Advisor – In Vivo CAR Discovery

Advisor, Drug Discovery

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve.

This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it's work worth doing. If you're driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.

ORNA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company focused on circular RNA (oRNA) therapeutics. ORNA designs and delivers a new class of fully engineered oRNA to unlock the potential of RNA medicine to treat diseases anywhere in the body. Its oRNA transcripts offer meaningful advantages over traditional mRNA, including simplified production, improved formulation into lipid nanoparticles, and superior protein expression.

• Serve as the immunology subject-matter expert for the group's in vivo CAR programs — the resident authority on CAR biology, immune-cell function, and the determinants of a successful CAR product.
• Collaborate closely with lipid nanoparticle (LNP) and RNA delivery experts to define and refine optimal CAR product designs, contributing the immunology requirements that inform construct and delivery decisions while maintaining sufficient fluency in delivery considerations to interpret design rationale and partner effectively.
• Advance in vivo CAR strategies, including LNP – delivered CAR constructs — designing and running studies that evaluate in situ CAR generation, expression, and efficacy in disease-relevant models.
• Personally design and implement in vitro and in vivo assays to characterize CAR activity (potency, cytotoxicity, antigen specificity, and persistence), and interpret the data to drive construct optimization.
• Lead screening and down-selection across CAR candidate panels, defining the criteria, assays, and data packages used to rank constructs and prioritize leads for advancement.
• Translate complex in vitro and in vivo datasets into clear go/no-go recommendations and present them to senior governance and portfolio review forums.
• Serve as the discovery biology lead on cross-functional project teams, aligning LNP/delivery, protein engineering, translational, and DMPK partners around a shared scientific strategy.
• Mentor and develop scientists across the group, elevating technical rigor and immunological judgment; maintain external scientific leadership through publications, conferences, collaborations, and contributions to IP and partnering discussions.

PhD in Immunology, Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, or a closely related field

• Post-PhD experience in immunology research (industry or comparable academic/translational setting).
• Demonstrated track record of target identification and validation, evidenced by publications, patents, or pipeline contributions.
• Deep, hands-on expertise in immune cell biology and modern target-discovery approaches (e.g., functional genomics, single-cell technologies, primary human cell assays).
• Experience leading the biology workstream on a drug discovery program from target validation through candidate progression.
• Working knowledge of multiple therapeutic modalities (small molecule, antibody/biologics) and how target biology informs modality selection.
• Strong record of cross-functional influence and the ability to drive scientific decisions without direct authority.
• Disease-area depth in autoimmunity and/or inflammation.