FL103 | Cambridge, MA Senior Scientist, Assay Development

What if… you could join an organization that creates, resources, and builds life sciences companies that invent breakthrough technologies to transform health care?

In today’s healthcare system, disease diagnosis often relies on invasive procedures, such as biopsies, which enable direct interrogation of cellular and tissue health at the suspected source of disease. Due to their invasiveness, cost, and general inconvenience to the patient, biopsies are often conducted after onset of symptomatic disease presenting one of the largest barriers to delivering interventions early in disease progression when they are likely to be most impactful.

Flagship Labs 103, Inc. is a privately held early-stage company that is building advanced technological and computational platforms to pioneer the detection of cellular dynamics from minimally invasive biospecimens that can be leveraged to connect individuals to the most effective interventions to prevent onset and progression of disease.

FL103 was founded by Flagship Pioneering, an innovation enterprise dedicated to originating and developing companies that invent breakthrough technologies that transform health care, agriculture, and sustainability. Since Flagship’s founding in 2000, the firm has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures including Moderna Therapeutics, Generate Biomedicines, and Indigo Agriculture.

Position Summary:

FL103 is seeking a highly motivated and experienced senior scientist to lead the design, development, optimization and validation of extracellular vesicle based in vitro assays to help diagnose health and disease. The successful candidate will be a driven, experienced scientist who is enthusiastic about developing state-of-the‑art techniques to pioneer the detection of low abundance biomarkers from minimally invasive biospecimens in a multiplex format.

The position will provide a unique opportunity to play a foundational role in the development of FL103’s innovative bioplatform.

Responsibilities:

• Optimize and troubleshoot ultrasensitive immunoassay protocols to detect EV markers
• Change assay reagents and components to optimize assay performance, driving increases in sensitivity and specificity
• Develop laboratory protocols and optimize workflows to build the foundation of FL103’s platform
• Maintain scientific and technical expertise through familiarity with scientific literature
• Coordinate with Contract Research Organizations (CROs) and external collaborators
• Communicate experimental results effectively through oral presentations and written reports, ensuring clear and concise dissemination of information to the FL103 team
• Help lead, mentor, and build experimental team

Qualifications:

• PhD in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology or a related discipline with 5+ years of post‑graduate experience (industry preferred)
• Experience in assay troubleshooting, validation and verification
• Clinical sample testing, including plasma and serum
• Demonstrated ability to be a thoughtful contributor to experimental design and data analysis
• Ability to manage multiple projects, working both independently and collaboratively within a dynamic team
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to present results and scientific data to the internal team and/or collaborators
• Enthusiastic about playing a pivotal role in building the foundation of a new biotech company

Preferred Qualifications

• General experience with extracellular vesicles
• Experience guiding products from concept through feasibility, validation and launch
• Experience working under a quality management system
• Demonstrated experience working with established standards related to development and validation of biomarker assays, including CLSI guidelines or working within a CLIA regulated environment

About Flagship

Flagship Pioneering is a biotechnology company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $90 billion in aggregate value. Many of the companies Flagship has founded have…