Faculty Position: T-Cell Engineering Scientist

** Responsibilities*
* ** Position Description*
* Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center in Florida invites applications for an open-rank faculty position for an accomplished and innovative T-Cell Engineering Scientist to join the expanding Cell Therapy Discovery and Translational Science Program. This strategic recruitment supports Mayo Clinic's commitment to advancing next-generation engineered T-cell therapies for cancer and selected immune-mediated diseases.

We seek a highly creative investigator with expertise in T-cell engineering, CAR-T development, TCR-based therapies, and Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) platforms to develop and translate novel cellular immunotherapy strategies. The successful candidate will lead efforts to identify and validate new T-cell targets, engineer enhanced CAR and TCR constructs, and optimize TIL-based therapeutic approaches with improved specificity, persistence, safety, and efficacy. This role will play a central part in accelerating translational immune cell therapy efforts, bridging discovery science with IND-enabling development and early-phase clinical trials.

** Strategic Role and Scientific Focus*
* The T-Cell Engineering Scientist will:

+ Lead discovery and validation of novel targets for CAR-T, TCR-engineered T cells, and TIL-based therapies across hematologic malignancies and solid tumors.

+ Develop strategies to enhance TIL expansion, persistence, functional fitness, and tumor reactivity, including genetic modification approaches to overcome exhaustion and immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments.

+ Engineer and optimize CAR constructs, co-stimulatory domains, synthetic circuits, safety switches, and multiplex gene editing strategies to enhance therapeutic performance.

+ Advance next-generation approaches such as armored CAR-T cells, logic-gated systems, dual-target strategies, universal/allogeneic platforms, and genetically enhanced TIL therapies.

+ Collaborate closely with genome editing scientists, tumor immunologists, translational investigators, GMP manufacturing teams, and clinical trial leaders to move engineered T-cell therapies into clinical testing.

+ Contributes to building scalable discovery pipelines for antigen identification, functional screening, and preclinical validation.

+ Participate in multidisciplinary team science initiatives across Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Mayo Clinic enterprise campuses in Rochester, Minnesota;
Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona.

The successful candidate will help shape an integrated T-cell therapy strategy encompassing CAR-T, TCR, and TIL platforms, strengthening Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center in Florida' leadership in immune cell therapy innovation.

** Research Environment*
* Mayo Clinic Florida provides a collaborative, multidisciplinary academic medical center environment with strategic investment in cancer immunotherapy and cell therapy translation. Faculty benefit from:

+ Established CAR-T and immune cell therapy clinical programs

+ Growing infrastructure supporting TIL therapy development and clinical implementation

+ State-of-the-art cell manufacturing and GMP facilities

+ Institutional core resources including genomics, single-cell sequencing, proteomics, bioinformatics, and advanced imaging

+ Disease-focused research centers supporting oncology and immune-mediated disease programs

+ Cross-campus collaboration opportunities with Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and Arizona

+ Dedicated support for regulatory strategy, IND-enabling studies, and early-phase clinical trial development

The selected candidate will join a rapidly expanding ecosystem designed to accelerate discovery-to-clinic translation of engineered T-cell therapies.

** Why Choose Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center?*
* With 440 members and 1500 aligned cancer physicians working in six Cancer Research Programs  _(Cancer Prevention, Survivorship & Control;
Cancer Risk Assessment, Early Detection & Interception;
Cancer Genomics, Signaling, & Metastasis;
Cancer Immunology & Immunotherapeutics; Novel Therapeutics & Therapeutic Modalities; Advanced Clinical Trials and Translational Sciences)_  and 15 Disease Groups focused on clinical trials, MCCCC is a global leader and represents the pinnacle of cancer care, research and education and training. Every year, across its three enterprise sites (Rochester, Minnesota; Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona; and Jacksonville, Florida), MCCCC physicians provide expert cancer diagnosis and treatment to more than 150,000 unique patients from across the nation and the globe.

MCCCC created one of the nation's first National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Cancer Center Research Programs focused on early cancer detection and interception:  _Cancer Risk Assessment, Early Detection, and Interception (REDI). The Center's other five transdisciplinary research programs include Cancer Prevention, Control, and Survivorship;
Cancer Genomics, Signaling, and Metastasis;
Cancer…