications for future development. The successful candidate will be part of a team that works collaboratively with Alnylam Human Genetics, Next Wave preclinical scientists, and early-stage clinical development with a focus on providing rigorous statistical and epidemiological analyses.

This position is either Onsite or Hybrid and will be primarily located in Cambridge, MA.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead with hypothesis-driven thinking and demonstrate an ability to put questions in a translational/clinical context.
• Strong desire to perform individual contributor work in a collaborative context and communicate findings to wet lab scientists and clinicians.
• Guide preclinical strategy using biobanks, electronic health record, natural history studies, and clinical trial data, applying epidemiological principles.
• Read the literature, derive own insights, and identify novel data and analyses methods to answer questions in therapeutic development with data.
• Identify and prioritize causal disease drivers from observational data (genetics, omics, longitudinal). Apply and explain epidemiological and study design approaches used to arrive at conclusions to diverse audiences.
• Collaborate with human genetics to implement and maintain a scalable framework for generating robust and novel insights from human genetics data. This framework will handle the storage of phenotype information, facilitate genotype-to-phenotype analyses, and enable the integration of external/publicly available summary level data.
• Gain increasing independence and responsibility. Will be expected to manage workload including balancing large-scale projects with time-sensitive requests.
• Strong written and oral presentation skills, ability to draft high quality scientific manuscripts and presentations for internal/external use.

Qualifications

• PhD in epidemiology, biostatistics, human genetics, or related field with substantial hands-on computational experience.
• Proven track record of working with data, sharing code, constructing pipelines, and showcasing results in either manuscripts, conferences, or similar.
• Proficiency in python and/or R, familiarity with basic computational and cloud infrastructures and databases.
• Experience with the UKB Research Analysis Platform, AllOfUs Researcher Workbench, and/or similar environments is a plus.
• Experience with implementing and interpreting summary statistic-based analyses including but not limited to colocalization and Mendelian Randomization, and select which methods are the most practical or applicable for the questions at hand.
  
  

About Alnylam:Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ALNY) has led the translation of RNA interference (RNAi) into a whole new class of innovative medicines with the potential to transform the lives of people afflicted with rare and more prevalent diseases. Based on Nobel Prize-winning science, RNAi therapeutics represent a powerful, clinically validated approach to treating diseases at their genetic source by "interfering" with mRNA that cause or contribute to disease. Since our founding in 2002, Alnylam has led the RNAi Revolution and continues to turn scientific possibility into reality.

Our culture:Our people-first culture is guided by our core values: fiercely innovative, open culture, purposeful urgency, passion for excellence, and commitment to people, and these values influence how we work and the business decisions we make. Thanks to feedback from our employees over the years, we've been fortunate to be named a top employer around the world. Alnylam is extremely proud to have been recognized as the #1 Large Employer by Boston Globe Top Places to Work in 2023 for the third consecutive year, one of Science Magazine's Top Biopharma Employers, one of America's Most Responsible Companies for 2024 by Newsweek, a Fast Company Best Workplace for Innovators, and a Great Place to Work in Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and UK - among others.

At Alnylam, we commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equal employment opportunity. We are dedicated to building an environment where employees can feel that they belong, can bring their authentic selves to work, and achieve to their full potential. By empowering employees to embrace their unique differences at work, our business grows stronger with advanced and original thinking, allowing us to bring groundbreaking medicines to patients. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ethnicity, marital status, protected veteran status, disability, or any other characteristics prohibited by law.