Principal Scientist - Genomics

At GSK, we have bold ambitions for patients, aiming to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade.

R&D is committed to discovering and delivering transformational vaccines and medicines to prevent and change the course of disease.

Qualifications, skills, and all relevant experience needed for this role can be found in the full description below.

We believe the Greater Boston area is an important hub for the biotech and pharma industry, which is why we’ve invested in growing our footprint and expanding our R&D space in Cambridge, with a primary focus on additional state-of-the-art lab space.

Here, we will bring together talent and expertise, building upon GSK’s long history of vaccine development, to create globally leading viral capabilities and cutting-edge vaccines technologies, as we add to our robust portfolio targeting infectious diseases at every stage of life.

In the plan to create a new hub for mRNA-based vaccine discovery in Cambridge, we are building new laboratories that will be focused on the development of state-of-the-art methods that will be supporting deep product understanding, process and product development, as well as testing of pre-clinical and clinical samples for new mRNA-based vaccines.

As a Principal Scientist in the Molecular Analytics team, you will be expected to contribute toward our omics-based program supporting our mRNA-based vaccine discovery efforts.

You will join our diverse preclinical research and development team working on cutting-edge technologies in addition to developing new assays suitable for candidate screening and mechanism of action studies.

Key Responsibilities :

• Design, develop, optimize, and implement next-generation sequencing (NGS) protocols for viral sequencing and antigen characterization.
• Execute a wide range of experiments / technical studies / tasks testing sequence identity and gene expression profiles using bulk, single cell, and / or spatial sequencing across sequencing platforms, e.

g. short and long read sequencers.

• Analyze, interpret, and record experimental results and present them in written / oral communications.
• Conceptualize, develop, and execute new methods and protocols and proactively incorporate new technology or techniques into practice without supervision.
• Collaborate with scientists throughout the organization to support NGS activities.
• Perform complex data management tasks with minimal supervision.
• Lead vaccine development-related scientific investigations and publish the work in scientific journals and patent filings.

Basic Qualifications :

• Degree in Chemistry, Biology, Biochemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, or related scientific field.
• PhD with 3+ years of post-doc and / or job-related experience, MS with 6+ years of experience, or BS with 9+ years of experience.
• Six or more years of experience with molecular biology, genomics, transcriptomics, and assay development.
• Six or more years of experience in molecular biology, including but not limited to : Nucleic acid extraction and quality control, cloning, PCR, qPCR, ddPCR, reverse transcription, RNA in vitro transcription and purification, and various NGS library preparation methods.
• Two or more years of experience with viral nucleic acid isolation and sequencing.
• Six or more years of experience in next-generation sequencing technologies (Illumina, Pacific Biosciences, Oxford Nanopore) and their applications, e.

g., bulk RNA-seq, single cell omics, immune repertoire profiling.

Preferred Qualifications :

• Experience in cell biology and / or virology, including but not limited to : Cell culture, aseptic techniques, cell-based assays, viral tittering, viral genomic isolation, viral neutralization assays, ELISAs.
• Experience in developing fully custom or customizing commercially available NGS workflows.
• Proficiency in bioinformatics analysis of data from NGS experiments.
• Familiarity with automated high-throughput liquid-handling systems.
• Effective written and oral communication skills as well as presentation skills. Fluency in English.
• Must be detail oriented; possess problem solving skills, and the ability to handle multiple tasks.
• Able to efficiently manage uncertainty, changes in priorities and timeline restrictions.

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