Senior Scientist - Discovery Vaccine Bioanalytics

Job Requirements

We are seeking a highly motivated Senior Scientist to join the Discovery and Translational team within Pre-Clinical Development Regulated Bioanalytics at West Point. The primary role of the successful candidate will be to design and develop immunology-based bioanalytical assays in support of early vaccine programs. The individual will be responsible to contribute with limited supervision to all aspects of assay development, technology transfer, and/or troubleshooting. The ideal candidate will have solid laboratory experience in the field of immunology and/or cell biology, a broad skill set encompassing working with primary immune cells to developing bioanalytical assays capable to meet clinical assay requirement. The candidate should be current on state-of-the art technologies and is expected to champion evaluation of new technologies and optimize processes. Providing expert technical representation on multidisciplinary teams will be expected.

• Provide scientific input to the design and execution of ligand binding assays (LBA) such as ELISA and/or cell-based assays such as luciferase reporter assays
• Responsible for the execution of method development, troubleshooting and/or pre-clinical/clinical sample analysis as needed
• Contribute to the assessment and implementation of new analytical technologies
• Serve as an internal subject matter expert on developed assays
• Accountability for generated the data

• Critical thinking and good trouble-shooting skills
• Experience in general cell biology methods including maintenance of cell lines and/or primary cells
• Experience with immunoassays such as ELISA, AlphaLisa, multiplexed LBA on MSD and/or Luminex platforms
• Adherence to basic safety procedures in a BSL2 laboratory
• Good verbal and written communication
• Ability to follow procedures and thoroughly document experiments
• Communicate results effectively in presentations to stakeholders in partner organizations or at external scientific meetings, to write technical reports, and to participate on cross-functional teams

• Experience with cell-based assays in the context of immune response characterization such as viral neutralization, PRNT/VRNT/FRNT, ELISpot, or multi-color flow cytometry
• Prior experience with PBMC isolation, human and/or mouse tumor tissue processing
• Experience in molecular biology technique such as DNA and RNA isolation, qPCR, digital PCR, RNAseq, NGS, or CRISPR
• Familiarity with liquid handlers and other automation platforms for sample preparation and assay process
• Strong attention to detail with the ability to multi-task and handle multiple responsibilities simultaneously