Outstanding Scientific opportunity with a biopharmaceutical company working to develop and deliver life-changing therapies for a wide array of serious and life-threatening medical conditions. These include hematologic and kidney diseases, transplant, other inflammatory disorders, and cancer. They are also both evaluating other potential indications for Soliris, its first marketed product and pursuing the development of other products from its deep pipeline of new biological entities. Be part of this exciting, innovative Company!
Duties:
The Research Scientist II contributes to Discovery Research through the identification, proposal and review of new therapeutic targets (25%) and follows through with design and execution of experiments at the lab bench (75%).
Actively contributes to Discovery Research through proposal and review of new targets by attending scientific meetings, literature review and database searches.
- The Research Scientist II is expected to develop new protocols and follow existing procedures to identify new biologic therapeutic candidates and reagents through structure-guided protein engineering and application of a proprietary phage display platform. Procedures include (but are not limited to):
- Design and execute phage display experiments including: library construction, panning and screening for antibodies or non-antibody biologics with desired function (e.g. antagonist)
- Characterization of (and engineering to optimize) binding affinities, potency and selectivity in vitro
- Humanization of non-human proteins for development as potential therapeutics
- Engineering, building and testing expression constructs for therapeutic candidates and other protein reagents
- Design and execution of plate and cell-based assays to support PK, PD, selectivity, specificity and activity studies
- Design and manage in vivo studies
- Small-scale bacterial and mammalian protein expression./purification (< 100 mg)
- Research Scientist II is expected to project experimental timelines 6 to 12 months into the future and complete objectives within the agreed upon time frame.
Overview of Basic Qualifications:
- Ph.D.or equivalent degree in Pharmacology, Cell or Molecular Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, or other biomedical science with 3 – 8 years of relevant postdoctoral experience
- The candidate should demonstrate a track record of creativity and innovation in hypothesis building and experimental design to deliver definitive results.
- Good oral and written communication skills are essential. The ideal candidate will have a record of significant contribution to publications in peer reviewed journals and presentations at scientific meetings.
- In-depth understanding of the research laboratory environment and be familiar with all basic and some complex laboratory equipment / instrumentation.
- Understanding of the theories governing macromolecular behavior
- Be capable of hypothesis building, with iterative evaluation
- Able to prioritize and allocate effort appropriately
- Exercise independent judgment in developing methods, techniques and evaluating criteria for obtaining definitive results
- Display a close attention to detail and meticulous work habit
- Work together on team-based assignments with other members of the Molecular Sciences group as well as provide support for other Research groups, as required
- Demonstrate proficiency in authoring and reviewing protocols and summary reports
- Document all work at a level of detail sufficient to reproduce experimental results
- Possess a working knowledge of basic molecular biology, protein chemistry and cell culture concepts and practices including, but not limited to:
- aseptic technique required for the handling of biological materials
- generation, isolation and subcloning of nucleic acids from genomic, mRNA and recombinant sources through PCR, restriction digestion, ligation, transformation, transfection, mini-/maxi-preps, etc.
- analysis of nucleic acids by diagnostic methods including PCR, restriction digestion and sequencing
- expression of recombinant proteins in eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells
- purification of recombinant proteins through common techniques including protein A, metal chelating resins and affinity resins
- analysis of proteins by diagnostic methods including ELISA, western blot, SDS-PAGE, and quantitation assays
The individual should possess a working knowledge of computer software including:
- MS Office for word processing, presentation and data evaluation
- Web-based software for searching scientific literature and sequence databases (e.g. Entrez PubMed and NCBI nucleotide or protein databases)
- Software for constructing and analyzing nucleotide and protein sequence maps (e.g. Lazergene, Vector NTI, etc.)
Company offers an extremely competitive compensation and benefits package to all employees, as well as the expected health and welfare benefits.
Salary $115-$130k plus 10% bonus, stock options. Generous relocation package offered.
