Senior Scientist – Immunology and biotherapeutics
Novartis
Summary
We are seeking a highly motivated senior scientist with strong expertise in human immunology, immune profiling, and disease-relevant multicellular assay systems, combined with working knowledge of xRNA biotherapeutics and general immunogenicity principles. The successful candidate will lead immunology-focused studies to evaluate how novel biotherapeutic modalities, including antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates (AOCs) and related xRNA approaches, interact with immune cells and pathways. This role will generate mechanistic insights to inform therapeutic design, candidate selection, translational biomarker strategies, and early safety risk assessment, with a primary emphasis on immunological understanding and assay excellence.
Job description
Key Responsibilities
- Design, establish, and execute immunology-focused profiling strategies to evaluate immune cell activation, modulation, cytokine release, innate immune sensing, adaptive immune responses, and disease-relevant functional outcomes.
- Competent and independent in executing and analyzing complex assays involving primary cells (including primary immune and non-immune cells), multicolor FACS analysis and functional immunological assays.
- Generates hypotheses, designs and executes experiments, critically analyzes and interprets data, able to prioritize experiments and design follow-up experiments.
- Generate mechanistic immunology data packages to support candidate optimization, translational biomarker hypotheses, safety risk assessment, and decision-making across discovery and early development programs.
- Collaborate closely with teams in immunology, disease biology, oligonucleotide biology, antibody engineering, bioanalytics, toxicology, and translational medicine to align assay strategy with program needs.
- Regularly communicate and present results, prepare reports, representing the Unit in project teams.
- Open mindset, organization skills and ability and eagerness to develop novel assays or analysis tools based on project needs in different disease areas.
- Maintain familiarity with scientific and technical literature pertinent to the projects.
Requirements
- Recent Ph.D. graduate (0-1 year) or MSc in Life Science, preferably immunology or cell biology plus 2–5-year research experience in human immunology or cell biology in industry or academic settings
- Deep expertise in human immunology and immune assay development, preferably using primary immune cells, multicellular assay systems, tissue-relevant models, or disease-relevant ex vivo platforms
- Experience assessing immunogenicity, immune activation, cytokine release, anti-drug immune responses, or immune-related liabilities for biologics or emerging therapeutic modalities
- Demonstrated ability to critically analyze data, learn and combine new techniques and concepts quickly, design and prioritize experiments
- Proficiency with immunological and molecular readouts such as flow cytometry, immunoassays, qPCR, transcriptomics or imaging
- Scientific curiosity, initiative, commitment, flexibility and good organization and presentation skills
- Work independently and as a team member with open communication with groups and collaborators
- Working knowledge of xRNA biotherapeutics, AOC or antibody-based delivery platforms is highly desirable
- Experience in orthogonal omics data analysis is a plus but not mandatory
Benefits
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Disability benefits
- 401(k) with company match
- Vacation
- Personal days
- Holidays
- Annual equity awards
- Performance-based cash incentive
Company overview
Novartis is a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, dedicated to reimagining medicine to improve and extend people's lives. As an innovative medicines company, Novartis focuses on developing high-value treatments that address society's greatest disease burdens through technology leadership in research and development. The company operates across five core therapeutic areas: cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases; immunology; neuroscience; oncology; and hematology. With a workforce of approximately 75,883 employees worldwide, Novartis reaches nearly 300 million patients across 118 countries. The company leverages advanced technology platforms including targeted protein degradation, cell therapy, gene therapy, radioligand therapy, and xRNA to develop breakthrough treatments. Novartis maintains a strong portfolio of oncology drugs and generics while continuously expanding its pipeline through strategic acquisitions and internal research. The company's commitment extends beyond drug development to ensuring global access to medical innovations through novel access approaches and patient assistance programs.