Talent Program – Translational Sciences and Outsourcing – Co-op

Job Description The Future Talent Program features Cooperative (Co-op) education that lasts up to 6 months and will include one or more projects. These opportunities in our Research and Development Division can provide you with great development and a chance to see if we are the right company for your long-term goals. We are seeking a highly motivated student to join the Translational Sciences and Outsourcing (TSO) team within the Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics, Metabolism, and Bioanalytics (PDMB) department.

The successful candidate will contribute to a high-impact translational modeling project focused on AI-enabled exposure prediction across dose levels in preclinical species. The role will combine data curation, machine learning, model benchmarking, and scientific communication to predict toxicokinetics (TK) that supports DMPK (drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics) and NDS (nonclinical drug safety) decision-making when only limited initial in vivo data are available.

This co-op provides an opportunity to work alongside Data Science, PKPD, DMPK, preclinical toxicology and related scientists while applying modern AI/ML methods to real pharmaceutical PK/TK data with direct relevance to preclinical study design and therapeutic window assessment.

The co-op will develop and benchmark structure‑aware models that combine compound structures, physicochemical properties, and initial in vivo PK/TK data to predict exposure at untested dose levels based on public and internal data. The project will evaluate whether AI, ML, and mechanistic hybrid approaches improve prediction accuracy, uncertainty estimation, and detection of nonlinear exposure relative to standard empirical and mechanistic baselines.

• Curate and quality‑check preclinical cross‑dose PK/TK datasets with clear provenance, reusable data definitions, and appropriate holdout splits to construct reusable benchmark dataset.
• Conduct TK analysis with exposure endpoints such as AUC and Cmax for different compound, dose, and route of administration to identify trends, nonlinearities, and data limitations.
• Develop and benchmark AI‑enabled and hybrid modeling approaches against relevant baselines such as linear scaling, power/Emax models, QSAR/Chem Prop‑based methods, and mechanistic approaches where applicable.
• Evaluate model performance, uncertainty estimation, and ability to detect nonlinear PK behavior such as saturation or sex differences.
• Create clear visualizations, written summaries, and technical presentations for cross‑functional stakeholders.
• Share project outcomes through internal and/or external presentation and publication.

Currently pursuing a Master’s or Ph.D. degree in data science, computer science, applied mathematics, statistics, computational chemistry, chemical or biomedical engineering, pharmaceutical sciences, or a related quantitative discipline. Research experience in machine learning, statistical modeling, scientific computing, or computational modeling.

• Strong Python programming skills, including scientific computing with Num Py, pandas, and scikit‑learn.
• Experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX.
• Solid foundation in machine learning, statistics, model evaluation, and reproducible analysis workflows.
• Ability to work with messy tabular or time‑series scientific data and translate analytical findings into clear plots and written summaries.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills and ability to collaborate in a cross‑functional research environment.

• Exposure to graph neural networks, molecular representation learning, Chem Prop, QSAR modeling, or related cheminformatics methods.
• Familiarity with ODEs,…