Remote Lead Computational Biologist — Drug Discovery

Placements24; Stellenbosch; Hybrid; ZAR 1,800,000 - 2,600,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first culture

Competitive compensation

Professional development funds

Job summary

Placements24 seeks a Lead Computational Biologist for a fully remote role. You will lead a team, design advanced computational strategies for target discovery, and analyze multi-omics data to guide drug discovery and biomarker efforts.

Responsibilities include building predictive models, collaborating with chemists and biologists, and maintaining scalable pipelines. Strong publication and IP track records are valued. Remote, SA-based, senior leadership required.

Qualifications

• PhD in computational biology or related field with strong biology focus.
• 7+ years in computational biology or bioinformatics, 3+ in leadership.
• Expertise in multi-omics data (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics) and statistics.
• Proficient in Python and R; familiar with ML libraries.
• Experience with bioinformatics tools, databases, and ontologies.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a remote team of computational biologists.
• Develop computational strategies for target identification and validation.
• Analyze large-scale omics datasets.
• Build predictive models for drug response and efficacy.
• Collaborate with medicinal chemists and biologists on hit-to-lead.
• Maintain scalable bioinformatics pipelines and databases.
• Communicate findings to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Contribute to IP and publications.
• Ensure reproducibility and integrity of analyses.

Skills

Leadership experience

Multi-omics data analysis

Python

R

Machine learning

Bioinformatics tools

Drug discovery

Remote team management

Education

Ph.D. in Computational Biology or related field

Tools

Pandas

NumPy

Scikit-learn

Bioinformatics databases

Job description

Placements24 seeks a Lead Computational Biologist for a fully remote role. You will lead a team, design advanced computational strategies for target discovery, and analyze multi-omics data to guide drug discovery and biomarker efforts.

Responsibilities include building predictive models, collaborating with chemists and biologists, and maintaining scalable pipelines. Strong publication and IP track records are valued. Remote, SA-based, senior leadership required.