Company Summary:

Tessera Therapeutics is pioneering Gene Writing™— a new biotechnology designed to offer scientists and clinicians the ability to write small and large therapeutic messages into the genome, thereby curing diseases at their source. Gene Writing holds the potential to become a new category in genetic medicine, building upon recent breakthroughs in gene therapy and gene editing while eliminating important limitations in their reach, utilization, and efficacy. Tessera Therapeutics was founded by Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences innovation enterprise that conceives, resources, and develops first-in-category companies to transform human health and sustainability.

Position Summary:

Tessera Therapeutics is seeking a motivated and creative Senior Scientist to join a team of scientists and engineers focused on upstream process development of mRNA production. This will include, but not limited to, mRNA production process development, process scale-up, process execution to make material for preclinical studies. This individual will join a dynamic, rapidly growing, and highly collaborative team that is driving the mRNA process development for a novel platform of Gene Writing.

Key Responsibilities:

• Support the development of in-house mRNA production capabilities, with an emphasis on establishing a scalable/transferable process for producing high-purity material.
• Execute experimental plans for screening, optimization, and scale-up efforts for mRNA synthesis, and purification.
• Use DoE principles to optimize and develop advanced in vitro transcription process that is robust and scalable.
• Contribute to development of next-generation mRNA design and synthesis.
• Contribute to advancement of Tessera’s RNA platform with innovative process solutions.
• Assist in the development and qualification of reliable scale down and scale up models for high-throughput screening experiments.
• Support the generation of preclinical mRNA high quality material generation.
• Troubleshoot lab workflows and maintain equipment.
• Provide high quality results and documentation in electronic lab notebooks.
• Write protocols and technical reports to support drug substance and drug product clinical development.
• Collaborate effectively with formulation and analytical development teams.

Basic Qualifications:

• PhD with 5+ years of relevant experience. A degree in either Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, or Biological Sciences.
• Technical understanding and experience in biopharmaceutical process development including mRNA/ protein synthesis, and purification is required.
• Hand on experience with nucleic acids, enzyme kinetics, PCR, plasmid processing, and standard analytical techniques for macromolecules is required.
• Experience with DNA template design, DNA sequencing data analysis and alignment using bioinformatics tools is preferred.
• Experience with process scale up using bioreactors is preferred.
• Experience with protein expression, purification in E. coli and/ or mammalian systems is a plus.
• Hands on experience with in vitro transcription and mRNA purification technologies is preferred.
• Track record of completing deliverables within specified timelines.
• Eager to work with highly skilled and dynamic teams in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial, and technical setting.
• The successful candidate should be collaborative, communicative, and passionate about working with lipid nanoparticles leading to mediate the next generation of genetic medicines.

More About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category life sciences companies to transform human health and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has, through its Flagship Labs unit, applied its unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in over $50B in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $2.2B in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $18B of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 41 transformative companies, including Axcella Health (NASDAQ: AXLA), Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Indigo Ag, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ: KLDO), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology, Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Sigilon Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SGTX).