Director, Cancer Cell Biology

The Oncology Research Department at Gilead Sciences (Foster City, CA) is seeking an accomplished scientist-leader for Director of Cancer Cell Biology. The successful candidate will join the Department’s leadership team to develop strategic initiatives and lead both internal research projects and external partnerships, focusing on creative approaches to identify, understand and target tumor cell dependencies both classic and novel. Partnering with our interdisciplinary colleagues throughout the Gilead Research Division, the candidate will access our state-of-the-art technologies and facilities to ambitiously advance impactful therapies.

• Mentor an experienced scientific team and their reports, advancing their projects and careers.
• Serve as a thought leader throughout the Research organization.
• Collaborate across functions to guide interdisciplinary projects, with experts in oncology, immune‑oncology, protein engineering, chemistry, translational medicine, biomarkers and clinical development. Identify project risks and mitigate effectively, while communicating with project teams and other leaders.

• Proactively ideate to accelerate early‑stage discovery activities, enhance understanding of disease mechanisms, and develop new technologies and novel targeting modalities.
• Develop expertise in relevant scientific fields and the external landscape, including the scientific literature, conference proceedings, and competitive programs. As an in‑house expert, propose creative and focused research plans to discover, validate and understand novel targets.
• Think critically and creatively, emphasizing nimble decision making that balances risk‑taking with rigorous experimentation within the strategic/competitive context to fuel a differentiated pre‑clinical pipeline.
• Contribute expertise to multi‑disciplinary due diligence teams to evaluate and recommend partnerships and acquisitions.
• Contribute to research reports, INDs, and patent filings.
• Establish an external presence through peer‑reviewed publications, conference presentations, and external collaborations.

• Ph.D. degree, postdoctoral training, and 8+ years of experience in tumor biology, drug discovery, target identification and technology development.
• Strong knowledge base in cancer genomics and oncogenic signaling, with knowledge in immunotherapies also preferred.
• Broad technical skillset of cutting‑edge methods and models of cancer, in vitro and in vivo, with experience in biochemically analyzing protein (and protein‑nucleic acid) complexes a plus.
• Demonstrated success in leading research teams to productive, creative, data‑driven decisions.
• Team‑centric mindset, with proven managerial excellence and ability to motivate skilled team members from diverse backgrounds.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.