Senior Director, Translational Genetics

Senior Director, Translational Genetics

We are seeking a highly experienced, motivated and innovative individual to join us as a Senior Director in Translational Genetics, part of the broader GSK R&D Translational Sciences organisation. The successful candidate will lead a team of translational genetics scientists, providing strategic leadership combined with deep analytical expertise in a dynamic and highly collaborative environment. The team will support target assessments across our priority therapeutic areas and be accountable for understanding and addressing prioritised translational questions relevant to our portfolio, frequently involving innovative thinking and novel analytic approaches.

You will have strong expertise in association genetics with emphasis on leveraging statistical genetics approaches to address translational questions, and demonstrable experience of addressing key scientific questions via integration of genetics with genomics (especially proteomics) and clinical phenotypic data. Your work will inform target discovery and validation, biomarker discovery, indication and patient subgroup selection, and further our understanding of the pathobiology of specific diseases.

The successful candidate should have line management experience. The team will work in a multidisciplinary, collaborative and scientifically driven environment, interacting with GSK scientists and leaders from a broad range of functions to advance drug discovery and clinical development. External collaborations with academics and institutions will be encouraged and supported.

Key Accountabilities / Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership to set the direction of your team, identify and deliver key translational activities, and ensure alignment with evolving organisational priorities.
• Utilise deep expertise in genetic analysis and integration with genomic (including proteomics) and clinical phenotypic data to address targeted translational scientific questions and generate disease relevant insights.
• Provide hands on analytical expertise to accelerate the delivery of work packages that impact the GSK drug development pipeline.
• Work within and lead cross functional GSK project teams, with emphasis on respiratory, hepatology, neurodegeneration, immunology and/or renal disease.
• Identify, set up and oversee externally aligned scientific collaborations.
• Communicate analysis findings effectively to project teams and senior leaders.
• Deliver personal and team deliverables against objectives with strong statistical, analytic and critical thinking skills in a translational context.
• Stay up to date with advances and emerging technologies and methodologies in translational genetics, particularly the integration of genetics with genomics.
• Lead a team of direct reports and foster a culture of innovation, collaboration and continuous professional learning.

Basic Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent advanced degree in a relevant scientific discipline (e.g. statistical genetics, genetic epidemiology, biomedical statistics, computational sciences, bioinformatics or machine learning) with a history of impactful scientific publications and/or presentations.
• Experience conducting analyses that integrate genetics, genomics and/or clinical phenotypic data to address scientific questions relevant to drug discovery and development.
• Experience working effectively in multidisciplinary teams involving stakeholders from across functions.
• Expertise in communicating complex scientific concepts to diverse audiences.
• Advanced expertise in understanding key scientific questions and developing innovative analytical solutions to comprehensively address them.
• Experience driving the development and implementation of new methodologies to integrate genetics and genomics for translational questions.
• Experience setting up and overseeing external collaborations and ensuring delivery of impact.
• Skilled at dynamic prioritisation of resources and working flexibly to align with organisational priorities.
• Successfully leading and managing a high performance team.
• Strong proficiency in at least one of R and Python, with a track record of writing reproducible and scalable code that abides by FAIR principles.
• Demonstrable understanding of the stages of drug discovery and development.

GSK is an Equal Opportunity Employer. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, military service or any basis prohibited under federal, state or local law.