Faculty Position: T-Cell Cancer 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…