CGT Facility-IMCPL

About the role

Directs day-to-day laboratory operations while ensuring compliance with safety regulations and best practices. Works with, adapts, and installs scientific equipment in research laboratories. Develops complex projects and procedures independently. Manages inventory and equipment and performs budget functions. Writes grant applications and manuscripts independently.

Responsibilities

• Lead development and optimization of primary-cell isolation, selection, enrichment, activation, culture, expansion, harvest, and handling procedures.
• Evaluate cell populations derived from blood, bone marrow, tissues, and tumors, including T cells, TILs, dendritic cells, and other relevant immune populations.
• Assess how culture conditions, media, stimulation strategies, processing steps, and hold conditions affect yield, viability, phenotype, function, and manufacturing consistency.
• Support transduction, transfection, or electroporation development with appropriately qualified collaborators where required.
• Design studies that connect manufacturing conditions and process parameters with critical quality attributes.
• Establish appropriate sampling plans and in-process measurements, evaluate process variability, and support scale translation and comparability assessments.
• Use manufacturing and product-characterization data to identify improvements; collaborate with investigators to evaluate relationships with clinical outcomes when suitable data are available.
• Lead development, optimization, qualification, validation, execution, troubleshooting, and lifecycle management of molecular, cellular, biochemical, and functional methods.
• Establish controls, reference materials, system suitability criteria, and standardized data analysis procedures.
• Lead multiparameter panel design, sample preparation, staining, instrument setup, compensation, gating, assay controls, and reporting.
• Develop methods for identity, viability, purity, activation, differentiation, and memory phenotypes, including T-cell memory stem populations where relevant.
• Apply intracellular cytokine staining and CFSE-based proliferation methods.
• Provide technical leadership for sorting and isolation of defined or rare immune-cell subsets, with appropriate aseptic controls where required.
• Develop and optimize assays for T-cell activation, proliferation, cytokine release, target recognition, and real-time cytotoxicity.
• Apply ELISA, ELISpot, multiplex assays, ADCC, and other relevant immune-effector methods to product development and characterization.
• Support assessment of TCR specificity, cross-reactivity, alloreactivity, and tumor-reactive cell function where applicable.
• Translate relevant mechanistic assays into reproducible, practical potency methods suitable for QC implementation.
• Establish development plans, priorities, milestones, resource needs, and technical deliverables across assigned programs.
• Supervise and mentor assigned staff, coordinate multidisciplinary work, review scientific data, and communicate progress, risks, and recommendations to IMCPL leadership.
• Recommend analytical platforms, equipment, training, and external services needed to meet program objectives.
• Assist the QC Manager and Product Managers in developing and implementing product-specific processes, shared technology platforms, analytical tools, standardized workflows, and data analysis approaches supporting product development, manufacturing, and QC testing.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree (minimum education level required)
• Minimum 7 years of relevant experience (combination of education and relevant experience will be considered in lieu of education and/or experience requirement)

Skills

• Cell culture and process development (primary-cell isolation, selection, enrichment, activation, culture, expansion, harvest, handling)
• Product development and process characterization (design studies linking manufacturing conditions to critical quality attributes, sampling plans, in-process measurements, scale translation)
• Analytical development (molecular, cellular, biochemical, functional method development, qualification, validation, lifecycle management)
• Flow cytometry and cell sorting (multiparameter panel design, staining, instrument setup, compensation, gating, assay controls, reporting)
• Functional and immunological assays (T-cell activation, proliferation, cytokine release, target recognition, cytotoxicity, ELISA, ELISpot, multiplex, ADCC)
• Grant writing and manuscript preparation
• Laboratory management (inventory, equipment, budget)
• Safety compliance and best practices