Scope:
Supervision of up to 9 RAs/PhDs, leading collaborations for TCR mimic (TCRm) programs, growth potential for management track, will oversee and lead protein engineering for all modalities (TCRs, TCR mimics, Cancer Vaccines). Up to 30 % time spend in the lab.
Key Responsibilities:
1.) Discovery Research
Identification of TCRm compounds binding to pHLA complexes: development of workplans, definition of success criteria, identification and preclinical characterization of TCR mimic compounds.
- Support of external collaborations as team leader and alliance manager
- TCRm identification and optimization of TCRm based biotherapeutics
- Interaction with CROs
- Manufacturing of pHLA compounds
- Biophysical characterization of lead compounds
- Development of 3T internal TCRm platform, based on affinity maturation of TCRs
Continuous optimization of yeast display libraries
- Assay throughput, reproducibility
- Library diversity, composition,
2.) Program Development
TCR engineering: Protein engineering support for lead TCRs identified for T cell therapies with the goal to generate compounds with optimal therapeutic indexes (optimal efficacy and safety characteristics).
- Development of TCR libraries for rapid TCR lead optimization and selection
- Structure guided engineering of TCRs with highest target pHLA specificity
Protein engineering to advance TCRm based therapeutics
- Evaluation of different platforms to generate TCRm-CD3 bispecific compounds with optimal tumor selectivities (eg. IgG, VHH, other formats)
- Evaluation of optimal modality platform for biotherapeutic development of TCRm compounds
- Contributions to regulatory filings of biotherapeutics
3.) Presentations to management, collaborators, board and investors.
- Leading external collaborations with focus on TCRm identification
- Regular presentation in front of the board or investors
Background: 5 to 10 years of industry experience working in Molecular Biology, Protein Engineering, Biochemistry or similar. Track record in leading a protein engineering group and contributions to therapeutic compounds advancing to IND filings, clinical trials.
Relevant experience: engineering of IgGs, VHHs or other scaffolds. Phage and/or yeast display technology, mammalian library design and screening, high throughput screening of scFvs, VHHs, Biacore, structure guided protein engineering, interaction with CROs and other research organizations, FACS, T-cell assay development, TCR engineering, strong familiarity with Bioinformatics.
Technical skills: Biacore, FACS, High throughput screening of phage and yeast display libraries, generation and screening of antibody libraries, deep sequencing, and bioinformatics.