Job Description
Our client, an innovative cell therapy company dedicated to the development of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) cell therapies for haematology and oncology diseases, now seek to hire Principal Scientists and Senior Scientists their rapidly expanding team.
These roles will support the company’s development strategy in optimising NK cell therapy through the drug development framework for their NK cell & gene therapy programs:
- CAR Optimisation & Selection,
- Gene Editing & Cell Engineering,
- In-Vitro & In-Vivo characterization and finally
- In-Vivo characterization
These hires will have experience with novel cellular technologies, in vitro and in-vivo evaluation of modalities in an oncology setting and experience with approaches for gene editing or acumen to pick these up is important.
These hires will help drive and/or provide leadership in in-vitro and in-vivo pharmacology studies, through preclinical studies to IND submission. At Principal Scientist level, extensive experience with novel cellular technologies, in vitro and in-vivo evaluation of modalities in an oncology setting and experience with approaches for gene editing is important.
Person fit; high level qualifications and relevant cell therapy experience with ability to be flexible, innovative and highly organized to work quickly and efficiently in a growing biotech start-up environment is required.
Responsibilities of these roles:
- Provides input into developing research work plan and associated experiments.
- Input into identifying technical and quality requirements required to complete work plan.
- Develop, execute, and document strategies for isolating and modifying NK cells from primary sources.
- Develop characterisation plan to fully characterise the product from an invitro and invivo perspective across different areas including the following non-exhaustive list, functionality, persistence, cell lines/primary cell lines evaluation, migration, toxicity/hepatoxicity, On/Off Target effects, metabolism etc
- Develop and implement creative solutions to immuno-oncology preclinical anti-tumor efficacy studies using adoptive transfer of NK cells for target validation, candidate selection, and IND-enabling studies
- Lead or contribute (according to role) to the design and implementation of Immuno-oncology preclinical efficacy experiments and PK/PD studies for candidate selection and IND enabling studies
- Develop novel methodologies for in vivo characterization of engineered NK cells, biomarker assessment, and pharmacodynamic characterization
- Prepare primary immune cells for in vivo dosing and perform cell culture with immortalized cell lines
- Represent the in vivo pharmacology function at project team meetings, providing data updates, plans, and critical thinking.
- Experience with oncology-targeting experiments in mice models or ability to pick these up rapidly
- Capability to work with nucleic acid constructs and modification of effector lymphocytes.
- Senior member of the scientific team responsible for managing a team of scientists.
- Effectively communicate scientific results to a technical and non-technical audience.
- Experience with guiding junior level research associates
- Contribute to building out team, establishment of laboratory capability and lab systems.
- Lead discrete project work streams within own discipline
- Input into developing research work plan and associated experiments.
- Management of study planning to deliver on milestones.
- Responsible for identifying technical and quality requirements required to complete work plan.
- Planning conduct and reporting of experiments.
- MSc or PhD in immunology and lymphocyte biology with post-doc experience.
- Alternatively, Bachelor's with at least 2 years of experience, preferably in an industry environment in one of the following disciplines: cancer cellular therapy, cancer immunology, immunology, or related field.
- Experience with developing lymphocyte-based cell therapies, especially in an industry setting would be preferred. Experience of working with NK cells is desirable.
- Proficiency in cell culture, passaging and harvesting cells is required
- Experience handling and culturing primary NK cells highly desirable
- Previous experience with IND submission desirable (essential for Principal Scientist)
The RFT Group, BioPharmaceutical Division specialise exclusively in the recruitment of scientists, engineers and executives for the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. www.rftgroup.ie
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