Intern, Discovery Data Science (Project: Predicting splice-mediated therapeutic escape of antibody targets in cancer)

At Genmab, we are dedicated to building extra[not]ordinary® futures, together, by developing antibody products and groundbreaking, knock-your-socks-off KYSO antibody medicines® that change lives and the future of cancer treatment and serious diseases. We strive to create, champion and maintain a global workplace where individuals’ unique contributions are valued and drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our patients, care partners, families and employees.

Our people are compassionate, candid, and purposeful, and our business is innovative and rooted in science. We believe that being proudly authentic and determined to be our best is essential to fulfilling our purpose. Yes, our work is incredibly serious and impactful, but we have big ambitions, bring a ton of care to pursuing them, and have a lot of fun while doing so.

Does this inspire you and feel like a fit? Then we would love to have you join us!

Why Genmab

Our internship program provides interns with hands-on experience and relevant projects that directly align with our company’s goals. Additionally, we believe our program provides a valuable opportunity to learn, thrive, and build a strong network. We encourage you to review our website to learn why we’re always looking for smart, purpose-led candidates to play a role in our bold, extra[not]ordinary® future.

The Role

Are you excited about applying computational biology and machine learning to advance cancer therapeutics? Are you interested in using large-scale genomics data to address real challenges in antibody drug discovery? This internship offers the opportunity to work on a research project at the intersection of cancer genomics, RNA splicing, and therapeutic target design within Genmab’s Discovery Data Science team.

Alternative RNA splicing can generate multiple protein isoforms from a single gene and is increasingly recognized as an important mechanism in cancer biology. In particular, alternative splicing can alter protein structure in ways that affect the accessibility of therapeutic targets on the cell surface, potentially enabling tumors to evade targeted therapies. In this project, you will investigate whether alternative splicing of selected oncology targets can produce isoforms that remove extracellular antibody-binding regions, truncate membrane proteins, or generate soluble decoy proteins. Using large-scale cancer transcriptomic datasets (e.g., TCGA and GTEx), the student will map splicing patterns of therapeutic target genes across tumor types and identify splice isoforms that may impact protein structure, domain composition, or membrane localization. These analyses can reveal whether tumors may evade antibody therapies through alternative splicing, helping guide therapeutic target selection and design.

Building on this foundation, you will quantify how frequently such splice isoforms occur across cancers and estimate the potential risk of splice-mediated therapeutic escape across tumor types. If time and the university's guidelines permits, the project can be extended to identify regulatory mechanisms underlying these events by linking target-specific splice changes to broader tumor splicing programs using machine-learning approaches. For example, latent splicing patterns can be learned from cancer transcriptomic data to infer splice-factor activity that may drive escape isoform formation. You will have significant ownership of this fully computational research project and the opportunity to develop novel computational analyses that may contribute to a scientific publication and inform ongoing target discovery efforts!

Responsibilities

• Analyze large-scale public transcriptomic datasets (e.g., TCGA, GTEx) to characterize alternative splicing patterns in cancer.

• Investigate splice isoforms of selected oncology target genes and assess their impact on protein structure and therapeutic accessibility.

• Develop computational analyses to estimate the risk of splice-mediated therapeutic resistance.

• Explore regulatory mechanisms underlying splicing events, including splice-factor associations and sequence motif enrichment.

• (Optional, depending on progress) Apply machine-learning approaches to identify tumor splicing programs associated with escape isoform formation.

• Summarize findings in clear visualizations and reports to support internal research and potential scientific publication.
  

Requirements

• Currently enrolled in a Master’s degree program at a Dutch university in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Systems Biology, or a related field with (internship) experience analyzing biological datasets.

• This internship must be a formal, mandatory component of your degree program required for graduation; we cannot consider candidates who have already graduated or who are seeking an extracurricular internship.

• Programming experience in Python or R (with willingness to work in Python-based analysis environments), with familiarity in transcriptomics or RNA-seq data analysis.

• Interest in cancer biology, genomics, and applying computational methods to therapeutic target discovery.

• Available for a minimum of 6 months (up to 12 months).

• Clear communication skills in English, as it’s Genmab’s primary language.

General Information

• Internship duration: 6-10 months.

• Start date: September 1st.

• Location: Utrecht, Netherlands.

• This is a full-time project where you can combine onsite and offsite work with a minimum onsite presence of 60%.
  

What’s Next?

Help us learn about you by submitting a complete and thoughtful application, which includes your CV and motivation letter. These are a way for us to initially get to know you, so it’s important to complete all relevant questions to ensure we have as much information about you as possible.

We look forward to receiving your application and exploring the possibility of you joining our team to contribute to the advancement of antibody therapeutics!

Intended Recruitment Timeline

• Application deadline: Monday 13 April (end of day)

• Shortlisting: week of 13 April

• Virtual screenings: weeks of 20 & 27 April

• Onsite interviews: week of 27 April / 4 May

About You

• You are genuinely passionate about our purpose

• You bring precision and excellence to all that you do

• You believe in our rooted-in-science approach to problem-solving

• You are a generous collaborator who can work in teams with a broad spectrum of backgrounds

• You take pride in enabling the best work of others on the team

• You can grapple with the unknown and be innovative

• You have experience working in a fast-growing, dynamic company (or a strong desire to)

• You work hard and are not afraid to have a little fun while you do so!

Locations

Genmab maximizes the efficiency of an agile working environment, when possible, for the betterment of employee work-life balance. Our offices are crafted as open, community-based spaces that work to connect employees while being immersed in our powerful laboratories. Whether you’re in one of our office spaces or working remotely, we thrive on connecting with each other to innovate.

About Genmab

Genmab is an international biotechnology company with a core purpose to improve the lives of patients through innovative and differentiated antibody therapeutics. For 25 years, its hard-working, innovative and collaborative team has invented next-generation antibody technology platforms and harnessed translational, quantitative and data sciences, resulting in a proprietary pipeline including bispecific T-cell engagers, antibody-drug conjugates, next-generation immune checkpoint modulators and effector function-enhanced antibodies. By 2030, Genmab’s vision is to transform the lives of people with cancer and other serious diseases with Knock-Your-Socks-Off (KYSO®) antibody medicines.

Established in 1999, Genmab is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark with international presence across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit Genmab.com and follow us on LinkedIn and X .

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Please note that if you are applying for a position in the Netherlands, Genmab’s policy for all permanently budgeted hires in NL is initially to offer a fixed-term employment contract for a year, if the employee performs well and if the business conditions do not change, renewal for an indefinite term may be considered after the contract.