Director, Biophysics

Job Title:

Science Director – Biophysics

Location: Los Angeles, CA or Princeton, NJ / currently hybrid

Vaccination against COVID-19 is a prerequisite for employment at CHDI Management.

Job Description:

CHDI Management seeks an experienced, innovative, and passionate drug discovery scientist to join the preclinical team as Science Director, Biophysics, to support the Foundation’s mission to accelerate meaningful therapies for Huntington’s disease (HD). Partnering with the internal Structural Biology Science Director the successful candidate will be a biophysics domain knowledge expert and participate on interdisciplinary teams to advance the understanding of HD biology, to identify and characterize potential HD drug targets and to support the discovery of novel agents for pharmacologic proof-of-concept. The position involves collaborating with internal CHDI scientists, Contract Research Organization (CRO) collaborators, industrial partners and external academic experts.

The position reports to the Vice President, Chemistry.

Job Responsibilities:

• Manage external biophysics resources at CRO partners by providing strategic and technical oversight of biophysical assay deployment across the CHDI project portfolio.
• Collaborate with partners including HD biology-focused thematic areas, structural biologists, medicinal chemists and informaticians. Participate as a biophysics domain knowledge expert to interdisciplinary project teams.
• Co-develop project workplans as a member of interdisciplinary project teams with strategic line-of-sight to achieve program objectives.

Generate and deliver impactful biophysical data and insight to characterize biomolecular interactions and provide discovery teams with detailed interaction analyses (i.e., protein-compound, nucleic acid-compound, protein-protein, and protein-nucleic acid) in cell-free and cellular systems.

Develop and deploy ligand-protein interaction experiments using biophysical methods (e.g. SPR, thermal shift, native MS) to measure binding of small molecule hits and leads to potential drug targets.

Design and conduct experiments to deconvolute biophysical mechanisms of active agents to understand residence time, predict efficacy and pharmacology, and select the best molecules for pharmacologic proof-of-concept.

Identify and partner with external collaborators (CRO, academic) to develop impactful, cutting-edge biophysical methods for their strategic application to projects in support of Foundation objectives.

Qualifications:

• Ph.D. in Biophysics, Biophysical Chemistry, Structural Biology or a related discipline.
• 10 plus years of industry experience in target validation and/or integrated drug discovery projects.
• Demonstrated expertise in the use of biophysical methods (SPR, HTRF, MST, Native MS and thermal stability assays such as DSF) for characterization of biomolecular interactions (protein-compound, nucleic acid-compound, protein-protein, and/or protein-nucleic acid).
• Experience in designing and building mechanistic assays to support elucidation of novel disease-relevant biology and target validation.
• Experience in the application of emerging biophysical methods (e.g. AFM, single-molecule fluorescence microscopy, CryoET) to interrogate macromolecular assemblies within their native environment highly preferred.
• Experience working in a multidisciplinary team-oriented environment.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Experience in oversight of CRO collaborators.

Salary range: $120,000-220,000. Exact compensation will vary based on experience.

About CHDI Foundation, Inc.

CHDI Foundation, Inc. is a privately-funded, not-for-profit, biomedical research organization that is exclusively dedicated to rapidly discovering, accelerating and developing therapies that slow the progression of Huntington’s disease (HD). Our scientists work closely with a network of more than 600 researchers in academic and industrial laboratories around the world in the pursuit of these innovative therapies, providing strategic scientific direction to ensure that our common goals remain in focus. This helps bridge the translational gap that often exists between academic and industrial research pursuits and that adds costly delays to therapy development. In its role as a collaborative enabler, CHDI seeks to bring the right partners together to identify and address critical scientific issues and move drug candidates to clinical evaluation as rapidly as possible. Our activities extend from exploratory biology to the identification and validation of therapeutic targets, and from drug discovery and development to clinical studies and trials. More information about CHDI can be found at www.chdifoundation.org

About CHDI Management, Inc.

CHDI Management, Inc. was established in 2002 to provide administrative, management and grant making services to CHDI Foundation, Inc.