Associate Director, Conjugate Chemistry

Company Summary:

Serif Biomedicines, Inc. is a privately held, early-stage biotechnology company developing a novel approach to gene therapy that can address currently untreatable diseases.

Serif Biomedicines was founded by Flagship Pioneering, an innovation enterprise that conceives, creates, resources, and grows first-in-category life sciences companies.

Flagship Pioneering has created over 100 groundbreaking companies over the past twenty years, all of which are pioneering novel and proprietary biological, industrial, and engineering approaches to solve major needs in human health and sustainability. These companies include Moderna (MRNA), Syros Pharmaceuticals (SYRS), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MCRB), Generate Biomedicines, Tessera Tx, Evelo Biosciences (EVLO), and Indigo Agriculture.

The role

We are seeking an outstanding Associate Director, to join us in ideating and building the next generation of Programmable Medicines and lead of team of talented scientists. We're looking for strong scientific leadership skills, a strong drive to innovate, and deep domain experience in development of targeted lipid nanoparticles. More broadly, we're looking for an individual who brings scientific rigor, passion for leadership and mentoring of a diverse team, intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm, and a desire to innovate in a highly collaborative environment. This individual will have the opportunity to work in a dynamic and fast-paced entrepreneurial environment, working as part of a highly motivated and growing team.

Key responsibilities

• Lead lipid nanoparticle (tLNP) design, development, and formulation; specifically with respect to binder selection, characterization, and conjugation chemistry.

• • Deep experience with conjugation chemistry development, scaling, and translation
  • Expertise defining binder composition and characteristics for use in tLNP therapeutics, and deep experience in driving their selection and functionalization
  • Proven experience scaling tLNPs compositions in lockstep with development progressing to IND
  • Experienced in micro- to mid-scale LNP formulation using microfluidics platforms (Nanoassemblr etc) and familiarity with small scale DOEs to assess protocol's effects on yields and particle morphology
  • LNP purification and QC profiling and method development (DLS, HPLC/CAD, LCMS, encapsulation efficiency assays) especially with respect the conjugation reaction and the final tLNP product
  • Familiarity with targeted LNP and nanocarriers for cell-specific delivery
• Deep understanding of molecular biology and nucleic acid therapeutics. In this role, you will strongly interface with multiple departments, and you should have a general understanding of molecular biology, scale-up challenges, and deliver for in vivo studies.
• Proven track record of leadership and mentoring in a scientific setting. In this role, you will serve as a team lead, guiding a talented group of scientists through complex, cross-functional projects. You should be able to coach and develop team members, foster collaboration across departments, and provide clarity and direction in fast-moving situations.

Who you are

• Technical expert: Your Ph.D. is in chemistry, chemical engineering, biochemistry or biomedical engineering, and you have 5-8 years of industry experience with focus on nucleic acid chemistry innovation, lipid synthesis and purification, and lipid nanoparticle formulation.
• Experienced manager and team leader: you have managed a team of research associates and junior scientists. You're passionate about being a mentor and creating an efficient and collaborative team founded in passion for challenging science and superior attention to experimental details.
• Mission-driven scientist: You are a deep scientific expert in lipid nanoparticle and nucleic acid formulation but want a team-centric environment as fast paced as you are. You have an unquenchable spirit to build something new that will create huge impact for the world.
• Relentless pioneer: You thrive in new and unknown territory - capable of charting comprehensive but actionable plans, executing rapidly and iteratively to make progress, and reliable in delivering decisive readouts on time.
• Team player: You flourish in collaborative work environments with other highly skilled individuals. You readily support your colleagues' challenges & celebrate their victories.
• Effective communicator: You not only understand the science but are capable of conveying technical information in a clear, concise, and decisive manner.

Location: Cambridge, MA

Values and Behaviors:

Flagship is an experiment in institutional, entrepreneurial, and innovation practiced in the context of a small company with an insurgent mindset. We are seeking individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit, strong communication skills, and comfort in working in and contributing to a dynamic and cross-functional team environment.

At Flagship, we recognize there is no perfect candidate. If you have some of the experience listed above but not all, we encourage you to apply anyway. Experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way. We are dedicated to building diverse and inclusive teams and look forward to learning more about your unique background. The level of the role will be commensurate with the education and years of experience of the identified candidates.

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