Position Summary
Immunitas is seeking a highly skilled and motivated Senior Research Associate / Associate Scientist to join our growing research team. This is a high-impact, mission-critical role for the company as we strive to bring novel therapies to patients faced with currently intractable cancers.
We are leveraging single cell genomics to deeply interrogate the immune-microenvironment of challenging, complex cancers and couple bioinformatic mining for novel targets with a robust platform for functional validation. We are currently advancing multiple programs towards first-in human studies and are further developing our platform capabilities.
The successful candidate for this position will be an integral member of our growing research team working closely with experienced scientists in a fast-paced and dynamic research environment. You will play a critical role in the discovery efforts for our early-stage programs advancing our pipeline toward the clinic.
We are a small, vibrant team looking for researchers who:
• want to see and feel the direct impact of their work
• are proactive and thoughtful
• get things done
• work well in a highly collaborative environment at a rapid pace
• bring “can-do” problem solving to work every day
Responsibilities will include:
• Isolation, culture, and phenotypic characterization of primary human immune cells • Maintain cultures of multiple cancer cell lines
• Develop and execute immunological assays including antigen recall, cytokine production, cytotoxicity, proliferation, MLR
• Development and execution of cell-based assays to investigate functional consequence of target gene perturbation (CRISPR k/o; exogenous expression), as well as pharmacological modulation (effect of antibody; recombinant protein treatment)
• Key readouts include phenotypic changes as determined by flow cytometry, qPCR, western blot, ELISA
• Generation of k/o and target gene overexpressing cell lines
• Provide verbal and written updates of results at team meetings
• Assist the Protein Engineering group in functional screening of antibody candidates and QCing of reagent proteins
• Facilitate efficient transfer of assays to CRO partners where applicable Requirements:
• B.S.+2-3yrs, M.S. +0-1yrs experience in immunology, cell biology or related discipline, preferably in a biotech or pharmaceutical setting
• Experience with mammalian tissue culture, maintenance, and propagation of cell lines is required
• Experience in developing and executing assays to study the activity of immune cells (i.e., magnetic bead-based isolation, multi-color flow cytometry, cytokine assays in the context of primary immune cell cultures/co-cultures) highly desired, but not required
• Experience with in vitro immune-based functional assays (antigen recall, proliferation, signal transduction, other reporter assays) desired, but not required
• Experience in FACS based cell sorting a plus, but not required
• Expertise in using molecular techniques to perturb genes of interest (CRISPR, shRNA) and assess the consequence in cellular in vitro assays desired, but not required • Experience in characterizing antibodies and proteins using biochemical techniques (SDS PAGE/Western blot, ELISA) a plus, but not required
• Experience analyzing data using industry standard software (FlowJo, Prism, Diva, Excel) is highly desirable
• Excellent critical thinking and communication skills, and demonstrated ability to independently execute goals
• Team player, eager to learn and develop new skills, and capable of adapting to a dynamic research environment
About Immunitas
Immunitas was founded in 2019 by a team of world-class academic scientists who are harnessing significant advancements in the field of single-cell genomics and computational biology to unlock novel targets in human immunology. Our start-up team is collaborative and scientifically rigorous. We’re excited to be working on cutting edge science. Our office and labs are located at 830 Winter Street, Waltham, MA. We offer competitive compensation, equity, healthcare, and other benefits.
The founding scientific team and now SAB members is led by Kai Wucherpfennig, M.D., Ph.D. (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School), Dane Wittrup, Ph.D. (MIT), Mario Suva, M.D., Ph.D. (Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School) and included Aviv Regev, Ph.D. (Current affiliation: Genentech). Our SAB members also include Itay Tirosh, Ph.D. (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel), Scott Rodig, M.D., Ph.D. (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School/Brigham & Women’s Hospital) and Jon Schoenfeld, M.D., MPH (Harvard Medical School).
To Apply:
Please send resume and brief introduction paragraph to fbrown@immunitastx.com