Senior Scientist/Principal Scientist, Machine Learning/AI Protein Design

Company Summary:

Tessera Therapeutics is an early-stage life sciences company pioneering Gene Writing, a new biotechnology designed to offer scientists and clinicians the ability to write small and large therapeutic messages into the genome, thereby curing diseases at their source. Gene Writing holds the potential to become a new category in genetic medicine, building upon recent breakthroughs in gene therapy and gene editing while eliminating important limitations in their reach, utilization, and efficacy. Tessera Therapeutics was founded by Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences innovation enterprise that conceives, resources, and develops first-in-category companies to transform human health and sustainability.

Position Summary:

Tessera is seeking a talented, creative, and enthusiastic scientist to join our expanding Data Sciences team. You will apply machine learning techniques and deep neural network models to support the discovery and engineering of novel gene editing technologies. This role will contribute scientific and technical expertise to a multidisciplinary team, emphasizing conceptualization, experimentation, data analysis, presentation, and strategic planning.

The Data Science group is part of a rapidly growing, multi-disciplinary “digital” department and will work closely with colleagues in Computational Biology, Protein & RNA Engineering, Data Engineering, Software Engineering, etc. as well as experimental scientists across Research, external collaborators, partners, and more.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop and apply machine learning algorithms and pipelines to advance Tessera's Gene Writing platform.
• Devise, train, refine, and deploy deep neural network models using public and proprietary sequence, structure, and function data.
• Collaborate closely with experimental scientists to close the model-test-learn loop.
• Drive external collaborations to augment internal capabilities where appropriate.
• Leverage public datasets where possible.
• Present scientific findings to broad audiences (including senior leadership) to drive decision making and increase understanding.
• Mentor junior scientists to collectively achieve team goals.

Basic Qualifications:

• Ph.D. in Computational Biology, Computer Science, Mathematics, or related discipline.
• 4+ years of experience post-PhD in applying deep learning methods to problems related to protein sequence-structure-function relationships (e.g., protein structure prediction, protein annotation, novel sequence generation, function or property prediction, de novo design, directed evolution, etc.)
• Demonstrated ability to deliver deep learning models to production use
• Strong technical proficiency in coding (including ML frameworks), cloud computing, and dev ops.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, ability to work with colleagues from diverse scientific backgrounds and cultures.
• Preferably a track record of success working in a fast-paced, cross-functional, and rapidly growing biotech organization.
• Ideally experience with recent advances in gene therapy and development of gene editing platforms as therapeutics.

More About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category life sciences companies to transform human health and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has, through its Flagship Labs unit, applied its unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in over $50B in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $2.2B in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $18B of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 41 transformative companies, including Axcella Health (NASDAQ: AXLA), Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Indigo Ag, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ: KLDO), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology, Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Sigilon Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SGTX).

Flagship Pioneering and our ecosystem companies are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies:  Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates.  The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team.   Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.