Protein Scientist at Hengrui Europe Therapeutics AG

작업 내용

Company: HENGRUI EUROPE BIOSCIENCES

Job Title: Protein Scientist

Department: Protein Science

Location: Zürich, Switzerland

About Hengrui:

Hengrui is the biggest Chinese pharma company with 25’000 employees, headquartered in Shanghai. With strong research focus in oncology, diabetes and metabolic diseases, autoimmune diseases, HIV, we have just started transforming into a global player. In 2020, we established our entities in Europe and USA. We are building a new clinical R&D unit headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. We are also building pre-clinical labs in Zürich Switzerland with focus on antibody engineering, mRNA therapeutics and target discovery. We are bringing top European pharma talent to help us build a new exciting international team in the heart of Europe.

About this job:

Take a leading role in the production and characterization of therapeutic antibodies and associated target antigens. Design and implement protein purification processes allowing efficient capture and polishing, with a focus on therapeutic antibody requirements. Take responsibility for ensuring the purity and biophysical properties meet the project criteria and advise the project team of any molecular liabilities. Collaborate effectively with other groups to support antibody discovery campaigns and lead the prioritization of resulting antibodies based on the biophysical and binding properties. Support both early stage screening campaigns, with a focus on high-throughput methods, but also provide detailed analysis required for development of preclinical candidates. Balance different project activities, delivering on agreed goals and timelines, while providing support and guidance to junior colleagues. Ensure accurate and timely reporting of project status to the management team.

Tasks

Job responsibilities:

Essential Job Functions:

Purification

• Develop routine FPLC purification methods required for isolating antibodies or other proteins from host cell components, to achieve high purity and yield.
• Utilize low-volume, high-throughput purification methods to support rapid antibody discovery-stage screening workflows.
• Introduce process optimizations where required, to ensure required purity and yield.
  

Biophysical analysis

• Lead the biophysical characterisation of antibodies and other proteins, including use of HPLC methods, Tm determination, aggregation profiling and stability studies.
• Develop mass spectrometry methods to deliver detailed characterization of antibodies and support developability assessments.
• Contribute to preclinical candidate analysis through to the CMC stage.
  

Protein function

• Contribute to the design, optimization and reformatting of antibody sequences.
• Design required target antigens suitable for use in discovery campaigns.
• Analyse antibody binding to targets, both as recombinant protein and also on cells.
  

Teamwork

• Utilize strong teamworking skills to support the group leader and mentor junior group members.
• Collaborate scientifically and strategically in a multi-disciplinary matrix environment, interacting frequently with local and global colleagues to achieve project success.
• Coordinate group project responsibilities and prioritize work accordingly, to meet agreed timelines and goals
  

Requirements

Job requirements:

Experience / Education

• PhD in biochemistry, molecular biology, biophysics or similar.
• 3 years’ experience in antibody discovery, focused on purification and biophysical characterization.
• Strong expertise in analysing the biophysical properties of antibodies, including mass spectrometry
• Experience of antibody optimization and characterization of binding specificity and kinetics.
  

Knowledge / Skills / Abilities:

• Deep knowledge of the early R&D phases of antibody discovery.
• Excellent understanding of antibody sequence, structure and function, with the ability to optimize therapeutic antibody candidates.
• Strong scientific background in the biophysical characteristics of antibodies, with hands-on experience of biophysical methods, such as HPLC, DSF, DLS and mass spectrometry.
• Expertise in ‘Design of Experiment’ (DoE) approaches to determine optimal purification process conditions is an advantage.
• Knowledge of developability assessments and requirements for therapeutic candidates.
• Experience developing high throughput or automated workflows for rapid processing and accurate analysis of therapeutics antibodies.
• Good understanding of techniques for assessing antibody binding, including ELISA, SPR/BLI and flow cytometry.
• Able to communicate scientific concepts across all levels of the organization and interacting with stakeholders.
• Experience supervising and mentoring junior colleagues.
• Flexible team player that can quickly adapt to changing situations.
• Highly collaborative spirit, able to work well within a multi-functional matrix environment.
• Experience leading communication with external collaborators and CROs.
• Knowledge of bioinformatics or advanced computational analysis is an advantage.
• Accurate reporting and presentation skills.
• Knowledge of German or Chinese is an advantage.
• Some infrequent international travel may be required, ≤ 5% travel.
  

Benefits

I look forward to receiving your CV.

I look forward to receiving your CV.