Senior Scientist, In Vitro Cardiometabolic Disease

MSD • South San Francisco, CA

6d • $131,400 - $206,800 • Onsite

About The Position

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. The individual will independently design, execute, analyze, and interpret complex in-vitro studies to support target identification, validation, and therapeutic development. The successful candidate will also possess a strong sense of intellectual curiosity to expand their technical expertise at the bench, as well as effective written and interpersonal communication skills to explain complex experiments and biological concepts to a broader scientific team.

Requirements

• 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.

Nice To Haves

• 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, AphaLISA, Our company, 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.

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.

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