Scientist, Antibody Expression and Purification

AstraZeneca is a global, science-led, patient-focused biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development, and commercialisation of prescription medicines for some of the world’s most serious diseases. But we’re more than one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies.

At AZ, we’re proud to have an exceptional workplace culture that encourages innovation and collaboration. Here, employees are empowered to express diverse perspectives – and made to feel valued, energized and rewarded for their ideas and creativity. AZ is a place where passionate people can immerse themselves in their work and make significant contributions to scientific excellence and medicines – does this describe a place where you would like to work?

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 most cutting-edge technology and lab spaces, all designed to inspire collaboration and cross-functional science. We believe employees benefit from 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 happy and healthy. This includes a fitness center, employee healthcare clinic, electric vehicle charging stations, dry cleaning, full-service cafeteria and copy center. This is where you’ll find newly-designed, activity-based work spaces to suit a variety of working styles while increasing collaboration between teams.

SCIENTIST, ANTIBODY EXPRESSION AND PURIFICATION

We are looking for a highly motivated and talented protein biochemist with quality mindset to join our Biologics Expression Team (BET) team. The successful candidate will play a critical role in a dynamic group responsible for performing expression and purification of a wide variety of antibodies, multi-specifics, and complex modality biologics. He/She will be a key player in providing high quality, well-characterized proteins to support biologics discovery across multiple therapeutic indications. The successful candidate will be a well-organized and a highly productive scientist that can design and execute experiments efficiently, analyze, interpret, and present data to multidisciplinary project teams.

AstraZeneca is an exciting company with long-standing tradition of excellence in drug discovery that offers a fantastic culture and great opportunities to enhance your skills and grow your career. At AstraZeneca, we put patients first and strive to meet their unmet needs worldwide. Working here means being entrepreneurial, thinking big and 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, then you’re our kind of person.

Responsibilities

• Perform expression and purification of mono- and multi-specific antibodies and complex modalities fusion proteins from sub-milligram to gram scale to support antibody discovery, characterization, and pre-clinical validation of leads.

• Purification of recombinant proteins and antibodies using affinity-based and/or conventional chromatographic separation techniques; use of automated purification platforms including AKTA.

• Perform biologics quality assessment utilizing a variety of techniques, such as CE-SDS, SEC-HPLC, endotoxin assay, etc.

• Proven ability to work independently, effectively plan and organize work activities and prioritize task completion to meet project deadlines.

• Collaborate and work with a diverse group of scientists across all therapeutic areas to ensure timely progress of research projects.

• Maintain complete and updated records in electronic lab notebook.

Required Skills

• Bachelor’s with 3+ years or Masters with 1+ years of experience in Biologics production at Biotech/Pharma industry

• Extensive hands-on experience with transient mammalian expression (HEK293 and CHO) and purification of mono- and bi-specific antibodies, Fab fragments, scFv, VHH, and various antibody-fusion formats.

• Demonstrated proficiency with various modes of chromatography, including affinity, IEX, mixed mode, HIC, and SEC. Deep and current knowledge of resigns, membranes and suppliers.

• Extensive hands-on experience with chromatography instrumentation as AKTA. Experience with automation is preferred.

• Strong protein characterization and QC skills including analytical SEC, CE-SDS, endotoxin assays, etc.

• Proven ability to work independently, effectively plan and organize work activities, and prioritize task completion to meet project deadlines in a fast-paced industrial environment.

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, ability to collaborate and communicate across disciplines.