Part-time Scientist, In Vivo Cancer Biology

• Part-time position
• Time commitment: ~15-25 hours/week (flexible)
• 430 E 29th Street, New York, NY

Waypoint Bio is a biotech startup building the next generation of cell therapies for solid tumors. Traditional cell therapy preclinical development faces a trade-off between in vitro approaches that are fast but inaccurate, and in vivo approaches that are accurate but slow and expensive. Using our proprietary platform combining spatial biology, pooled screening, in silico protein engineering, and machine learning, we can obtain both depth and breadth when screening cell therapy candidates – speed without compromising on in vivo accuracy.

Our team is highly collaborative, interdisciplinary, and shares the mission of developing novel immune cell therapies to benefit patients' lives.

We are seeking a highly motivated part-time scientist with hands-on experience in mouse models to support Waypoint’s platform and therapeutic programs. This role is ideal for candidates who thrive in a fast-paced startup environment, and are motivated to gain deep, hands-on research experience.

In this role, you will help set up mouse cancer models used to evaluate cell therapy efficacy and safety. You will work closely with Waypoint’s R&D team to ensure experiments are robust, reproducible, and clinically relevant. If time permits, you will also work on cell culture and molecular biology experiments.

• Help set up and run clinically-relevant mouse models of solid tumors.
• Perform all steps of in vivo mouse studies to assess CAR T efficacy in CDX models (including injections and surgeries for tumor implantation, tumor growth measurements, and harvesting organs for subsequent ex vivo analysis).
• Use mouse cancer models to apply Waypoint’s pooled CAR-T screening platform in vivo.
• Establish new in vivo cancer models and improve the performance and accuracy of existing models.
• May also perform cell culture & molecular biology experiments.
• Actively engage in prioritizing key milestones and developing appropriate timelines.
• Provide conceptual input on in vivo experimental design and interpretation in a team setting.
• Keep detailed scientific records in electronic lab notebook.

• Bachelor’s degree in biology, immunology, genetics, cancer biology, or related field.
• At least 1 year of academic or industry experience working on mouse models in a biology or drug development setting.
• Technical expertise in mouse injection methods (e.g. IV, SubQ, or IP), subcutaneous tumor implantation and measurements, organ harvesting, animal phenotyping, and adherence to IACUC protocols.
• Superb organizational abilities and precise scientific record keeping in electronic lab notebooks.

• Experience using luciferase reporters for live-animal imaging.
• Knowledge of the interplay between the immune system and the tumor microenvironment.
• Expertise in evaluating cancer therapies in mouse models, especially cell therapies (CAR-T, CAR-NK, TCR-T) or antibody therapies.