Associate Scientist, Post Doc Fellow- Immunology Analytics

Merck; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

Merck is seeking a highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join a cross-functional translational research team spanning computational biology, immunology, spatial genomics, and translational medicine. You will work on single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to uncover disease mechanisms in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.

Based in Cambridge, MA, this role offers mentorship from leaders across academia and industry, opportunities to publish, present at conferences, and contribute

Responsibilities

• Receive mentorship from experts across computational biology, immunology, translational medicine, and drug discovery.
• Publish first-author manuscripts in leading journals.
• Present at major international scientific conferences.
• Develop expertise in cutting-edge single-cell, spatial, and multi-omics technologies.
• Build a strong interdisciplinary network across academia and industry.
• Gain experience translating complex biological datasets into actionable therapeutic insights.
• Lead efforts to build cellular atlases of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.
• Define spatial tissue niches and cellular microenvironments in disease contexts.

Job description

Job Description

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Single-Cell and Spatial Transcriptomics in Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases

We are seeking a highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join a cross-functional translational research team focused on understanding the cellular and tissue mechanisms underlying chronic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. The successful candidate will leverage large-scale single-cell and spatial transcriptomics datasets from human tissue cohorts to identify disease-driving cellular programs, tissue microenvironments, and translational biomarkers.

This position offers a unique opportunity to work at the interface of computational biology, immunology, spatial genomics, and translational medicine while contributing to high-impact research programs spanning multiple therapeutic areas. The project aims to transform emerging multi-omics datasets into biological insights, biomarker hypotheses, disease-mechanism models, and translational strategies relevant to immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, including hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) and related disorders.

Career Development Opportunities

The Fellow Will

• Receive mentorship from experts across computational biology, immunology, translational medicine, and drug discovery.
• Publish first-author manuscripts in leading scientific journals.
• Present at major international scientific conferences.
• Develop expertise in cutting-edge single-cell, spatial, and multi-omics technologies.
• Build a strong interdisciplinary network across academia and industry.
• Gain experience translating complex biological datasets into actionable therapeutic insights.

Scientific Impact

The successful candidate will contribute to the development of comprehensive cellular and spatial atlases of chronic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, generating insights into disease circuits, tissue microenvironments, biomarker biology, and translational mechanisms. The work is expected to result in multiple high-impact publications and presentations while providing foundational knowledge to support therapeutic discovery and development.

This research will help advance our understanding of how cellular programs and tissue organization contribute to disease pathogenesis and therapeutic response, enabling more precise approaches to target discovery, biomarker identification, and patient stratification.

Research Objectives

The Postdoctoral Fellow Will Lead Three Interconnected Research Areas

Build Cellular Atlases of Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases

• Develop comprehensive single-cell transcriptomic references from diseased and comparator tissues.
• Identify disease-associated immune, epithelial, stromal, and vascular cell states.
• Harmonize and annotate cellular populations across cohorts and studies.
• Characterize molecular pathways and regulatory programs that drive disease heterogeneity.
• Define shared and disease-specific cellular mechanisms across inflammatory conditions.

Define Spatial Tissue Niches and Cellular