Job Description:
Palleon Pharmaceuticals is seeking a highly motivated individual to help develop novel therapeutics to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases. This scientist will play a key role in exploring novel biology, performing target validation, and contributing to the discovery and development of novel immunotherapies. The successful candidate will have a strong background in immunology or cancer biology and will be able to work independently and effectively in a collaborative team environment.
Position Responsibilities:
- Design and implement molecular, cellular, immunological, and genomics experiments for target discovery and validation.
- Design, develop, and optimize biochemistry and cell-based assays for lead discovery and optimization.
- Propose hypothesis-driven experiments based on internal data and published findings, and make data-driven decisions.
- Perform complex experiments independently, following best practices and generating consistent high-quality results.
- Analyze and interpret data, troubleshoot, and document experiments.
- Manage external CROs that are performing preclinical pharmacology studies.
- Facilitate key project decisions by delivering data in a timely manner.
- Work independently and collaboratively in a team environment.
- Keep up-to-date with relevant literature.
- Communicate and present findings effectively at project meetings.
Qualifications:
- Ph.D. in immunology, molecular and cellular biology, or cancer biology with hands-on experience in immunology or cancer immunology in a relevant academic or industrial setting, and a proven track record of publications.
- Hands-on experience in a wide range of ex vivo and in vitro experiments, including basic cellular and molecular biology, primary immune cell culture and functional assays, multicolor flow cytometry, and ELISA.
- Ability to creatively solve complex problems and independently design and execute well-controlled experiments.
- Willingness to adapt to a fast-paced work environment, and ability to work both independently and collaboratively within project teams.
- Ability to work flexibly and reliably on several concurrent research projects with good attention to detail, and willingness to adjust plans/priorities as needed.
- Strong organizational, interpersonal, and communication skills.
- Experience with data analysis software, such as FlowJo and GraphPad Prism.
- Hands-on experience isolating, phenotyping, and manipulating primary human and murine immune cells, and performing downstream analyses such as activation, proliferation, differentiation, cytotoxicity, co-culture assays, and target cell killing is preferred.
- Hands-on experience with the design and interpretation of various in vivo preclinical models of cancer or inflammatory diseases is preferred.
- Deep knowledge and expertise in T cell immunology, innate immunology, immunometabolism, or tumor microenvironment is a plus.
- Experience using functional annotation tools, genomics, or proteomics databases for target identification and prioritization is a plus.
Who We Are:
Palleon Pharmaceuticals, co-founded by Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi, is a biotechnology company pioneering glyco-immunology drug development to transform the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases. The Company’s proprietary platforms overcome technical barriers unique to glycobiology to enable drug discovery, patient selection, and indication prioritization to de-risk clinical development. The company’s lead program in oncology, E-602, is a first-in-class, glyco-immune checkpoint inhibitor which restores antitumor immunity by enzymatically degrading immunosuppressive sialoglycans on hypersialylated tumors and immune cells. It is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial. Palleon has a rich pipeline of additional drug candidates including several advancing toward IND-enabling studies.
