Principal Research Scientist, Lipid Chemistry

Role Summary

The Principal Research Scientist, Lipid Chemistry for Non-Viral Delivery leads design and synthesis of lipids for gene delivery, working independently on multiple critical projects. This role requires strong problem-solving, innovative thinking, and the ability to influence research strategies and collaborate across teams. The position contributes as an emerging expert, providing reliable guidance and conceptual input to project activities.

Responsibilities

• Design, synthesize and characterize novel lipids and lipid libraries with therapeutically relevant properties for LNP-mediated gene delivery.
• Designs and performs sophisticated, technically challenging chemistry experiments, efficiently and independently.
• Distills complicated, multidimensional data to clear hypotheses and sets new experimental directions.
• Work closely with CRO collaborations to enhance and accelerate lipid library construction, synthesis, analysis, and/or manufacturing.
• Identifies broad implications to findings, which transcend the immediate experiment.
• Design, synthesize and characterize unique conjugation handles for targeted gene delivery.
• Makes substantive conceptual contributions to project activities and scientific strategies.
• Maintain clear and complete ELN-based experimental records.
• Present and share results with the broader team of scientists and cross-functional meetings.
• Coordinates patent and publication preparation.

Skills

• Demonstrates advanced judgement balancing technical feasibility and scientific opportunity/impact.
• A strong track record of developing medicinal chemistry-based approaches to design and synthesize novel lipid libraries.
• Demonstrated exemplary skills in all aspects of modern organic and medicinal chemistry, including data analysis, parallel library design and synthesis, structure-based design, and analytical and purification methods.
• Well oriented with lipid, LNP and non-viral gene delivery related literature and progress.
• Discerns new, productive paths in experiments with greater regularity.
• Well versed with different bioconjugation strategies and optimizations thereof for proteins/peptides, antibodies, lipids, LNPs, oligonucleotides and other biomolecules.
• Extensive experience implementing routine and advanced analytical methods to characterize structures and purities of synthetic compounds, including but not limited to HPLC-CAD, LC/MS, NMR.
• In-depth experience in various purification techniques including various liquid chromatography methods (e.g., RP, IEX, SEC, HIC, affinity, FPLC) and membrane filtrations.
• A superior communicator, demonstrating the ability to write advanced technical documents and demonstrating confidence and versatility in presenting verbally to diverse audiences.

Education

• PhD (or equivalent degree) in chemistry or related science and 4-7 years of relevant post-doctoral employment experience, or
• Master’s degree (or equivalent degree) in chemistry or related science and 7+ years of relevant employment experience, or
• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent degree) in chemistry or related science and 10+ yr relevant employment experience.