Senior Scientist, In Vitro Cardiometabolic Disease

Our company's South San Francisco research laboratory is seeking a highly motivated, energetic, and skilled Senior Scientist (R3) with a strong in-vitro background in biology, biochemistry, or pharmacology to join the Cardio-Metabolic Disease (CMD) department. This is a hands-on, lab-facing role, providing in-vitro expertise to metabolic and endocrine disease-related exploratory and pipeline programs, with flexible skill sets to meet our current and future needs.

Responsibilities

• Design, perform, troubleshoot, document, analyze, and interpret in-vitro experiments, with minimal supervision, to support and/or lead multiple exploratory activities and pipeline projects.
• Develop and validate complex in-vitro models and establish sets of in-vitro assays, suitable for the mechanistic investigation of potential targets, as well as evaluation of therapeutic candidates, for metabolic and endocrine diseases.
• Work independently in executing tightly controlled experiments and presenting high-quality data to multi-disciplinary project teams.
• Identify and implement opportunities to reduce timelines, improve throughput, and increase operational efficiency.
• Stay current with emerging scientific and technological advances relevant to metabolic and endocrine diseases.
• Contribute to the internal and external scientific visibility of the Obesity and Metabolism Group through presentations, publications, and scientific engagement.

Requirements

Education: Bachelor’s (with 7+ years), or Master’s (with 4+ years) in Biology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, or related discipline with the indicated years of relevant industry experience.

• Experience in more than one of the following areas: target identification, target validation, quantitative assay development, metabolic diseases, neuro-endocrine diseases.
• Expertise in working with more than one type of disease-relevant human primary cell or cell line (e.g. adipocytes, hepatocytes, myocytes, osteocytes, endocrine cells) in both routine and complex assay systems.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and competing priorities while maintaining scientific rigor and attention to detail.
• Professional level of communication of data, with skills in collaboration and cross-functional partnership.
• Deep scientific curiosity and analytical mindset with a drive to understand biology and mechanism of action, while aligning their work with project goals and business needs.

Preferred Experience and Skills

• Experience working with GPCR targets, and developing quantitative, 96-well and 384-well plate cell-based assays.
• Mastered several standard biochemistry and molecular biology techniques (e.g. mRNA isolation, qRT-PCR, ELISA, HTRF, AlphaLISA, western-blotting).
• Expertise in developing metabolic disease-relevant in-vitro phenotypic and functional assays (e.g. calcium flux, cAMP/IP1 accumulation, beta-arrestin, receptor dimerization, glucose uptake, lipid uptake, lipolysis, Seahorse, high-content imaging through cell-painting or immunofluorescence staining).
• Vast experience in titrating various modes of target modulation (e.g. small molecules, peptides, antibodies, antibody-peptide conjugates, siRNA, viral-vectors).
• Demonstrated ability to employ AI agents and LLMs for hypothesis generation, literature synthesis, experimental design, complex data analysis, or competitive intelligence.

Skills

Required Skills:

• Assay Development
• Biochemical Assays
• Cell Culture Techniques
• Drug Target Identification
• High Content Screening
• Immunoassays
• Immunology
• Metabolic Diseases
• Molecular Biology
• Neuroendocrinology
• Primary Cell Culture
• Protein Purifications
• Quantitative Assay
• Target Validation

Preferred Skills:

• G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs)
• High-Throughput Screening

Pay

The salary range for this role is $131,400.00 - $206,800.00. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs. The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

Benefits

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at Merck Compensation and Benefits.