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Director, Cardiometabolic Diseases, Inflammation, and Obesity - Translational Biology

Lexington, Massachusetts, United States

About Us

Valo Health is a technology company that is integrating human-centric data and AI-powered technology to accelerate the creation of life-changing drugs for more patients faster. Valo was created with the belief that the drug discovery and development process can and should be faster and less expensive, with a much higher probability of success. We are using models early to fail less often, executing clinical trials to add valuation to the company, and generating fit-for-purpose data to feed back into Valo’s Opal Computational Platform™ as we reinvent drug discovery and development from the ground up. Disease doesn’t wait, so neither can we.

We are a multi-disciplinary team of experts in science, technology, and pharmaceuticals united in our mission to achieve better drugs for patients faster. Valo is committed to hiring diverse talent, prioritizing growth and development, fostering an inclusive environment, and creating opportunities to bring together a group of different experiences, backgrounds, and voices to work together. We achieve the widest-ranging impact when we leverage our broad backgrounds and perspectives to accelerate a new frontier in health. Valo seeks to become the catalyst for the pharmaceutical industry and drive the digital transformation of the industry. Are you ready to join us?

About the Role...

Valo is looking for a Director to play a pivotal role in leading research project teams and building translational strategies for novel drug targets that have been identified using Valo’s human-centric Opal computational platform. This position requires expertise in cardiometabolic disease and obesity with additional experience in inflammation/immunology and an understanding of the role the immune system plays in cardiometabolic and obesity disease processes. The candidate will have experience in drug discovery and a passion for translating human data insights to develop new therapies for complex diseases. In this role, you will be responsible for designing and executing translational biology plans to demonstrate in vitro/in vivo correlation including pk/pd assessments, profiling of cells and tissues by various means including omics, and demonstration/identification of tractable biomarkers to aid in the drug development process. This role will be critical to build confidence in translation of candidate drug targets to diseases of interest, as well as delivering validation data packages and leading projects stemming from this work. As a project lead you will be responsible for coordinating the efforts of a small matrixed multi-functional team, delivering data packages and presenting to internal and external stakeholders. You will closely collaborate with subject matter experts, computational scientists, and engineers.

What You’ll Do…

  • Serve as research project lead on various stage preclinical drug discovery projects.
  • Provide thought leadership and guidance on the role of inflammation and the immune system in obesity, T2D, and/or cardiovascular disease biology, staying abreast of emerging trends and advancements in the field.
  • Designing and executing translational biology plans to demonstrate in vitro/in vivo correlation including pk/pd assessments, profiling of cells and tissues by various methodologies, and identification/demonstration of tractable cellular and in vivo biomarkers.
  • Designing efficacy experiments to coordinate and manage with CROs.
  • Generate hypothesis-driven experimental plans and proposals for target validation in close collaboration with data scientists and other subject matter experts to enable crisp decision making.
  • Manage scientists and teams in a matrixed manner to ensure high quality data generation and timely delivery of key readouts supporting team goals.
  • Work in collaboration with Valo’s tissue and cell model experts to support ongoing drug discovery projects.

What You Bring…

  • A PhD in Biological Sciences or a related field with 10+ years of experience (may include postdoctoral experience or MS with 14+ years or BS with 16+ years) and deep expertise in inflammation plus one or more of the following, obesity, diabetes, adipose tissue, liver, cardiovascular.
  • Expertise with in vivo, ex-vivo, and in vitro systems including cell culture, molecular biology, genetic manipulation, and development of functional cellular assays.
  • Experience leading early and established preclinical stage drug discovery programs.
  • Experience managing teams and scientists in a matrixed fashion to produce high quality data.
  • Strong oral and written communication, presentation and interpersonal skills.
  • Experience in collaborating with multidisciplinary teams including chemists, computational scientists, and various drug discovery experts.
  • Track record of impactful scientific contributions as demonstrated through prior success in progressing programs through a therapeutic pipeline.

You May Also Bring…

  • Experience working with external stakeholders collaboratively.
  • Experience in assessing novel biology and cellular systems to aid in drug discovery programs and de-risking novel target concepts.
  • Experience working with biobanks and Real-World Evidence teams to generate supporting human centric evidence and novel biomarker concepts.

More on Valo

Valo Health, LLC (“Valo”) is a technology company built to transform the drug discovery and development process using human-centric data and artificial intelligence-driven computation. As a digitally native company, Valo aims to fully integrate human-centric data across the entire drug development life cycle into a single unified architecture, thereby accelerating the discovery and development of life-changing drugs while simultaneously reducing costs, time, and failure rates. The company’s Opal Computational Platform™ is an integrated set of capabilities designed to transform data into valuable insights that may accelerate discoveries and enable Valo to advance a robust pipeline of programs across cardiovascular metabolic renal, oncology, and neurodegenerative diseases. Founded by Flagship Pioneering and headquartered in Lexington, MA. Valo also has offices in New York, NY. To learn more, visit www.valohealth.com.

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