Head Translational Bioinformatics Neurology - BE
UCB Braine-l’Alleud, Walloon Region, Belgium
Overview
We are looking for a talented and experienced Translational Bioinformatics Leader who is passionate and agile to join us in our Data Science and Analytics leadership team, based in Braine, Belgium.
What You’ll Do
* Lead and develop a bioinformatics function with strong ties to the local biology and translational functions.
* Define the team’s bioinformatics strategy and contribute to the DSA and overall R&D digital strategy in collaboration with other digital leaders, working closely with other bioinformatics functions across Research.
* Provide scientific leadership, mentorship, and guidance to a team of bioinformatics scientists, fostering a collaborative and innovative work environment.
* Assist UCB’s therapeutic ambitions in neurological diseases by unlocking mechanistic insight from molecular profiling of patient samples, analyzing perturbations of patient-derived cell systems and in vivo/ex vivo disease models, and enriching knowledge of disease etiology to inform new targets and drug mechanisms of action.
* Maintain close relationships with focus areas and platform leads as well as with overall research leadership, promoting team capabilities, identifying collaboration opportunities and expanding the team’s impact.
* Initiate and participate in collaborations with external parties (academic, commercial, and industry consortia) to access human-level data, develop state-of-the-art methods, and provide novel insights and strategic direction.
* Drive innovation in bioinformatics methods, data visualization, generative and predictive modelling to enhance data-driven research and contribute to global bioinformatics tools and data infrastructure, in close collaboration with other Data Science functions.
* Provide authoritative scientific input in drug discovery projects and in scientific governance meetings.
* Embed team members within therapeutic project teams to align bioinformatics efforts with project objectives and communicate insights clearly to influence project decisions and translational packages.
Qualifications
* Ph.D. or equivalent in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Neuroscience, Genomics, or related field with 10+ years of industry experience.
* Proven ability to lead and mentor groups of 5-10 scientists, manage multiple priorities, and foster a collaborative work environment, ideally in pharmaceutical R&D.
* A passion for leveraging bioinformatics to accelerate drug discovery and understanding disease biology, with experience in Neuroscience insights generation.
* Expertise in multi-omics data processing, analysis, and interpretation, with a strong preference for single-cell RNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics, and methods to integrate genetic data for causal biology.
* Experience translating drug discovery projects into human clinical trials, enabling pre-clinical assessment, biomarker strategies and back-translation.
* Exposure to multiple drug modalities including gene therapy is a plus.
* Experience with HPC, cloud computing platforms, and containerisation technologies (e.g., Docker) for reproducible workflows. Recent hands-on experience preferred.
About Us
UCB is a global biopharmaceutical company focusing on neurology and immunology. We are around 8,500 people worldwide, inspired by patients and driven by science.
Equal Opportunity
UCB is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions will be made without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable laws.
If you require adjustments to our process to assist you, contact EMEA-Reasonable_Accommodation@ucb.com. If your inquiry does not relate to adjustments, we will not be able to assist through this channel.
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