Biologist (50849)
Position Objective: Provide services as a Biologist in support of the overall functions of the Vaccine Production Program (VPP), Vaccine Research Center (VRC) within the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Duties and Responsibilities:
- Develop downstream (purification) processes, under the supervision of a project lead scientist, for recombinant proteins, virus vaccines, and virus-like particles (VLP) that may be used as clinical candidates.
- Work collaboratively within the purification group to design, develop and optimize chromatography and filtration step unit operations to support process development of clinical trial vaccine candidates and mAb products.
- Purify research-phase recombinant proteins, virus vaccines and/or virus-like particles in support of other groups or external collaborators.
- Work to prepare necessary materials (buffers, packed columns, etc.) in support of downstream process activities.
- Support technology transfer of processes to Lab’s Pilot Plant for manufacture of clinical product through document generation and on-site support.
- Write and review technical protocols and reports.
- Analyze and compile data, present at various group/department meetings.
- Coordinate with project management to ensure development milestones and study deliverables are met in a timely manner
- Work with VPP Data Science and Automation (DSA) group to create platform data analysis/visualization packages using Tableau or equivalent software
- Support mRNA-Lipid Nanoparticle (LNP) program by designing and executing process development studies for mRNA-lipid nanoparticle encapsulation
- Serve as SME with operation and optimization of microfluidic systems, e.g. Precision NanoSystem, Inc Ignite and Blaze, and/or Knauer NanoScaler Impingement Jet Mixers
- Perform scale down and scale-up operations to support tech transfer to manufacturing and/or troubleshooting