2026 Summer Intern - Translational Safety (Computational Toxicology)

2026 Summer Intern - Translational Safety (Computational Toxicology)

Department Summary

Development Sciences (DevSci) spans the entire drug discovery and development cycle - from early stage research to drug commercialization. Part of the drug development pipeline in DevSci includes the preclinical safety evaluation of candidate therapeutic molecules by toxicologists and pathologists in the Translational Safety (TS) department in order to enable further evaluation in humans. Translational Safety is an integral part of DevSci. We contribute to the organization's success by providing scientific insights and ensuring the safety of molecules that advance through the pipeline to patients. We do this to support the DevSci vision to deliver the right drug in the right dose to the right patient. We are also committed to providing better outcomes for our people, patients, business, and communities by advancing and boldly championing diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work.

The Translational Safety organization is composed of several integrated sub-functions. This summer intern project falls within the Computational Toxicology sub-function. The Computational Toxicology group enables early and accurate compound safety profiling by leveraging all relevant data (in vitro, ex vivo, in vivo), advanced analytics and computational modeling while closely working with other Translational Safety subfunctions such as Investigative Toxicology and Complex In Vitro Systems and a few subfunctions within gRED Computational Sciences Center of Excellence (CS CoE) organization.

This internship position is located in South San Francisco, on-site.

The Opportunity

The Computational Toxicology group is seeking a talented summer intern to expand the capabilities of internally developed LLM-powered AI agents by building a critical new module that enables natural-language access to gene expression and cell-type context resources, leveraging public and internally curated datasets.

The intern will build a robust agentic workflow that supports users by providing fast, consistent biological context for targets and pathways:

• Enable user-friendly queries that return quantitative tissue- and cell-type expression summaries, with robust filtering over key metadata (e.g., tissue, cell type, annotation, condition).

• Develop MCP-based tools and prompt/context patterns that connect the agent to expression datasets and execute the underlying retrieval reliably.

• Perform practical data harmonization to support consistent cross-dataset interpretation (e.g., feature/metadata standardization; gene set/pathway queries).

• Integrate the module into the existing agent experience and standardize outputs for scientific review, including basic visualization (tables/plots).

• Develop a lightweight evaluation/testing framework based on representative stakeholder questions, and produce basic training materials and usage examples.

The overarching goal is to democratize access to expression and cell-type context evidence for toxicologists, pathologists, and predictive toxicology scientists, accelerating target-related interpretation and follow-up.

Program Highlights

• Intensive 12-weeks, full-time (40 hours per week) paid internship.

• Program start dates are in May/June 2026.

• A stipend, based on location, will be provided to help alleviate costs associated with the internship.

• Ownership of challenging and impactful business-critical projects.

• Work with some of the most talented people in the biotechnology industry.

Who You Are (Required)

Required Education:

You meet one of the following criteria:

• Must be pursuing a Master's Degree (enrolled student).

• Must have attained a Master's Degree.

• Must be pursuing a PhD (enrolled student).

Required Majors: Computer Science, Bioinformatics, Cheminformatics, Computational Biology, Computational Toxicology, Machine Learning & AI, Data Science or related fields.

Required Skills

• Advanced Python: Strong proficiency in Python for data manipulation, analysis pipelines, and rapid prototyping.

• Agentic AI & Prompting: Hands-on experience working with LLMs, including prompt/context engineering and tool-using agents.

• Bioinformatics: Experience working with gene expression datasets and associated metadata (e.g., tissue, cell type, annotations); familiarity with common bioinformatics data structures and workflows.

• Software/Workflow Practices: Ability to build reproducible workflows (version control, documentation, unit testing, etc.).

• Other: Strong communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Qualifications

• Excellent communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills.

• Complements our culture and the standards that guide our daily behavior & decisions: Integrity, Courage, and Passion.

• Experience building or integrating MCP tools and working with agentic development environments/clients (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, or similar).

• Familiarity with single-cell expression concepts and tooling (e.g., Scanpy/AnnData, Seurat, cell-type annotation).

• Experience using GTEx and other tissue- and cell-type reference atlases; experience working with APIs, lightweight services, or query layers over scientific datasets.

• Strong problem-solving mindset and interest in working at the intersection of life sciences and AI to solve real-world drug safety challenges.

Relocation benefits are not available for this job posting.

The expected salary range for this position based on the primary location of California is $50.00 hour. Actual pay will be determined based on experience, qualifications, geographic location, and other job-related factors permitted by law. This position also qualifies for paid holiday time off benefits.

Genentech is an equal opportunity employer. It is our policy and practice to employ, promote, and otherwise treat any and all employees and applicants on the basis of merit, qualifications, and competence. The company's policy prohibits unlawful discrimination, including but not limited to, discrimination on the basis of Protected Veteran status, individuals with disabilities status, and consistent with all federal, state, or local laws.

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