Scientist

Do you have a passion forScience? Would you like to apply yourexpertisetoimpacta company that followsthe scienceand turns ideas into life changing medicines? Then AstraZeneca might be the one for you!

At AstraZeneca, we put patients first and strive to meet their unmet needs worldwide. Working here means being entrepreneurial, thinkingbigand working together to make the impossible a reality. If you are swift to action, confident to lead, willing to collaborate, and curious about what science can do, thenyou’reour kind of person.

About AstraZeneca in Gaithersburg, MD:

Our Gaithersburg, Maryland facility creates life-changing medicines for people around the world. This campus employs more than 3,500 experts in our field and is only a short drive from Washington, DC. This modern and vibrant scientific campus is the home of R&D and Oncology in the US. Here, we play host to some of the mostcutting-edgetechnology and lab spaces, all designed to inspire collaboration and cross-functional science. We believe employeesbenefitfrom being challenged and inspired at work. We are dedicated to creating a culture of inclusion and collaboration.

The Gaithersburg site offers a variety of amenities to help boost productivity and help keep our employees stay happy and healthy. This includes a fitness center, employee healthcare clinic, electric vehicle charging stations, dry cleaning, full-servicecafeteriaand copy center. This is whereyou’llfindnewly-designed, activity-basedwork spacesto suit a variety of working styles while increasing collaboration between teams.

Summary of the Group

Biologics Engineering (BE)is responsible forthe discovery and optimization of next generation biologics to create biological drug candidates for all key therapeutic areas such as oncology, respiratory and inflammation, cardiovascular,renaland metabolic diseases.We'reconstantly pushing the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medicines to patients, with a passion for the development of in-housebiologicsdiscovery platforms and novel drug modalities to address unmet medical needs.

Main Duties & Responsibilities

We areseekinga skilled and highly motivated Scientist to enhance our High Throughput Production & Screening (HTPS) capabilities of biologics. The successful candidate will play a critical role in a dynamic group responsible for high-throughput cloning, expression & purification of antibody therapeutics on amicrogram-to-milligramscale and be an advocate forutilizingvarious automation platforms. The selected individual will be a well-organized and a highly productive scientist that can design and execute experiments efficiently, as well as analyze,interpretand present data to multidisciplinary project teams

• Collaborate and work with a diverse group of scientists across all therapeutic areas to ensuretimelyprogress in research projects.

• Execute high-throughput cloning,productionand purification of protein therapeutics from mammalian expression systems using process automation and liquid handling robotics.

• Collaborate with automation engineers to integrate liquid handling robotics and high-throughput analytics into production pipelines.

• Biochemical,biophysicaland functional profiling of antibodies and recombinant antibody fragments.  

• Ability to solve process development problems and implement improved procedures.

Education & Experience Requirements 

• Master's degree with hands-on experience in antibody engineering, cloning and expression, or protein characterization (e.g., UPLC, mass spectrometry)+1 YOE

• Bachelor's degree with4+ years of relevant industry or academic research experience

Required Skills

• Expertisein protein purification techniques and in vitro analytical methods for protein characterization, including SEC, SDS-PAGE, HPLC, ELISA, and BLI.

• Proven experience in the expression, purification, and comprehensive biochemical/biophysical characterization of various antibody formats (e.g., IgG, Fab, scFv,bispecifics).

• Knowledgeinoptimizingand troubleshooting automation techniques, with hands-on experience designing automated workflows.

• Ability to follow well established SOP’s, effectively plan and organize work activities and prioritize task completion to meet project deadlines. 

Desired Skills

• Experience in tissue cultureteftherchniquesandprotein characterization assays.

• Experience working with multiple antibody formats, troubleshoot common downstream challenges such as low recovery,aggregationand purities.

• Automation experience with liquid handlers,Greenbutton Go and otherplatformsa plus.

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills as well as the ability to work within teams.

• Goodwritten and verbal communication skills and effective presentation of complex scientific data to cross-functional and senior management.