About the role
Scientist/Senior Scientist, Computational Oligonucleotide Design role based on the published job description. Key responsibilities and requirements were extracted directly from the posting for quick review.
ResearchOnsite
Key Responsibilities
- About NATi: The Nucleic Acid Therapeutics Initiative (NATi), hosted by A*STAR, is Singapore's national platform dedicated to advancing RNA-based medicines and revolutionizing drug and vaccine development.
- NATi's mission is to establish Singapore as a globally recognized hub of excellence in nucleic acid therapeutics research, clinical translation, and commercialization.
- NATi focuses on key RNA modalities such as antisense oligonucleotide (ASO), small interfering RNA (siRNA), and messenger RNA (mRNA).
- To drive this vision, NATi is building a biotech-like translational engine focused on asset and technology development spanning discovery to clinical development.
- Position Overview We are seeking a highly skilled and results oriented Computational Scientist to develop computational pipelines and predictive drug property models for the rational design of ASOs, siRNAs and mRNAs across multiple therapeutic applications.
- This role is central to NATi's strategy to build a differentiated RNA therapeutic platform through computational innovation, enabling rapid design and optimization of oligonucleotide and mRNA candidates with translational potential.
Requirements
- Qualifications & Experience
- Minimum of 4 (Scientist) or 8 (Senior Scientist) years of hands-on industry experience in computational oligonucleotide design or RNA-targeting therapeutics.
- Strong computational skills, including hands-on experience developing scripts or workflows in R or Python, and applying machine learning frameworks to biological/chemical datasets, and familiarity with scientific computing libraries, git, and reproducible research practices.
- Proficiency in RNA structure prediction and interaction modelling tools (e.g., RNAstructure, ViennaRNA, IntaRNA, RNAhybrid).
- Hands-on experience with RNA-seq and sequence analysis tools and oligonucleotide design platforms.
- Experience with nucleotide modification strategies (e.g., 2'-O-methyl, phosphorothioate, LNA) and their integration into computational design workflows to optimize oligonucleotide performance, spanning early design through late-stage candidate selection with strong understanding of risk assessment across discovery and development stages.