Sr. Scientist, Assay Development - Neuroscience Biomarker Discovery

Merck • Boston, MA

2d • $106,200 - $167,200 • Onsite

About The Position

Our Company’s Neuroscience Therapeutic area is seeking a Senior Scientist (R3) to join our Neuroscience Biomarker Discovery Team. The Neuroscience Biomarker Discovery group at our company's Research Labs (Boston) is accountable for designing and executing biomarker strategies across our company's Neuroscience portfolio, spanning from early preclinical discovery to early-stage clinical trials. The group’s mission is to bridge target disease biology, advanced mechanistic modeling, and computational analysis to formulate novel biomarker panels. Ultimately, this group generates the data packages and clinical biomarker strategies required to drive crucial pipeline Go/No-Go governance decisions and patient stratification for Neurodegeneration (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s) and Pain programs.
Reporting to the Neuroscience Biomarker discovery lead at our company, this individual will play a pivotal role in assay development and generating data in support of biomarker strategies from preclinical models to human clinical and observational studies for Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and Pain.
This is a lab-based position located in Boston. You will lead the design, development, optimization, and automation of complex, high-dimensional assays to process human biofluids and tissues, generating the robust datasets required for pipeline Go/No-Go decisions and patient stratification.

Requirements

• Master’s in molecular biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience, Immunology, Neurology, or related STEM fields with minimum 6 years of relevant industry experience OR PhD in molecular biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience, Immunology, Neurology, or related STEM fields with hands-on relevant experience.
• Demonstrated expertise in biomarker assay development and implementation in large scale human cohorts and samples from in vivo/in vitro studies.
• Extensive, hands-on expertise in developing de novo ultra-sensitive, multiplexed immunoassays (e.g. O-link), coupled with direct practical experience in Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) workflows.
• Proven hands-on expertise in programming and implementing laboratory automation tools and liquid handlers to scale high-throughput immunoassay and/or NGS-based datasets generation.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and thrive in a highly collaborative and cross-functional environment.
• Demonstrated experience with clinical assay validation parameters (accuracy, precision, reproducibility) and regulatory guidelines (FDA/ICH) for biomarker qualification.

Nice To Haves

• Prior experience working in the Neuroscience therapeutic area, particularly in Neurodegeneration (eg. AD or PD).
• Prior expertise in implementing end-to-end NGS based workflows using the Illumina platform.
• Experience in one or more of the following techniques (flow cytometry panel design and data analysis, analysis of extracellular vesicles, NGS workflows, single-cell RNA sequencing).
• Adept at or strong willingness to leverage AI tools for conducting data quality controls and sound statistical analysis of large-scale datasets.

Responsibilities

• Plan, design, execute and deliver high-quality biomarker datasets from observational human and preclinical samples in support of pipeline programs in Neuroscience at our company.
• Serve as a subject matter expert and lead the design, development, and qualification of fit-for-purpose biomarker methods. This includes driving our workhorse ultra-sensitive immunoassays while spearheading the adoption of high-plex NGS-based proteomic platforms (e.g., Olink).
• Partner closely with data scientists within and outside the team to ensure automated workflows yield high-fidelity data suitable for mixed-effects modeling and multi-omics integration. Collaborate with Mechanistic Validation scientists to support in vitro, in vivo readouts.
• Work on-site in the lab and summarize data and status of results with internal and external partners.
• Participate and contribute to the generation of data packages that enable key governance decisions for pipeline programs.
• Take the lead in identifying, piloting, and automating novel high-throughput methodologies for biomarker discovery (e.g., implementing robotic liquid handling, flow-cytometry based immune-cell profiling using single cell sequencing in human and mouse samples, or extracellular vesicles).

Benefits

• medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family)
• retirement benefits, including 401(k)
• paid holidays
• vacation
• compassionate and sick days

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior