Principal Scientist - In Vitro Pharmacology - Assay Development and Screening

Principal Scientist
- In Vitro Pharmacology
- Assay Development and Screening

In your role as Principal Scientist – In Vitro Pharmacology you will be responsible for development of cell-based assays for emerging targets and functional screening of drug candidates to guide candidate design and selection. You will work with diverse modalities: small molecules, peptides and proteins, drug conjugates, as well as occasionally oligonucleotides. You will contribute to early screening strategy and execution to ensure identification of hits and lead candidates with desired in vitro potency, efficacy and selectivity.

You will evaluate and implement new bioassay techniques and in vitro pharmacology protocols and recommend acquisition and application of instrumentation and technologies within high throughput screening and mechanistic biology. You will display subject matter knowledge within in vitro biology and pharmacology throughout early-stage drug discovery, with a solid understanding of the role of other scientific disciplines in applied drug research.

You will be responsible for developing, executing, and documenting experimental procedures and ensuring that data is interpreted, processed, and stored in line with FAIR data principles. As a member of various project teams, you will be responsible for driving activities as an individual contributor, with opportunities to serve as a project lead and/or subject-specific coordinator. You will be relied upon to set your own direction and work independently with minimal guidance from your manager or other senior colleagues, including hands-on responsibility for taking on challenging tasks where you will be expected to exhibit creativity and an ability to solve problems of high complexity.

To achieve this, you will conduct relevant research of primary scientific literature, internal records, and other databases, as well as draw upon your internal and external scientific network to obtain knowledge, advice, and/or experimental protocols. You will contribute to innovation by exploring cell signaling mechanisms and coming up with new ways of quantifying those in cell-based or cell-derived systems, identifying and evaluating emerging assay technologies, and developing novel screening tools and methodologies.

You may lead experiment teams consisting of other colleagues within and outside our department to achieve project goals. You will be responsible for setting experiment timelines to meet project deliverables, including data generation, analyses, and reporting. You may be called upon to provide input and training related to specific in vitro biology methods or technologies, and to develop, optimize, and draft protocols, study plans and reports.

Depending on the project objectives, you may be required to set up and/or manage collaborations with external partners, including CROs, biotech companies and/or academic research groups. You will be required to present ideas and data to your department, the research site, and/or global project teams. Depending upon business need or circumstance, you may be required to mentor or be shadowed by less experienced team members.

In your daily work, you will collaborate closely with scientists within the Chemical Biology team, other teams across our growing US R&D Hub, and global project teams. The working environment at Novo Nordisk is dynamic and innovative and involves interactions with colleagues from research sites in Denmark, UK, and China, with an excellent opportunity to establish a strong global scientific network.

Relationships Internal relationships include working closely with researchers and scientific leadership within Greater Boston R&D Hub and across global research sites and other areas and functions within Novo Nordisk. Individual may interact and represent department and/or project team with external research collaborators both academia- & industry-based when required. Reports to of the head of In Vitro Pharmacology. Individual Contributor: does not manage other employees or contingent workers;

however, the person might be tasked with coaching and/or supervising other team members. Essential Functions Advances research projects by applying broad knowledge of early drug discovery. Support target validation and maturation, conducts mode-of-action studies and high-throughput screening in close collaboration with colleagues from therapeutic areas, chemist, formulation scientists, data stewards and other stakeholders. Designs and executes early screening strategies to identify lead candidates with desired pharmacological profiles.

Develops, validates, and implements in vitro assay technologies from molecular design of genetically encoded biosensors through cell line engineering and assay validation. Stays updated on the latest scientific advancements and technologies; evaluates, sources and implements novel tools and methodologies suitable to study ligand binding, evaluate target engagement and characterize pharmacodynamic…