Platform Scientist, Process Development

Position Summary

Cellares is seeking an innovative and highly motivated Platform Scientist with expertise across cellular biology, process engineering and technology development to join the Process Development team. This individual will interface across many parts of the company and contribute significantly to the development of our advanced cell therapy manufacturing platform.  

The primary focus of this position is to serve as a conduit between biology and engineering teams in order to help design and test new hardware, software and infrastructure. The goal of this design-build-test-learn cycle will be to enable the Process Development team to rapidly onboard and optimize cell therapy manufacturing processes, while providing key insights to Engineering teams regarding future iterations of Cell Shuttle technologies.

The ideal candidate will be a strong technical contributor and cross-functional collaborator with demonstrated experience with cell culture, phenotypic enrichment/selection and/or genetic manipulation. Expertise within mechanical, software and/or systems engineering would further position candidates to succeed in this role.

Candidates should enjoy working in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment, and be prepared to tackle a broad range of challenges as the company grows.

Responsibilities

• Design and execute complex experiments using scientific principles and statistical approaches (DOE) to support the development of the Cellares platform
• Interface internally and cross-functionally with Systems Engineering, Controls Engineering, Software Engineering and Product teams to design, build and test new technologies relevant to process onboarding and Cell Shuttle infrastructure
• Author high-quality technical documents, procedures, and reports
• Analyze and present technical results at departmental meetings
• Become quickly adept at identifying current bottlenecks and opportunities through hands-on independent and collaborative investigations
• Perform routine laboratory activities including equipment qualification and maintenance
• Gather and review system requirements, develop robust test plans, oversee and support execution of experiments
• Develop training materials for scientific methods and techniques, train and onboard new hires as relevant
• Serve as subject matter expert where appropriate for cell therapy process technology improvements, and represent Process Development as needed

Requirements

• Bachelor's, Master's or PhD in Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Biology, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering or related field with 0-15 years of process development experience in the cell and gene therapy field
• Familiarity working on a GMP and/or Clinical Manufacturing preferred but not required
• Extensive experience designing scale-up or scale-down experiments and troubleshooting semi-automated instruments
• Hands-on experience with aspects of cell therapy manufacturing process preferred (cell culture, gene editing, magnetic selection, etc.)
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; able to interpret, summarize, and present scientific results in a clear, concise, accurate manner to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience with flow cytometry and cell based assays preferred
• Strong understanding of cell biology and immunology
• Creative, self-motivated, eager to take on a wide variety of tasks and grow with the evolving technology