Senior Scientist I/II - Discovery Biology

Reporting to: (Associate) Director, Discovery

Role Reference: SRS2101

THE COMPANY

Isogenica is a leading innovator in therapeutic antibody development, focused on enabling rapid advancement of next generation antibodies and antibody-based therapeutics through technical innovation.

llamdA® is Isogenica’s fully synthetic VHH single domain antibody library, proven to yield high quality antibody fragments to a variety of target classes. CIS Display, our proprietary display technology, perfectly complements very large synthetic libraries. Isogenica is exploiting its technology platforms to enable the discovery of novel antibody drugs that address significant unmet medical needs.

Over the past few years, Isogenica has built strong and lasting relationships with several biotech and biopharma partners, through licensing CIS Display and llamdA®, and via lead discovery alliances. This has resulted in a solid, diversified pipeline of partnered molecules – some of which are now in clinical development. In doing so, the company has built solid infrastructure and expertise for the discovery, characterisation and optimisation of therapeutic antibodies and antibody-based drugs.

Isogenica is now expanding its scope of activities to enable broader, deeper strategic relationships with biotech and pharmaceutical partners and to support internal VHH discovery and development. Aligned to this expansion, Isogenica is currently seeking an experienced Senior Research Scientist to join our Antibody Discovery Alliances team.

WHO YOU ARE

You have a PhD in Life Science or a related field, with more than 5 years antibody discovery and optimisation experience in the CRO, Biotech or Biopharmaceutical industry.

You are an enthusiastic, self-motivated scientist experienced in leading commercial research projects. You have good organisational skills, can balance resource across multiple projects simultaneously and have a track record of effectively managing your own work and that of others, prioritising projects in order to meet deadlines.

You will be experienced in project and financial management to deliver projects on-time and within budget, managing the execution of work plans and in the professional presentation of research outcomes via written reports and oral presentations.

You set high standards for yourself and your team, which is evidenced by technical and project-based achievements throughout your CV, which may include progress of programmes you have worked on into pre-clinical or clinical development, peer-reviewed publications, or the receipt of grants, awards and promotions, etc.

You feel accountable for reaching set goals and communicate promptly and clearly on progress towards these goals to your team, supervisors and partners.

You have prior experience in line management and staff training/coaching. You know how to instil a sense of urgency and accountability, yet at the same time create a trusting environment where individuals feel valued and supported.

You help to ensure a safe and efficient working environment for yourself and your colleagues, through knowledge of and adherence to company policies and health and safety guidelines.

THE ROLE
In this role you will work closely with the Associate Director of Alliances to deliver antibody discovery and development programmes under several significant collaborations Isogenica has in place with global biopharmaceutical partners.

Leading a team of scientists, you will work both independently and collaboratively with a team of scientists working on therapeutic projects. Your time will be split between conducting research in the laboratory and office-based planning, management and reporting on programmes.

You will communicate work plans to your direct reports and supervise the execution and reporting on these plans. You will provide appropriate guidance to less experienced staff – from hands-on help in the laboratory through to coaching more experienced members of the team.

You will be responsible for collating and reviewing research outputs from your team, and for the preparation and presentation of detailed reports for partners. You will be involved in telephone and face to face meetings with external partners and will be responsible for articulating research reports and co-developing research strategies.

You can independently identify issues, should they arise, and pro-actively suggest or execute troubleshooting or optimisation activities.

Your responsibilities will include:
• Leading a small team of scientists and/or research assistants, providing them with scientific and technical guidance on a day-to-day basis. Assisting the Associate Director of Antibody Alliances in goal setting and appraisals.
• Design antibody selections and screening strategies, including development of necessary assays appropriate to meet the stated end goals. Where needed, you assist the external partner in refining the target product profile at the onset of the program.
• Perform general molecular biology work (DNA purification, PCR setup, restriction digests/ligations, E. coli transformation, gel electrophoresis, etc).
• Analyse protein expression and quality using UV/VIS spectroscopy, SDS-PAGE, Western Blot, size exclusion and affinity chromatography methods, MALDI-TOF or LC/MS mass spectrometry.
• Execute antibody binding assays in a variety of formats, chosen to suit purpose and throughput (i.e. ELISA, Alpha screen or HTRF, SPR).
• Plan and execute analytical flow cytometry, cell binding experiments and functional cell-based bioassays (i.e. reporter cell assays).
• Document experiments and procedures in laboratory notebooks, analysing experimental data and presenting in internal and external meetings.

BEHAVIOUR
• Ensure equal relationships, be respectful of each other’s knowledge.
• Display an open and friendly behaviour and team effort, understanding that team is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
• Be open to challenges, do not feel threatened by hearing alternative views.
• Step up to help people, modelling behaviour for more junior, less experienced staff.
• Bring your own experience to Isogenica, look at things from a different angle to help in continuously improving and developing the technical capabilities here at Isogenica.