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Are you looking to gain valuable real world work experience and help positively impact the lives of others?
GSK is a global biopharma company with a special purpose – to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. Getting ahead means preventing disease as well as treating it, and we aim to impact the health of 2.5 billion people around the world in the next 10 years.
A GSK internship offers you the opportunity to kickstart your career – to take on a real role with genuine impact. You’ll take on challenging tasks within live projects or assignments. You’ll also get to learn from others in your team and other parts of GSK whilst developing your skills and gaining valuable experience for wherever the future takes you.
Inspired to help us get ahead together? Apply for a Computational Biologist Industrial Placement role at GSK today!
The role
Please read below about the 2 different positions we are recruiting for across our Computational Biologist Industrial Placements. Please note, these are distinct placements and so when you apply you will be able to select preferences of where you would like to be placed if successful. We will accommodate your preference where possible.
Role 1 – Computational Biology – Genomic Sciences
We are seeking motivated students to join our expanding team within Computational biology, Genomic Sciences. Here you will be contributing to the early stages of the GSK drug development pipeline by integrating genetic and genomics data sets to generate actionable insights to inform target decisions. During this placement, you’ll have the opportunity to; Contribute to the early target discovery stages of the GSK drug development pipeline; Develop your programming skills and gain experience with handling of large multi-omics data sets.
What will you do?
- Develop and deploy computational approaches to integrate genetic and genomic evidence.
- Work on or be exposed to a range of different data types and cutting-edge technologies (e.g. within transcriptomics, proteomics, genetics)
- Analyse and biologically interpret large-scale data
- Work within a diverse and dynamic team of computational biologists
- Effectively communicate results to a range of audiences across the GSK R&D
You will need:
- Ability to programme in Python or R
- Understanding of the fundamental concepts in molecular biology and genetics
- Understanding of basic concepts within statistics
- Experience in handling of omics, particularly multi-omics data, preferred
Role 2 – Computational Biology – Human Genetics
Statistical genetics approaches to improve genetic evidence inference in target identification and validation.
Within this role you will be to investigate genome-wide genetic associations to molecular traits (e.g., gene expression, protein abundance or metabolites), with the objective to improve our early target discovery and biomarker identification capabilities.
You will work in a multidisciplinary, collaborative, and scientifically driven environment, interacting with GSK scientists to advance drug discovery and clinical development in multiple disease areas. You will perform field-leading research to address important drug discovery and development challenges, directly impacting GSK’s R&D pipeline.
This placement provides the opportunity to learn and work with a broad spectrum of cutting-edge statistical and computational approaches and integrate diverse ‘omics datasets. You will be working across a variety of disease areas, gaining an understanding of working in a regulated environment and having a direct impact on methods used for drug target identification and validation at GSK.
In addition, this placement will provide experience towards independent management, implementation, and interpretation of scientific data in a collaborative environment with other scientists.
During this placement you will:
- Learn and apply statistical genetics methods used to support drug target identification and validation efforts.
- Gain extensive exposure and direct experience in applying genetic, statistical, and computational approaches for drug target discovery.
- Receive on the job training on high performance cluster computing systems, databases, and the development of analysis-ready workflows.
- Receive hands-on experience in analysing a variety of different type of omics data (genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics etc).
- Compare cis vs. trans genetic signals for protein levels, assessing the use of trans signals as suitable proxies for protein levels in a causal inference setting.
- Compare quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for gene and protein expression in blood and plasma, respectively, systematically assessing effect size and directional consistency.
- Contrast cutting-edge methods for colocalisation of conditionally independent genetic signals for the inference of allelic series for target identification.
- Build and improve visualisations to support target identification.
Who are we looking for?
- A keen passion for genetics or computational biology – tell us your hobbies or interests that are connected to genetics or computational biology, the commercial world and the biopharma industry
- Appetite to build strong relationships with key stakeholders
- Adaptability to change and working under pressure
- Excellent communication skills that help you influence
- Strong problem-solving skills driven by curiosity
- You enjoy learning in action and confidence
- You are a keen learner
- The ability to prioritise
What do we offer you?
- A salary of £21,000, plus a bonus
- Access to GSK resources, including employee assistance programmes, private healthcare and well-being programs and pension plan membership
- On-the-job experience and informal training and development, delivered through a mixture of coaching, mentoring, and training programs
- A GSK placement which gives you the opportunity to take on a real role with genuine impact
- You will join a GSK Industrial Placement community of over 250 students across the UK and business areas
- Access to LinkedIn groups to enable the new Industrial Placement community to network and connect before start date
- For R&D placements you will also be enrolled in several GSK internal courses as part of company policy such as data integrity, use of internal electronic lab book, laboratory safety rules.
- Within R&D you will have the opportunity to attend seminars by GSK scientists, which run throughout the year and comprise of a wide range of areas within drug discovery.
Please read above about the 2 different positions we are recruiting for across our Computational Biologist Industrial Placements. Please note, these are distinct placements and so when you apply you will be able to select preferences of where you would like to be placed if successful. We will accommodate your preference where possible.
Our approach to R&D focuses on science related to the prevention and treatment of disease with vaccines, specialty and general medicines. We focus on science of the immune system, human genetics and advanced technologies to impact health at scale. Our pipeline currently comprises of more than 60 vaccines and medicines across four core therapeutic areas including oncology, infectious diseases, immunology / respiratory and HIV. Find out more: Our approach to R&D.
Let’s do this!
