Scientist

Job Title: Scientist

Location: Rahway, NJ 07065

Duration: 06 months

Education:

• B.Sc. with 6 years or M.Sc. with 4 year or PHD with 3 years of laboratory experience practicing the required skills.

Must Haves/Required skills:

• Prior experience developing equilibrium and kinetic radioligand binding assays (e.g. 125I, 3H, 35S) in relevant formats is preferred, or willingness to do radioligand work.
• Tissue culture including: (i) cell plating, (ii) cell stimulation and (iii) cell harvesting.
• Experience in membrane preparation
• Experience working with multiwell plates (96- and 384-well formats)
• Note that this position is laboratory-based.

Nice to haves/Preferred skills:

• Experience with liquid handling automation systems (e.g. Echo, Bravo).
• Familiarity with multi-mode plate readers such as the SpectraMax and EnVision Multilabel Reader.
• Exporting and dose-response fitting of data from binding assays.
• Running research operating plan assay and data upload (ROP assay, ActivityBase application)
• Experience with traditional Western blot techniques, including requisite data analysis used to determine abundance of given protein targets.
• Knowledge of the Protein Simple high-throughput, automated western blotting system is preferred but not required.

Computer/Software skills:

• MS Office suite, Adobe PDF –must have
• Prior experience with an electronic laboratory notebook system is desirable but not required.
• Prior experience with data analysis packages including GraphPad Prism, Activity Base, etc. is desirable but not required.

Note:

• This position is laboratory-based, onsite role.

Responsibilities:

• MRL is looking for a contractor for their early drug discovery team.
• This is a very dynamic, fast paced department.

Our Mission statement:

• Mass Spectrometry & Biophysics
• Based in Rahway, NJ the Mass Spectrometry & Biophysics (MSB) team is an integral part of the Computational & Structural Chemistry Department within Discovery Chemistry.
• Working across all therapeutic areas & supporting teams at all network sites we focus our efforts in 3 principal areas to drive end-to-end pipeline impact:
• 1. Screening & Hit-to-Lead. Discovery & optimization of ligands across the modality spectrum (fragments, small molecules, bifunctional degraders, peptides, therapeutic proteins) to identify leads that modulate our targets of interest.
• 2. Elucidating Mode of Interaction. Detailed characterization of how our ligands interact with and modulate our targets of interest at the molecular level.
• 3. Understanding Mechanism of Action. Determining how perturbing our targets of interest affects disease pathology both in vitro and in vivo.

To achieve all of the highlighted activities, our team combines state-of-the-art capabilities and expertise in 4 key areas.

Protein Biochemistry.

• We provide carefully designed, high-quality and thoroughly characterized proteins for screening and assay development.
• Leveraging our expertise across target classes (including integral membrane proteins & multi-subunit complexes) and utilizing both internal & external resources we partner directly with teams to produce proteins that are qualified for even the most challenging applications.

Biophysics & Biochemistry.

• Using a toolbox of techniques including SPR, fluorescence/CD spectroscopy, calorimetry, nano-DSF & radioligand binding we perform detailed thermodynamic & kinetic profiling of protein-ligand interactions across all modalities.

BioNMR.

• Our capabilities in high-resolution NMR spectroscopy enable us to rigorously study the solution behavior of proteins (including excipient and self-association effects) and to conduct detailed experiments probing molecular interactions using both ligand- and protein-detected techniques.

Mass Spectrometry.

• We specialize in biophysical mass spectrometry including HDX-MS for protein characterization, binding site mapping and epitope/paratope determination; metabolic flux as a readout for pharmacodynamics and pathway engagement in physiologically relevant settings (both in vitro and in vivo); and ultrahigh-throughput mass spectrometry where we have partnered with groups across the network to enable screening, chemical reaction profiling and protein engineering.
• Our overarching goal is to work directly with teams to accelerate the discovery and characterization of molecules on the path to delivering meaningful therapies to patients.

Core responsibilities:

• Run routine radioligand binding assay protocols, analyze data & generate weekly reports, carry out tissue culture and cell-based binding assays.
• Fully document all experiments in our electronic laboratory notebook.

Required:

• Radioligand binding assays (Absoluetly required skill set)
• Experience working with multi-well plates (96- and 384-well formats)
• Exporting and dose-response fitting of data from binding assays.

Typical day

• Lab based role
• Running Radioligand binding assays
• Assay development
• Finishing the assays
• Perform tissue cultures
• Analyzing data