Senior Bioconjugation Process Scientist

Abzena; Bristol Township (Bucks County); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Abzena Bristol is seeking a Bioconjugation Process Development Senior Scientist to lead downstream development activities supporting biotherapeutic conjugates, vaccines and related products. The role emphasizes hands-on optimization, scale-up and collaboration with internal and client teams in a regulated environment.

You will conduct chromatographic purifications, filtration steps and analytical characterization (HPLC/LC-MS), author technical documentation, and supervise a technical team to

Qualifications

• PhD or BS/MS in biochemical sciences or bio-engineering with industry experience (>1 year + PhD, >3 years + MS/BS) in biotherapeutic development or bioconjugation.
• Experience in preparative purification of biological molecules (antibodies, carrier proteins, viruses, viral vectors, or other biological molecules).
• Expertise in normal flow filtrations and tangential flow filtrations (TFF, UF/DF).
• Knowledge of strategies for the optimization of bioprocesses and experimental design (DoE).
• Thorough hands-on experience with preparative chromatography systems (AKTA Pilot, AKTA Ready, AKTA Explorer, etc.), and manual or automated TFF skids.
• Expertise with quantitative determination of scalable process parameters for normal flow filtrations, tangential flow filtrations, and preparative chromatographic separations.
• Knowledge of cGMP manufacturing operations and GxP principles.
• Strong knowledge of bioconjugation reactions, techniques and approaches.
• Experience with protein bioanalytical techniques (HPLC, LC‑MS, UV‑spectrophotometry, etc.)

Responsibilities

• Lead bioconjugation PD development activities for Bristol operations.
• Operate in compliance with Abzena's policies and procedures.
• Communicate effectively with clients, supervisors, colleagues and staff.
• Participate effectively as a team player in all aspects of Abzena's business.
• Adhere to quality standards set by regulations and Abzena policies, procedures, and mission.
• Perform other duties as assigned.
• Contribute to assigned laboratory operations including instrument and equipment operations, material shipment preparation, consumables procurement.
• Focus on developing downstream conjugation bioprocesses to manufacture conjugated biotherapeutics including antibody-drug conjugates, conjugate vaccines, protein-oligonucleotide conjugates, peptide-protein conjugates, chelator-antibody conjugates, etc.
• Work collaboratively in the development, optimization, and scale-up of bioconjugation reactions, purification steps, and characterization approaches for conjugate biotherapies.
• Hands‑on execution of chromatographic purifications (affinity, hydrophobic interaction, and ion exchange chromatography), membrane filtrations (normal and tangential flow filtrations), buffer and solution preparation, conjugation reaction work‑up.
• Perform, develop and optimize bioanalytical characterization (HPLC, UPLC, LC‑MS, MALDI, MALS, colorimetric assays, etc.) of bioconjugate products.
• Authoring and review of relevant documentation including laboratory notebooks, process development reports, protocols, batch records, SOPs, technical presentations.
• Maintain strong technical understanding of advancements in bioconjugation/bioprocessing through literature searches and review.
• Serve independently as bioconjugation PD technical lead and subject‑matter expert for internal and external project communications.
• Management and supervision of technical team line reports.

Skills

Bioconjugation PD

Downstream development

cGMP manufacturing

AKTA chromatography

DoE design

Protein analytics

Education

PhD in biochemical sciences

BS/MS in bio-engineering

Tools

AKTA System

HPLC/UPLC

LC-MS

UV-Vis

TFF/UF-DF

Job description

Abzena Bristol is seeking a Bioconjugation Process Development Senior Scientist to lead downstream development activities supporting biotherapeutic conjugates, vaccines and related products. The role emphasizes hands-on optimization, scale-up and collaboration with internal and client teams in a regulated environment.

You will conduct chromatographic purifications, filtration steps and analytical characterization (HPLC/LC-MS), author technical documentation, and supervise a technical team to