Bioinformatics Co-op at Boehringer Ingelheim, USA | Apply Now For Computational Antibody Analysis Role & Earn Upto $33 /hr

Can antibody sequencing data help scientists identify more promising therapeutic candidates? This Bioinformatics Co-op at Boehringer Ingelheim offers students the opportunity to investigate that question through computational immunology. Based in Ridgefield, Connecticut, the role involves developing and benchmarking methods to prioritize antibody candidates for experimental testing.

  • Position: Computational Antibody Repertoire Analysis Co-Op

  • Department: Biotherapeutics Research

  • Location: Ridgefield, Connecticut, United States

About The Company

Boehringer Ingelheim is a biopharmaceutical company conducting research to develop new therapies. This placement sits within Biotherapeutics Research, where computational and laboratory scientists collaborate to improve antibody discovery and candidate selection.

Bioinformatics Co-op: Research Overview

The project focuses on building a reproducible next-generation sequencing (NGS) analysis pipeline to help reduce the selection of non-binding and low-affinity antibody candidates.

Working with immune repertoires from the company’s humanized mouse model, the co-op will use somatic hypermutation models to investigate B-cell evolutionary trajectories. The work combines single-cell and bulk sequencing analysis, antibody lineage research and model evaluation, with computational predictions compared against experimental binding and affinity measurements.

Key Responsibilities

  • Curate, quality-check and analyse antibody repertoire datasets from platforms such as 10x Genomics and SMART-seq/BCR-seq.

  • Benchmark somatic hypermutation models using defined training and held-out test datasets.

  • Assess predictive performance, calibration, uncertainty and generalization across experimental conditions.

  • Use tools such as Shazam and Dowser to investigate clonotypes, lineage relationships and mutation patterns.

  • Help develop workflows that rank likely antigen binders and higher-affinity variants within clonotype families.

  • Explore complementary approaches, including protein language models.

  • Maintain version-controlled code, documented environments, test datasets and quality-control reports.

  • Communicate findings, limitations and recommendations through presentations and a final report.

Education and Eligibility

Applicants must:

  • Be enrolled at an accredited college or university throughout the co-op, in good academic standing.

  • Have a major or minor related to the placement.

  • Have completed at least 12 credit hours as an undergraduate, or 9 credit hours as a graduate or advanced-degree student, at their current institution.

  • Be 18 years or older.

  • Be legally authorized to work in the United States without restriction.

  • Be willing to complete a drug test and a post-offer physical, if required.

A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0/4.0 is preferred.

Desired Skills and Experience

Relevant capabilities include Python or R, scientific data analysis, biological sequence analysis and an understanding of statistical or machine-learning evaluation. Command-line skills, Git, environment management and clear workflow documentation are also valuable.

Additional desirable experience includes:

  • Immunoglobulin annotation, clonotype assignment, lineage analysis or somatic hypermutation modeling.

  • AIRR Community standards and tools such as Change-O, Shazam, Dowser, IgBLAST or MiXCR.

  • Single-cell V(D)J and bulk antibody repertoire sequencing.

  • HPC, cloud computing, containers, workflow managers, SQL or data visualization.

  • Computational support for laboratory validation.

Strong troubleshooting, communication and presentation skills will help candidates work independently and collaborate across teams.

Pay and Benefits

The hourly rate is $24–$33, depending on the degree level in which the applicant is enrolled. Listed benefits include medical coverage, paid time off, paid holidays, disability and life insurance, and other company-sponsored benefits, subject to applicable eligibility.

For students interested in connecting sequence analysis with therapeutic discovery, this Bioinformatics Co-op offers a chance to test how computational models can guide antibody selection. Bring your programming skills and scientific curiosity to a project where reproducible analysis leads to experimentally testable hypotheses.

APPLY ONLINE HERE