Scientist II - Computational Biology *PC

Overview

Your Role:
As a member of the Cell and Gene Therapy, Protein Structure & Computational Biology Group, you will have the exciting opportunity to play a key, hands-on role within the functional and translational area of cellular immunotherapy. We seek a highly motivated individual to join our protein engineering, vector development, CAR-T, CAR-NK, and TCR-T programs at our Gaithersburg, Maryland site. This position has both exploratory and development goals feeding into the advancement of next-generation cell therapy.

Specifically, the group member will develop analytical pipelines necessary for analyzing large published and in-house generated next-generation sequencing datasets. The position will report to the group leader. The role interfaces with other research teams engaged in molecular biology, cell biology, high throughput screening methods, and early process development to address critical issues, relevant ideas, and unmet needs from a clinical perspective for renewed discovery and analytical efforts.

The unique responsibility allows you to become a subject matter expert in novel technologies in Cell and Gene therapy and make valuable contributions to developing cutting-edge immunotherapy products to benefit human health.

• Responsible for the development of infrastructure, pipelines, and algorithms for analyzing large datasets, including WGS, WES, RNA-Seq, TCR and BCR-Seq, and single-cell omics.
• Work with lab scientists to develop in-house data analysis tools for R&D purposes.
• Exploration of published datasets for tumor target antigen discovery for CAR and TCR pipeline.
• Work with laboratory scientists to establish targeting strategy and validation workflow.
• Develop cutting-edge analytical tools for T cell and NK cell fitness improvement projects, and prediction models, including application of AI.
• Biomarker discovery.
• Participate in technical meetings, drive development activities, and present data findings to colleagues and external collaborators.
• Development of AI workflows.
• Other duties as assigned.

• Ph.D in Molecular Biology, Computational Biology, Computational Science, Immunology or Virology or related field of biomedicine with computational experience in the field of (tumor) immunology, preferably in T cell immunology; 2+ years of bioinformatics experience and/or training.
• Hands-on experience or a thorough understanding in any of the following areas is a plus: flow cytometry cell sorting, molecular biology (in particular, single-cell based PCR methods such as droplet-PCR), tumor animal models, genetic screens with immune cells, cell purification methods (e.g., MACS).
• Experience in cutting-edge single-cell technologies (such as 10x Chromium), library screening approach is a plus.
• Candidates from both industry and academia are welcome.

• Strong verbal and written communication skills and ability to communicate results to a diverse cross-functional audience.
• Proactive, self-motivated team player with strong interpersonal skills, an appropriate sense of urgency, and the ability to work independently
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with a challenging workload and to quickly get acquainted with novel methods and approaches.
• The desire to advance knowledge in the scientific field through a constant survey of new literature, active discussion, development of new ideas, and out-of-box thinking is highly valued.

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to walk; use hands to finger, handle, or feel;

reach with hands and arms, talk, and hear. The employee is required to stand; climb or balance and stoop, kneel, crouch. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus. Must have ability to handle more than one task at a time and must work at a rapid pace while maintaining attention to detail.

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. This job is performed in a temperature-controlled facility without exposure to extreme hot or cold temperatures. Generally, this job is performed in a sanitized laboratory setting and routinely uses standard medical and research equipment such as centrifuges, biosafety cabinets, microscopes, incubators, pipettes and computers.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently exposed to blood, viruses, bacteria, body fluids and other tissues. Employees entering and leaving the laboratory must wear…