Senior AI Scientist

About the Role

Are you passionate about creating artificial intelligence and machine learning models, algorithms, and tools for real-world science applications? Does contributing to preventing, modifying, and even curing some of the world's most complex diseases inspire you? Would you like to work on designing and developing an iterative drug discovery and development process while drawing on methods across various fields, from active learning to optimisation and search? What about advancing our understanding of biology, streamlining research and development processes, and leveraging a variety of data modalities? Do you thrive working in a supportive, inclusive environment where creativity, collaboration across disciplines and lifelong learning towards innovative breakthroughs are encouraged? If yes, this opportunity may be for you.

Join our interdisciplinary Centre for Artificial Intelligence team working on the next generation of medicines and vaccines at the intersection of AI, biology, and engineering. Your work will contribute to transforming the drug discovery and development value chain as we know it, uncovering novel biological insights, automating processes, streamlining decisions, and improving the overall pipeline across all therapeutic areas at AstraZeneca.

Key Responsibilities

• Work efficiently in a team to deliver projects optimally, developing and using the latest AI/ML methods, approaches, and techniques, with engineering best practices and standard processes for various biology, chemistry and clinical problems.
• Be part of multifunctional teams to conceive, design, develop and conduct experiments to test hypotheses, validate new approaches, and compare the effectiveness of different AI/ML algorithms, methods and tools for discovering, designing, and optimising molecules with improved biological activity.
• Contribute to addressing challenges and opportunities in the drug discovery and development value chain processes and provide innovative solutions in fields such as deep learning, representation learning, reinforcement learning, meta-learning, active learning approaches applied to de novo molecule design, protein engineering, in-silico discovery, structural biology, computational biology, translational sciences, biomarker discovery, clinical research, clinical trials and many other areas.
• Develop machine learning models designed explicitly for analysing heterogeneous biological data while collaborating with biology researchers to run algorithmically designed wet lab experiments to inform future experimental directions.
• Remain at the forefront of AI/ML research by participating in journal clubs, seminars, mentoring, and personal development initiatives and contributing to publications and academic and industry collaborations.

Essential Skills/Experience

• A PhD in machine learning, statistics, computer science, mathematics, physics, biology, or a related technical discipline and relevant experience in the research and development of artificial intelligence and machine learning based solutions OR MSc with a few years of relevant experience in the research and development of artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches to life sciences applications.
• Well-rounded hands-on ability to understand and implement AI/ML techniques based on publications or developed entirely in-house. In addition, experience in applying rigorous scientific methodology to (i) identify and create ML techniques and the required data to train models, (ii) develop machine learning model architectures and training algorithms, (iii) analyse and tune experimental results to inform future experimental directions, and (iv) implement and scale training and inference engineering frameworks and (v) validate hypotheses.
• Deep theoretical knowledge and hands-on experimentation, analysis, and visualisation of AI/ML techniques in conjunction with a strong understanding of linear algebra, calculus, and statistics.
• Experience designing new AI/ML approaches to deriving insights from proprietary and external datasets to generate testable hypotheses using algorithmic, mathematical, computational, and statistical methods combined with theoretical, empirical or experimental research sciences approaches.
• Programming experience in Python or other programming languages and standard machine learning toolkits, especially deep learning (e.g., Pytorch, TensorFlow, etc.).
• Experience in practical aspects of AI/ML foundations and model design, such as improving model efficiency, quantisation, conditional computation, reducing bias, or achieving explainability in complex models.
• Ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with diverse individuals and functions, reporting and presenting research findings and developments clearly and efficiently to other scientists, engineers and domain experts from different disciplines.

Desirable Skills/Experience

• Foundational knowledge in conceptualising, designing, and creating entirely new models, methods, approaches, architectures, and algorithms from scratch, as off-the-shelf methods and state-of-the-art AI/ML techniques only sometimes work on our scientific problems and datasets.
• Fluent in Python, R, and/or Julia other programming languages, including scientific packages and libraries (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow, Pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib).
• Experience in machine learning research and developing fundamental algorithms and frameworks that can be applied to various machine learning problems, particularly in biology, chemistry and clinical applications and a demonstrated track record for solving biological issues relevant to drug discovery and development.
• Research experience demonstrated by journal and conference publications in prestigious venues (with at least one publication as a leading author). Examples include but are not limited to NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR and JMLR.
• A track record of successfully collaborating with AI engineering teams to deliver complex machine learning models and production-ready data and analytics products.
• Practical ability to work on cloud computing environments like AWS, GCP, and Azure.
• Domain knowledge of tools, techniques, methods, software, and approaches in one or more areas, such as protein engineering, microbiology, structural biology, molecular design, biochemistry, genomics, genetics, bioinformatics, molecular, cellular and tissue biology.
• Evidence of open-source projects, patents, personal portfolios, products, peer-reviewed publications, or similar track records.

Why AstraZeneca?

When we put unexpected teams in the same room, we unleash bold thinking with the power to inspire life-changing medicines. In-person work gives us the platform we need to connect, work at pace, and challenge perceptions. That's why we work, on average, a minimum of three days per week from the office. But that doesn't mean we're not flexible. We balance the expectation of being in the office while respecting individual flexibility. Join us in our unique and ambitious world. Join the team, unlocking the power of what science can do. We are working towards treating, preventing, modifying, and even curing some of the world's most complex diseases. Here, we have the potential to grow our pipeline and positively impact the lives of billions of patients around the world. We are committed to making a difference. We have built our business around our passion for science. Now, we are fusing data and technology with the latest scientific innovations to achieve the next wave of breakthroughs.

Ready to make a difference? Apply now and join us in our mission to push the boundaries of science and deliver life-changing medicines!