Staff Data Scientist

Xilis, Inc. is a biotechnology company developing a precision oncology platform that guides treatment decisions for oncologists to improve cancer care outcomes for patients and supports drug discovery and development for pharmaceutical companies. Xilis, Inc. has been developing cutting-edge Patient-Derived Micro-OrganoSpheres (MOS) technology for precision cancer diagnostics and drug development in the Research Triangle Park in Durham, NC. Xilis’ transformative platform recreates patient-specific tumors in their 3D and environmental complexity at micro-scale ex vivo, allowing high-throughput, clinically relevant, and affordable experimental selection of the most effective drugs for every patient in a matter of days. The company aims to transform cancer care by ensuring every patient gets treated promptly with the most appropriate drug(s) available. We are supported in this mission by top Silicon Valley and New York venture firms that are leaders in the healthcare space with extensive experience in supporting precision medicine companies such as Foundation Medicine and Guardant Health.

Role

The Data Science team drives all statistical, machine learning and data visualization approaches across Xilis (both in the Netherlands and the USA). In this role, you will help lead the data analysis in support of novel biopharma and clinical assays at the forefront of cancer therapeutics. You will help define, build, and scale up Xilis’ patient-derived 3D model platform toward drug development and immuno-oncology applications. This role will be embedded within the scientific team at Xilis BV, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. As a founding member of the Netherlands data science team, you will be coordinating and working closely with the onsite laboratory staff as well as our existing international data science experts and will exert experimental design influences on the data you will be analyzing. As such the ideal candidate will have experience with driving data analytics independently, and also experience with cross-functional collaborations.  You will tackle some of the most interesting biological and technical questions related to functional precision cancer therapeutics. You will characterize 3D biological systems longitudinally using diverse technologies such as flow cytometry, -omics or brightfield/confocal microscopy experiments. You will lead the design and implementation of pipelines and artificial intelligence algorithms that combine and harness multiple sources of data in order to extract biological and clinical insights.

You will work closely with experimental scientists, device engineers, R&D, business development, software and operations teams to deliver solutions to further precision oncology. You will be part of a fast-paced early-stage startup and have the opportunity to shape the overall direction of data science and product development.

• Design and deploy advanced multimodal data fusion algorithms to solve pressing problems in immuno-oncology within Xilis’ AWS-based cloud computing environment
• Rigorously and reproducibly support the design of experiments, perform the subsequent statistical analyses, and develop the necessary quality control metrics and processes to ensure oncology products’ success
• Visualize and communicate complex data back to technical and non-technical audiences
• Operate successfully in a rapidly changing, fast-paced, mission-driven environment
• Participate in external meetings with scientific experts from partner organizations and field technical questions on the data science performed
• Collaborate and co-develop products with our international Xilis R&D teams
• Serve as a conduit between Xilis’ Data Science team and the Netherlands R&D team by running point on data analytics for the Netherlands site, while working within and contributing to the international data science team’s infrastructure and processes

• Ph.D. in applied mathematics, computer science, data science, bioengineering/bioinformatics, or a related discipline with 8+ years of experience or MS with 10+ years of experience (Bonus: Industry experience in drug discovery or drug development)
• Expert knowledge of machine learning and advanced statistical methodologies, including extensive work in computer vision
• Extensive knowledge of molecular biology, cancer genomics, and understanding the impacts of wetlab protocols on data analytics
• Expertise in Python, R and bash scripting, cloud computing (AWS preferred), ML operations/product lifecycle, git, CI/CD
• Experience working with experimental scientists on Design of Experiment (DOE) (Bonus: Experience with high throughput drug screens, single-cell RNA-seq/NGS multiomics, flow cytometry, immune assays)
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills to accurately convey complex technical information to non-technical stakeholders
• Ability to work independently as an individual contributor in a fast-paced startup environment, delivering high-quality results under tight timelines (Bonus: Significant project management experience driving technical projects from conception to production environment with a focus on business value)
• Strong team player able to work together with your team as well as cross-functionally and across institutions to accomplish your goals (Bonus:  successful collaborations in geographically dispersed teams)

Xilis was created when its three founders — an engineer, a physician, and a biologist — decided to come together and commercialize their technology to transform cancer care. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. Furthermore, even if your work experience isn't perfectly aligned with what we've described above, if you're excited about what we're building then we want to talk to you!

Xilis offers comprehensive health, vision, dental & retirement plans, and unlimited PTO. We are a remote-friendly team: our headquarters are in Durham, North Carolina, but we have team members across the US (and beyond!). #LI-JL1

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