Associate Principal/Principal Scientist, LNP Delivery

About Earli

Earli exists to make cancer a benign experience. Earli does that by turning cancers against themselves: genetically forcing them to reveal themselves early, and then kill themselves - precisely and clearly distinguishable from benign lesions at early stages. Based on original technology from Stanford's renowned Gambhir lab, Earli designs genetic constructs that are injected intravenously that turn cancer cells against themselves. These programmable synthetic promoter-reporter sequences "flip on" like light switches only in dysregulated cancer cells and turn them into "factories." The cancer is forced to produce either an epitope "docking station" for imaging agents, or a cytokine for immune system activation against the tumor. Thus, Earli's platform enables immediate diagnosis and treatment of early cancers, rather than long-term observation that can lead to deadly metastatic recurrence.

Earli's synthetic target expression platform has evolved over five years of deep bioengineering. The system can now detect broad ranges of patient mutations, distinguish between malignant and benign lesions, and offer independence from often elusive natural biomarkers.

Earli has raised $82m in three rounds from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Emerson Collective, Stanford, Perceptive Advisors, Casdin Capital, Marc Benioff, Sands Capital, Breyer Capital, Tailwinds (American-Korean) etc.

Its Scientific Advisory Board includes Jim Allison (Nobel Laureate, Immuno Oncology), Bob Langer (MIT, co-founder Moderna), Phil Greenberg (Hutch, co-founder Juno), Pam Sharma (MD Anderson), Charlie Rudin (Sloan Kettering), Alan Ashworth (UCSF Cancer Center).

Who You Are

• You share our same sense of dedication, scientific passion and entrepreneurial spirit

• You work well in a fast-paced and extremely focused startup environment

• You are not only smart, but clever and constantly think outside the box

• You are able to make logical decisions in an instant when there is little time to evaluate

• You are a natural communicator and relationship builder

• You stay calm under high pressure and stress

• You have the ability to multi-task in a serious way, with an extreme attention to detail

• You become a representative of the core DNA of the company through who you are

The Position

Earli is seeking a highly motivated, creative, and scientifically rigorous Associate Principal Scientist or Principal Scientist to join the Delivery team. The successful candidate will play a key role driving research and discovery work to generate lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that deliver DNA to tumors.

Your Primary Responsibilities

• Spearhead new approaches to achieve extrahepatic delivery to tumors - i.e., generation of LNPs with novel compositions, utilizing active targeting approaches. Drive the design, development, and implementation of novel delivery strategies for the delivery of DNA to tumors.

• Conceive of and execute new biophysical characterization methods, analytical techniques, and cell-based assays to understand the performance of novel LNPs.

• Identify, prioritize, and introduce relevant emerging technologies for non-viral delivery to advance the existing technology platform.

• Leverage scientific expertise and understanding of company priorities to guide project decisions and initiate new research activities.

• Manage and interpret scientific data and use these insights to generate reports and presentations for internal and external stakeholders.

• Contribute to the invention, from conception through validation, of core intellectual property, and authorship of white papers and other external publications.

• Lead cross-functional collaboration between the Delivery team and Translational Biology team to evaluate the performance of LNPs in animal models.

Your Required Experience, Knowledge and Skill

• Ph.D. degree in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences, or a related discipline with 5+ years of experience in biotech industry.

• Deep expertise and hands-on experience in formulation, biophysical characterization, and mechanistic understanding of lipid-based gene delivery systems.

• Experience developing cell-based assays utilizing flow cytometry and microscopy-based readouts to understand mechanism of action for LNPs.

• Experience implementing high-throughput approaches to test LNPs in vivo (approaches using design-of-experiments [DoE] and/or barcoding).

• Have strong project management skills and can be flexible to shifting priorities.

• Proven ability to lead cross-functional collaborations and work effectively as a member of a multidisciplinary team.

• Have excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

• Think creatively and strategically with a strong problem-solving mentality.

• Experience with LNP scale-up including process development techniques and/or tangential flow filtration (TFF) is a plus.

• Experience managing junior scientists is a plus.

If interested in applying, please attach a CV or have a well-developed LinkedIn profile for us to be able to assess your background.

We look forward to hearing from you!