Senior Director, Integrative Biology- Oncology Discovery

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at jnj.com .

As guided by Our Credo, Johnson & Johnson is responsible to our employees who work with us throughout the world. We provide an inclusive work environment where each person is considered as an individual. At Johnson & Johnson, we respect the diversity and dignity of our employees and recognize their merit.

Please note that this role is available across multiple countries and may be posted under different requisition numbers to comply with local requirements. While you are welcome to apply to any or all of the postings, we recommend focusing on the specific country(s) that align with your preferred location(s):

Belgium R-108593, United States of America R-109034

Remember, whether you apply to one or all of these requisition numbers, your applications will be considered as a single submission.

Job Function:

Discovery & Pre-Clinical/Clinical Development

Job Sub Function:

Biological Research

Job Category:

People Leader

All Job Posting Locations:

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, Spring House, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Job Description:

About Oncology

Our expertise in Innovative Medicine is informed and inspired by patients, whose insights fuel our science-based advancements. Visionaries like you work on teams that save lives by developing the medicines of tomorrow.

Our Oncology team is focused on the elimination of cancer by discovering new pathways and modalities to finding treatments and cures. We lead where medicine is going and need innovators with an unwavering commitment to results.

Join us in developing treatments, finding cures, and pioneering the path from lab to life while championing patients every step of the way.

Learn more at https://www.jnj.com/innovative-medicine

Oncology Integrative Biology is a new cross-disease-area team that integrates biological evidence and emerging computational approaches to advance target identification and validation, generate precision medicine hypotheses, and deepen pathway biology across pre-portfolio and portfolio programs. The team will pioneer AI-enabled approaches to discovery biology, working closely with disease-area, DPDS, Data Science, Translational Oncology and other discovery partners.

We are seeking a visionary Senior Director to lead the Oncology Integrative Biology team and to provide scientific and strategic leadership for computational biology within Oncology Discovery across all disease area strongholds. This individual will lead the application of computational, data-driven, and AI/ML approaches to deepen our understanding of cancer biology, identify and validate novel therapeutic opportunities, and accelerate the discovery of transformative medicines for patients.

The Senior Director will be on the Discovery SLT and serve as a key scientific partner to Oncology Discovery leaders, DASL, Translational Research, and discovery project teams, leveraging large-scale biological datasets to generate actionable insights and inform drug discovery strategy.  This leader will build and develop a high-performing computational biology capability, establish fit-for-purpose computational strategies across the discovery portfolio, and ensure that computational insights are translated into clear biological hypotheses and decisions. In addition, the leader will be responsible for implementing and driving AI Native related workstreams to support the Oncology discovery team. The integrative discovery team is expected to grow up to 10 FTE over the next years.

You will be responsible for:

Scientific & Discovery Leadership

·         Define and execute the computational biology strategy for Oncology Discovery, aligned with TA priorities and portfolio needs across multiple therapeutic modalities.

·         Lead computational approaches for target identification and validation, disease segmentation, mechanism-of-action understanding, and biomarker hypotheses to inform therapeutic opportunities.

·         Integrate human tumor, patient-derived, multi-omics, and functional genomics data to generate mechanistic insights and experimentally testable hypotheses in cancer biology.

Computational Innovation & AI/ML

·         Advance the application of machine learning, AI, network biology, predictive modeling, and multimodal data integration to oncology discovery questions.

·         Partner with data science, AI/ML, informatics, and technology teams to develop scalable analytical approaches and evaluate emerging methods and platforms.

·         Champion rigorous, reproducible, and interpretable computational science, ensuring analyses lead to biologically meaningful and experimentally testable hypotheses.

Portfolio & Project Impact

·         Embed computational thinking and AI early in discovery programs, partnering with project teams to translate critical biological questions and quantitative insights into experimental and portfolio decisions.

·         Establish evidence frameworks for evaluating targets and therapeutic hypotheses, drawing on insights across programs and datasets.

·         Communicate complex computational findings in clear biological and strategic terms to Discovery teams and senior leadership.

Organizational Leadership

·         Recruit, lead, mentor, and develop exceptional computational biologists, fostering scientific excellence, innovation, collaboration, and deep understanding of cancer biology.

·         Establish priorities and deploy computational resources against the highest-impact scientific questions.

·         Build productive partnerships across Oncology Discovery, Translational Research, Data Science, AI/ML, Precision Medicine, and other R&D functions.

External Scientific Leadership

·         Maintain awareness of emerging advances in cancer genomics, functional genomics, single-cell and spatial biology, computational biology, AI/ML, and drug discovery.

·         Establish collaborations with leading academic investigators, biotechnology companies, technology providers, and other external partners.

·         Represent the organization at scientific conferences and through publications and other external scientific interactions.

 

Qualifications

·         Ph.D. or equivalent advanced degree in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Systems Biology, Genetics/Genomics, Biostatistics, Data Science, or a related discipline, with deep expertise in cancer biology and oncology drug discovery.

·         12+ years of relevant industry experience.

·         Significant computational biology leadership experience with a track record of scientific impact, team development, and influence across multidisciplinary discovery teams.

·         Demonstrated expertise applying statistical and computational methods to complex genomics and multi-omics data, translating results into testable biological hypotheses and clear recommendations for experimental scientists and senior decision-makers.

#LI-Onsite

Required Skills:

Preferred Skills:

Big Data Management, Data Reporting, Developing Others, Drug Discovery Development, Inclusive Leadership, Leadership, Molecular Diagnostics, Pharmaceutical Microbiology, Product Knowledge, Project Reporting, Regulatory Affairs Management, Risk Management, Scientific Research, Stakeholder Engagement, Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), Strategic Thinking, Sustainability