Director of AI Research, AI for Oncology Clinical Development

This role can be based at AstraZeneca hubs in Barcelona, Spain or Cambridge, US
We're building a connected, end-to-end Enterprise AI engine - uniting data foundations, AI technology, process reinvention, and business-facing AI to accelerate results across the whole value chain. Success depends on being exceptional connectors: you'll actively leverage existing capabilities, celebrate and promote reuse, export breakthrough ideas across geographies and functions, and obsess over scaling impact rather than building in isolation. If you thrive in high-collaboration environments where your role is to turn complex, cross-functional problems into reusable, enterprise-wide capabilities - and where the measure of success is adoption and scale, not just innovation - you'll have the platform (and sponsorship) to make it real.
About AISI
AI Science & Innovation (AISI) sits at the centre of AstraZeneca's R&D AI transformation. Our remit is to build, buy and deliver the AI models and agents that change pipeline outcomes, across discovery, translational science, biomarkers and clinical development.
Drug discovery has benefitted enormously in the current AI era, yet comprises only a portion of the journey to bring new treatments to those in need. The final step – clinical drug development – is oft overlooked, despite requiring a significant proportion of time and investment. In the AI for Clinical Development team at AstraZeneca, we're reimagining the process of clinical development. Our vision is to bring safe, efficacious treatments to patients in a way that quantifiably improves our chance to do this faster, more cost-effectively, and with reduced patient burden.
In this role, you will be a senior technical and strategic lead to help us leverage the power of AI to the fullest, alongside our other computational, statistical, and machine learning tools. You will work across the enterprise to define and deliver on AstraZeneca’s most pressing clinical development questions. You will proactively collaborate in cross-functional teams spanning AstraZeneca’s key Oncology foci of hematology, cell therapy, antibody-drug conjugates, small molecules, and biologics. This is an unprecedented, high visibility opportunity to invent new ways to leverage data, models, and learnings across the spectrum of cancer biology and drug modalities – and importantly, you and the team will apply these new methods to measurably advance the late-stage drug pipeline and our group’s ambition.
Responsibilities
Define and drive the AI strategy and roadmap for Oncology early and late phase clinical development, and align AI/ML priorities with clinical and business objectives
Lead, by matrix influence and scientific authority, delivery of complex, high-stakes AI projects
Evaluate, develop, and champion cutting-edge AI methods, end-to-end, including problem definition, data considerations, governance, algorithm development, validation, and adoption
Build cross-functional relationships with clinical development, biometrics, regulatory, and study teams to embed AI strategy and validated solutions into clinical study design, execution, strategy, and decision-making
Establish and maintain external collaborations with academic institutions, technology partners, and industry consortia to access novel capabilities and advance the AI roadmap
Represent AstraZeneca at scientific conferences, standards bodies, and peer-reviewed venues; contribute first- or last-author publications in leading ML and clinical AI journals
Establish best practices; help shape and promote team culture
Mentor and support more junior level scientists within the team
Required qualifications
PhD in a quantitative discipline such as computer science, bioinformatics, computational biology, mathematics, physics, biophysics, computational neuroscience, biostatistics
4-8 years’ work experience outside of PhD with measurable impact (e.g. models delivered, patents, SaMD filings, first-author publications, open-source projects, standards-body participation)
Technical requirements
Exceptional software development and coding skills, leveraging frontier coding agent frameworks; knowledge of computing hardware a plus
Deep experience, knowledge, and understanding of one or more fields of biology
Deep understanding of machine learning fundamentals, with domain expertise in one or more of the following
Training and tuning foundation models
Bayesian inference
Temporal modeling
Multimodal integration and modeling
Model calibration and domain adaptation
Data-centric AI: acquiring, creating, and curating datasets for model training / post-training / benchmarking / evals
Model and data evaluations and benchmarking
Model interpretability
Model post-training and alignment
Preferred skills
Deep expertise in cancer biology
Experience working with biological data such as molecular (e.g. DNA, RNA, protein), imaging (radiology, microscopy), or clinical text (e.g. EHR, clinical notes)
Experience in drug development including but not limited to clinical trial design, biomarker discovery, companion diagnostics, dosing, safety, endpoints, and regulatory
Experience in a matrixed global organization spanning multiple sites and therapy areas
Soft skills
Strong proficiency in augmenting but not supplanting daily knowledge work with agentic tools
Team-oriented mindset
Ability to proactively and independently deliver high-quality contributions at pace
Up-to-date with the latest AI research and tools, proactively trying out those of interest, and ability to discern hype from true added value
Comfort with ambiguity and a mindset to learn in public, prototype early, and fail forward
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
#EAI
Date Posted
29-sep.-2026
Closing Date
17-okt.-2026
AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.