Staff Scientist - Immunotherapy and CAR T Cell Engineering

City of Hope; Duarte (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

City of Hope in Duarte, CA invites a Staff Scientist to advance pediatric cancer immunotherapy research in the Beckman Research Institute. The role focuses on CAR T cell biology, signaling, and translation toward improved therapies for children.

The candidate will design projects, lead collaborations, and contribute to manuscripts and grant proposals while mentoring junior staff and trainees in cutting-edge immunology techniques.

Qualifications

• PhD or doctoral-level degree or equivalent professional experience.
• Core competencies in cell and molecular biology, flow cytometry, protein biochemistry, and mouse work.
• Extensive prior experience in immunology or closely related field.

Responsibilities

• Design and lead projects to understand and augment CAR T cell function in various contexts.
• Coordinate lab tasks and mentor/train team members; contribute to manuscripts and grant applications; assemble reports.
• Maintain detailed logs of experimental design and data; analyze and synthesize results.

Skills

Cell biology

Molecular biology

Flow cytometry

Mouse work

Immunology

Education

PhD or equivalent

Job description

Join the Pediatric Immunotherapy Research Lab (PI: Leo Wang) in the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, where we use cutting-edge techniques to understand and engineer potent immune responses against pediatric cancers.

We are currently looking for a bright, ambitious, creative, and kind Staff Scientist with expertise and interest in fundamental immunology to join our group. We couple protein-focused molecular techniques with in vitro and in vivo disease models, as well as groundbreaking clinical trials, to understand how chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) signal and communicate with the endogenous immune system. We use this information to design solid-tumor targeted CAR effector cells with improved persistence and potency, as well as the ability to amplify the antitumor immune response.

As a successful candidate, you will:

• Design and lead projects focused on understanding and augmenting CAR T cell function in specific microenvironmental contexts, using canonical immune signaling and activation as a conceptual framework.
• Coordinate lab tasks and operations among multiple lab members, including mentoring, training, and oversight; providing conceptual, technical, and experimental assistance; contributing to manuscripts and grant applications; and assembling reports and presentations.
• Keep detailed and accurate logs of experimental design and primary data, analysis, and synthesis.
• Prepare data presentations and manuscripts for publication.
• Organize and maintain project workflow, both internally and in collaborations with other labs.

Your qualifications should include:

• The Staff Scientist must possess, at a minimum, a Ph.D. or other doctoral level degree, or equivalent professional experience.
• Core competencies include cell and molecular biology, flow cytometry, protein biochemistry, and mouse work.
• Extensive prior experience in immunology or a closely related field.

Preferred qualifications:

• Ph.D. or equivalent degree and 5 or more years of postdoctoral experience. Programming experience (R, Python).

City of Hope employees pay is based on the following criteria: work experience, qualifications, and work location.

City of Hope is an equal opportunity employer.