Senior Scientist I - Peptide and Macrocycle Chemistry

About the Department                                                                                                                                               

As part of the establishment of our R&D Hub in greater Boston, Novo Nordisk is growing its efforts within Chemical Biology. A cornerstone of this is an expansion of our capabilities in peptide chemistry to support the validation of drug targets and advance drug research programs that address unmet needs within a broad range of serious chronic diseases. Building on our success in delivering treatments for diabetes, obesity, and other chronic and rare diseases, we are growing our teams and technological capabilities to be able to explore new drug targets and pursue the next generation of novel therapies across a range of modalities.

In growing our presence in the greater Boston area via our R&D Hub, we seek to bring together the 100-year heritage and experience of Novo Nordisk with the unparalleled innovation eco-system found in Boston. You will join and help build a vibrant and science-focused team of researchers where innovation is at the core. Chemical Biology sits within Small Molecule and Cross Modality Research (SM&CMR), which is a CVP area within Therapeutics Discovery and Accelerated Execution (TDAE). This is a key part of our Research and Early Development (R&ED) organization, which thrives on exploring new drug modalities, innovating screening and characterization approaches, and enhancing delivery technologies to support projects across all therapeutic areas. We are an interdisciplinary team comprised of peptide chemists, protein engineers, biologists, and assay development and screening specialists, and we are currently expanding our peptide chemistry team to help drive early research programs from idea to lead candidate.

We are based in newly established lab facilities in Lexington and co-located with target discovery and early drug research groups. As part of a team of leading scientists and innovators, you will bring your own ideas and collaborate with others to develop the next generation of medicines. It’s ground-breaking work with the promise of improving the lives of millions of people with chronic diseases. If you want to make a difference, join us in pioneering research that can achieve a global impact.

The Position

In your role as Senior Scientist I - Peptide and Macrocycle Chemistry, you will work closely with a highly skilled team of peptide medicinal chemists and multi-disciplinary project teams to support peptide drug discovery and lead optimization activities. As a recognized expert in peptide and macrocycle medicinal and synthetic chemistry, you will help mature ideas into proof-of-concept studies and drive research projects from PoC to lead candidate selection. As a recognized subject matter expert, you will demonstrate a high degree of independence, creativity, and scientific acumen to tackle highly complex problems. As an experienced scientist with significant prior work in applied drug research, you will propose solutions and experiments that demonstrate an understanding not only of your own area of expertise, but also that of therapy area and modality strategy and long-term business needs. You will take on project leadership and technical coordination roles, ensuring that experiments are planned and executed, project deliverables are met successfully and on time, and stakeholder relationships are properly managed. Along the way, you will keep excellent records to ensure data integrity and reproducibility and communicate experimental results to other colleagues in the peptide chemistry team and to diverse project teams. You will help evaluate external technologies and assets and identify opportunities that add value or meet critical business needs. You will have opportunities to engage in external innovation, including proposing and managing external collaborations with academic research groups or other industry organizations. You will stay highly engaged with the external scientific community through authorship of patents, journal articles, and/or participation in scientific conferences. 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 in R&ED 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 project teams and research colleagues in the greater Boston area and at research sites elsewhere in the US, Denmark, China, and the UK. Communicates data externally when required. Reports to of the head of Chemical Biology. Individual Contributor: does not manage other employees or contingent workers.

Essential Functions

• Applies deep subject matter expertise in peptide and macrocycle synthetic and medicinal chemistry to discover lead candidate drug molecules.
• Takes on project management and technical coordination roles and displays strong scientific leadership qualities to ensure research projects meet deliverables and deadlines.
• Applies cutting edge techniques in laboratory automation to maximize throughput in peptide and macrocycle discovery workflows.
• Effectively communicates scientific proposals, data, and conclusions to diverse audiences and stakeholders.
• Is viewed internally as a subject matter expert in peptide and macrocycle discovery with ability to solve complex problems and contribute beyond own area of expertise.
• Participates in external collaborations and strategic partnerships, especially but not limited to the academic and biotech community in the greater Boston area, to further company goals related to therapeutic peptide and macrocycle discovery.
• Engages with the external peptide and macrocycle field by contributing to the filing of patents to secure intellectual property rights, publication of research in high impact journals, and participation and presentation at scientific conferences.
• Occasionally mentors more junior scientists in the peptide field or in other areas of Chemical Biology to increase the team’s overall scientific acumen and impact, develop junior talents, and create a strong team culture.
• Analyzes highly complex technical data from experiments to draw conclusions, document results, and secure intellectual property rights.
• Evaluates new peptide and macrocycle discovery technologies and provides recommendations on the potential for their internalization.
• Ensures data integrity so that the peptide chemistry group abides by FAIR data standards, furnishing project teams with the highest quality data and in a timely fashion to enable efficient decision-making, and enabling long-term data repurposing and machine learning ambitions.

Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s degree with 10 or more years of relevant technical experience, a Master’s degree with 8 or more years of relevant technical experience, or a PhD with 4 or more years of relevant industry or post-doctorate experience is required.  A degree within chemistry or biochemistry is preferred.
• Has a track record of participating in peptide and macrocycle drug discovery efforts as evidenced through publication in relevant literature.
• Possesses a deep understanding of synthetic organic chemistry, peptide and macrocycle drug modalities, as well as principles of peptide and macrocycle medicinal chemistry.
• First-hand experience with peptide and macrocycle discovery projects, including molecular design, structural modelling techniques, synthetic and analytical chemistry, and the development of screening funnels to evaluate compound structure-function relationships, safety, and developability.
• First-hand experience in the execution of peptide and macrocycle discovery projects in a wet-lab environment, including synthesis, isolation, purification, and characterization.
• Experience with high-throughput discovery techniques, including parallel synthesis and automated preparative purification, automated analytical chemistry, and automated liquid handling.
• Strong working knowledge of high-throughput discovery techniques including mRNA display, phage display, DNA-encoded libraries, and affinity-selection-mass-spectrometry.
• Capable of handling and delegating highly complex tasks, balancing priorities, and adapting to changing organizational needs.
• Familiarity with the drug research process in a matrix organization from ideation to lead candidate selection.
• Experience with industry standard scientific software including electronic record-keeping, entity registration, and inventory management tools as well as advanced data processing tools such as Prism, Python, and R.
• Familiarity with concepts in bioconjugation including common bio-orthogonal reactions and protocols for generating and characterizing bioconjugates.
• Familiarity with concepts and techniques in peptide biophysical characterization.
• Familiarity with concepts and techniques in structure prediction, modelling, and computational design of peptides, proteins, and other biologics.
• Demonstrates excellent verbal and written communication skills.

0-10% Overnight travel is required.

We commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equality of opportunity for all our job applicants.

At Novo Nordisk we recognize that it is no longer good enough to aspire to be the best company in the world. We need to aspire to be the best company for the world and we know that this is only possible with talented employees with diverse perspectives, backgrounds and cultures. We are therefore committed to creating an inclusive culture that celebrates the diversity of our employees, the patients we serve and communities we operate in. Together, we’re life changing.

Novo Nordisk is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by local, state or federal laws, rules or regulations.

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