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Associate Scientist I

La Jolla, California

Kyowa Kirin is a fast-growing global specialty pharmaceutical company that applies state-of-the-art biotechnologies to discover and deliver novel medicines in four disease areas: bone and mineral; intractable hematologic; hematology oncology; and rare disease.  A Japan-based company, our goal is to make people smile by delivering breakthroughs where no adequate treatments currently exist, working from drug discovery to product development and commercialization. In North America, we are headquartered in Princeton, NJ, with offices in California, Massachusetts, and Ontario.

Summary:

The Associate Scientist, Discovery Core Function will support Kyowa Kirin’s cell therapy pipeline programs in a highly collaborative environment. This position will play a key role in developing next-generation cell and gene therapy programs by providing support to pipeline projects and evaluating and implementing new technologies.

Essential Functions:

•    Support Cell and Gene Therapy pipeline projects by working with Project Leads to generate plasmid vectors, engineered cell lines, protein and antibody.  
•    Contribute scientific and technical knowledge to project and support teams
•    Design, initiate, and optimize molecular, cell based, and analytical assays and methods to support Research, Technical Operations, and In Vivo Pharmacology teams
•    Collaborate and manage requests from cross functional teams to move projects from research to development 
•    Serve as a Project Lead for technology themed projects if needed
•    Identify and evaluate new technologies
•    Maintain compliance with regulatory guidelines and internal standards
•    Prepare necessary documentation for project reviews (proposals, monthly, quarterly, annual, or study reports), patent applications, publications, and/or animal, biosafety, or human subject protocols.
•    Present research at project meetings and efficiently record experiments and data in laboratory notebooks, databases and monthly reports.

Requirements:

Education
BS required, MA/MS preferred in a related scientific discipline. Knowledge and background in Immunology, Hematology-Oncology, Cancer Biology, or Rare Disease therapies is a plus.

Experience
8 years of hands-on experience and in-depth knowledge of cell and gene therapy techniques and in vitro assay development. Strong background in molecular biology, with practical experience in cloning, molecular analytical development, NGS, and gene editing. Expertise in cell culture methodologies, including work with cell lines, primary human cells, iPSCs, and HSCs. Proven experience in the development and characterization of cell therapy products, including HSCs, iPSCs, and/or CAR-T cells. Proficient in gene editing technologies, including CRISPR, base editing, prime editing, and transposase or recombinase-based editing. Extensive experience in the molecular characterization of cell therapies, with a strong preference for expertise in NGS. Familiarity with CAR design, engineering, screening, and assay development is highly desirable Experience in developing high-throughput screening platforms for cells, proteins, or antibodies is preferred. Background in antibody/protein engineering, protein production, and purification is highly preferred. Experience in virus production, transduction, and analytics is a valuable plus.

Technical Skills
Strong knowledge of industry standard molecular cloning techniques including methods to scale to higher throughput. Solid understanding of cellular and molecular immunological techniques including ELISA, flow cytometry, in vitro functional assays, reporter assays. Expertise in cell culture techniques including culture of primary cells, iPSCs, HSCs, and cell lines from multiple species and cell manipulation techniques including transfection, nucleofection, and transduction. Experience with cell characterization including multicolor flow cytometry, FACS, MACS, and single cell isolation techniques. Knowledge of gene editing techniques and analytics including CRISPR, guideRNA screens, knock out and knock-in analysis, NGS, ddPCR. Experience in antibody or protein production, purification, and analysis including bacterial and mammalian expression systems, affinity chromatography, FPLC, SDS-PAGE/western blot, HPLC, Octet, Carterra is a plus. Proficient in MS Office Suite.

KKNA and all of its employees have an obligation to act in accordance with the law and with integrity in all our operations and interactions

It is the policy of Kyowa Kirin North America, Inc. to provide equal employment opportunity to all qualified persons without regard to race, religion, creed, color, pregnancy, sex, age, national origin, disability, genetic trait or predisposition, veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation or affection preference or citizenship status or any other category protected by law.

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