What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Scientist, High-Throughput Mammalian Production position at Flagship Pioneering?
Company Summary
Lila Sciences is a privately held, early-stage technology company pioneering the application of artificial intelligence to transform every aspect of the scientific method. Lila is backed by Flagship Pioneering, which brings the courage, long-term vision, and resources needed to realize unreasonable results. Join our mission-driven team and contribute to the future of science.
Our Life Sciences effort is leveraging AI and high-throughput automation for valuable therapeutic discovery and development across biological modalities.
At Lila, we are uniquely cross-functional and collaborative. We are actively reimagining the way teams work together and communicate. Therefore, we seek individuals with an inclusive mindset and a diversity of thought. Our teams thrive in unstructured and creative environments. All voices are heard because we know that experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way.
If this sounds like an environment you’d love to work in, even if you only have some of the experience listed below, please apply.
The Role
We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Scientist to lead the expression, purification, and scale-up of protein production for multiple therapeutic modalities including novel and challenging proteins. This role focuses on developing cutting-edge expression technologies, optimizing purification strategies, and translating small-scale discoveries into robust, scalable manufacturing processes.
Key Responsibilities
Flagship Pioneering is a biotechnology company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $90 billion in aggregate value. Many of the companies Flagship has founded have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture. Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies, and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at www.flagshippioneering.com.
Flagship Pioneering and our ecosystem companies are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.
Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.
Lila Sciences is a privately held, early-stage technology company pioneering the application of artificial intelligence to transform every aspect of the scientific method. Lila is backed by Flagship Pioneering, which brings the courage, long-term vision, and resources needed to realize unreasonable results. Join our mission-driven team and contribute to the future of science.
Our Life Sciences effort is leveraging AI and high-throughput automation for valuable therapeutic discovery and development across biological modalities.
At Lila, we are uniquely cross-functional and collaborative. We are actively reimagining the way teams work together and communicate. Therefore, we seek individuals with an inclusive mindset and a diversity of thought. Our teams thrive in unstructured and creative environments. All voices are heard because we know that experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way.
If this sounds like an environment you’d love to work in, even if you only have some of the experience listed below, please apply.
The Role
We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Scientist to lead the expression, purification, and scale-up of protein production for multiple therapeutic modalities including novel and challenging proteins. This role focuses on developing cutting-edge expression technologies, optimizing purification strategies, and translating small-scale discoveries into robust, scalable manufacturing processes.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and optimize high-throughput mammalian cell-based production platforms for recombinant antibodies, and challenging proteins such as membrane proteins, multi-domain constructs, or heavily post-translationally modified proteins.
- Engineer and refine novel protein production methods, including AI-driven vector design, co-factor optimization, and expression tuning.
- Design and validate scalable purification workflows, including chromatography, filtration, and refolding strategies to ensure high-quality protein yields.
- Implement and refine automated workflows for cell culture, transfection, and protein purification.
- Collaborate with automation engineers to integrate liquid handling robotics and high-throughput analytics into production pipelines.
- Design and execute process development experiments to improve yield, quality, and reproducibility.
- Mentor junior scientists and contribute to a dynamic, fast-paced research environment.
- Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Bioengineering, or a related field with 3–5 years of industry experience; or M.S. with 7 years of relevant experience in high-throughput mammalian expression.
- Expertise in mammalian transient and stable expression systems (e.g., Expi CHO, Expi293).
- Hands-on experience with automated liquid handling platforms (e.g., Tecan, Hamilton, Bravo) and high-throughput bioreactors (e.g., Ambr).
- Strong background in cell culture process optimization to improve productivity and scalability.
- Experience in protein production workflows, including purification and analytical characterization (e.g., SEC, SDS-PAGE, HPLC, ELISA, BLI).
- Programming experience in Python or other scripting languages for automation or data analysis is a plus. Experience and eagerness to apply AI to scientific workflows is a must
- Excellent problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills.
- AI experimental design and simulation
- Automated custom instrumentation
- Generative molecular and material design
Flagship Pioneering is a biotechnology company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $90 billion in aggregate value. Many of the companies Flagship has founded have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture. Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies, and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at www.flagshippioneering.com.
Flagship Pioneering and our ecosystem companies are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.
Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.
