Sr. Director, Skeletal Muscle and Cardiometabolic Diseases

Valo is looking for a Senior Director for our New York, NY office to play a pivotal role in validation and progression of drug targets for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases that have been identified using Valo’s human-centric Opal computational platform. This position will report to the VP of biology and requires deep proficiency in skeletal muscle biology and metabolic disease, and expertise in cardiac biology is also desired. The candidate will have a background 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 leading a team of scientists to develop and execute strategies using human cell assays to validate novel targets and lead drug discovery projects stemming from these target validation efforts. You will be responsible, in collaboration with your team for delivering validation data packages, leading and progressing drug discovery programs, and presenting to internal and external stakeholders. You will closely collaborate with subject matter experts, computational scientists, and engineers. You will be a subject matter expert and contribute to the development of research hypotheses that will shape Valo’s target discovery strategy.  

Your primary areas of responsibility will be:   

• Lead, manage, and provide scientific mentorship to a team of biologists at multiple skill levels including project leaders and bench scientists. 

• Generate hypothesis-driven experimental plans and proposals for target validation & drug discovery project execution in close collaboration with data scientists, in vitro pharmacology, chemistry, and other subject matter experts to enable crisp decision making. 

• Serve as biology leader at NY site to guide biology team through drug discovery process from target validation through development candidate stages; serve as research project leader on small molecule drug discovery teams 

• Closely collaborate with scientists from Lexington site and remote workers 
  
• Provide thought leadership and guidance on skeletal muscle biology as it relates to obesity & T2DM as well as cardiovascular disease biology, staying abreast of emerging trends and advancements in the field 

• A PhD in Biological Sciences or a related field with 13+ years of experience (can include postdoctoral experience) and broad expertise in skeletal muscle biology ideally with a focus on peripheral energy metabolism, obesity, and/or cardiovascular disease 

• Experience leading small molecule drug discovery project teams 

• Experience building and leading high functioning teams of multiple skill levels 

• Track record of impactful scientific contributions as demonstrated by high impact publications 

• Strong oral and written communication, presentation and interpersonal skills  

• Experience in collaborating with multidisciplinary teams